Inbiomotion appoints David Lacey, former head of research at Amgen, to Board of Directors
Lacey is an expert in bone metastasis and one of the fathers of the monoclonal antibody denosumab to treat osteoporosis and prevent skeletal damage in bone metastasis.
By Biocat
Inbiomotion, a company that develops biomarkers to predict bone metastasis and is based in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), has strengthened its Board of Directors with the appointment of Dr. David L. Lacey. Lacey was formerly senior vice-president and global head of Discovery Research at Amgen and has more than 30 years of experience in basic and clinical research. In his time at Amgen, he coordinated more than 1,200 scientists working on projects in hematology, oncology, inflammation, metabolic disorders and neurosciences. He also played a key role in developing the monoclonal antibody denosumab, which received FDA approval in 2010 under the brand name Prolia to treat osteoporosis in postmenopausal women and as Xgeva to prevent skeletal damage caused by the bone metastasis of tumors.
After his recent retirement, Dr. Lacey has continued to participate actively in the biopharmaceutical sector as an advisor to various academic institutions, companies and venture capital funds.
“The future of medicine depends on the development of predictive tests that guide the use of expensive new therapies. Inbiomotion’s biomarker is part of this future. Additionally, if we understand the biological pathway that this biomarker pinpoints, we could discover a new generation of therapies. I’m very excited to join this team,” said Lacey. Inbiomotion’s biomarker predicts which patients are prone to bone disease relapse and has been validated in more than 900 patient samples with three independent techniques (gene expression, IHC and FISH), with a negative predictive value over 95%.
Inbiomotion was founded by Catalan biochemist Roger Gomis, head of the Growth Control and Cancer Metastasis Research Group at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and ICREA. Gomis recently received the second Valdés Salas Applied Biomedicine award. In July 2012, the company closed their first round of funding with €2 millions from Ysios Capital Partners. Joël Jean-Mairet, president of Inbiomotion and co-founder of Ysios Capital Partners, said, “Dr. Lacey’s perspective will help guide us as we seek to impact clinical management and standard of care for early-stage cancer patients prone to relapse with bone metastasis.”