Verastem, Inc., focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer, announced that Hagop Youssoufian, MSc, MD, has been appointed Head of Hematology and Oncology Development. In this role, Dr. Youssoufian will oversee the clinical and regulatory development of the Company’s pipeline, including duvelisib, an investigational product candidate currently in development for hematologic malignancies, and provide overall strategic and tactical leadership to Verastem's hematology-oncology clinical programs. Dr. Youssoufian brings over 25 years of product development and commercialization experience to Verastem. In addition, Lori Kunkel, MD, and Edmund J. Pezalla, MD, MPH, have been appointed to the Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board (CSAB), and Michael Ferraresso will join the Company as Vice President, Commercial Operations. Greg I. Berk, MD, will transition to the role of Senior Advisor from Chief Medical Officer and will join the CSAB.

"We welcome Hagop to the Verastem team to lead the late-stage development of duvelisib in lymphoid malignancies," said Robert Forrester, President and Chief Executive Officer of Verastem. "Both Hagop and Lori are highly regarded leaders in oncology drug development who bring to Verastem deep experience in developing successful clinical and regulatory strategies that result in globally approved novel oncology therapies. In addition, we are now in early commercial planning and are selectively building out the team to potentially launch duvelisib following the readout of the Phase 3 DUO study in CLL. To help make this a reality, we welcome Mike from Infinity Pharmaceuticals where he was involved in the commercial strategy for duvelisib. Ed is a leading innovator in payer strategy and has extensive relationships with a variety of policy and industry groups. These individuals have an impressive track record of unlocking the value of new products that we believe will prove invaluable as we pursue future market opportunities. We believe these appointments are key additions to the Verastem leadership team and represent our commitment to advancing our lead assets, duvelisib and defactinib, through several key clinical and regulatory milestones in the coming quarters. We thank Greg for his tenure as Chief Medical Officer and look forward to his continued contributions as Senior Advisor and as a member of the CSAB."

Prior to joining Verastem, Dr. Youssoufian served most recently as Chief Medical Officer at BIND Therapeutics. Prior to BIND, he was Executive Vice President at Progenics Pharmaceuticals and President, Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer at Ziopharm Oncology. Before joining Ziopharm, Dr. Youssoufian served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Global Clinical Sciences at Imclone Systems. Prior to Imclone, he served in leadership positions at Sanofi Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. During his career in industry, Dr. Youssoufian was involved in the development and approval of several oncology treatments, including Sprycel®, Taxotere® and Erbitux®. Dr. Youssoufian graduated from Boston College (BS, Magna Cum Laude) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (MSc, MD). After training in Internal Medicine at Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins, he completed fellowships in Clinical Genetics at Johns Hopkins and in Hematology-Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was a Visiting Scientist at Whitehead Institute, MIT. He then served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School as Assistant Professor of Medicine and at Baylor College of Medicine as Associate Professor and Division Chief of Medical Genetics.

Dr. Kunkel has more than two decades of experience in oncology and immunology drug development and commercialization. Dr. Kunkel presently serves on the Board of Directors of Loxo Oncology, where she was previously the acting Chief Medical Officer. Prior to Loxo, she served as Chief Medical Officer at Pharmacyclics (acquired by AbbVie) and Proteolix, Inc. (acquired by Onyx Pharmaceuticals), where she contributed to the global approvals of cancer therapeutics IMBRUVICA® and Kyprolis®, respectively. Prior to that, she served as Vice President of Clinical Development at Xencor, Inc. Before these executive leadership positions, Dr. Kunkel was a clinical scientist at Genentech where she worked on the development of RITUXAN®. Additionally, as a clinical drug development specialist, she has advised multiple clients including Chiron (acquired by Novartis), Genentech/Roche, Salmedics (acquired by Celgene), Stemcentrx, Inc. and Amphivena Therapeutics, and she serves on the Board of Directors of Curis, Inc., Tocagen and Maverick Therapeutics. Prior to joining the biotechnology industry, Dr. Kunkel spent ten years in academic medicine and served as a faculty member at the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Kunkel obtained a medical degree from University of Southern California and a bachelor's degree in biology from University of California, San Diego. She is board certified in internal medicine and held board certifications in hematology and oncology.

Dr. Pezalla is active as a payer expert on a number of policy working groups including the New Drug Development Paradigm Project at MIT. He is the former Vice President for Pharmaceutical Policy and Strategy in the Office of the Chief Medical Officer at Aetna. In this position Dr. Pezalla developed and coordinated strategy for pharmaceutical evaluation and coverage across both the medical and pharmacy benefit, created Aetna’s framework for innovative contracts, and developed Aetna’s public policy positions on drug and device coverage. Dr. Pezalla is a member of the Board of Directors of the Pharmacy Quality Alliance and the Connecticut Biosciences Innovation Fund. He is also a member of the Business Advisory Board of Naia Pharmaceuticals and the Scientific Advisory Board of Temple Therapeutics. He was recently named a Scholar-in-Residence at the Duke-Margolis Health Policy Center in Washington, DC where he is working on policy approaches to stimulating the development of new antimicrobials, evaluation of value frameworks, and other policy projects. Dr. Pezalla received his BS in Biophysics from Georgetown University College of Arts and Sciences, and his MD Cum Laude from Georgetown University School of Medicine. He holds a Masters in Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley and was a health services research fellow and doctoral student in health policy at the University of Michigan.

Prior to joining Verastem, Mr. Ferraresso served as Vice President, Commercial at Infinity Pharmaceuticals where he was instrumental in designing the commercial strategy for duvelisib and chaired the joint commercial committee for the partnership. From 1998-2013, he served in sales and commercial operations roles of increasing responsibility at several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including AVEO Pharmaceuticals, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Critical Therapeutics, Praecis Pharmaceuticals, Ascent Pediatrics and Muro Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Ferraresso has extensive experience in commercial strategy including partnerships, development, pricing and field deployment models and has launched Oprapred™, Plenaxis™, Zyflo™ and Feraheme™. Mr. Ferraresso holds a BA degree in Economics from Assumption College.