The 30-plus-year pharma veteran Phil Tennant is stepping in to take on what could be one of the biggest challenges in life sciences: selling a new gene therapy from a small biotech.
That gene therapy is known as PRGN-2012 and is in later-stage trials for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP). This rare condition, caused by infection with subtype 6 or 11 of human papillomavirus, causes wartlike growths to form on the tissues lining the respiratory tract and can interfere with their normal function or even begin to block the airway.
While the introduction of the HPV vaccine has helped reduce RRP’s incidence rate, there is still no FDA-approved cure for existing cases of the disease, with treatment usually including repeated surgeries to remove the benign tumors growing along the respiratory tract.
Precigen aims to solve that with its therapeutic vaccine, which recently saw broadly positive results in a phase 1/2 test. Precigen is now aiming for a 2025 launch, and, for that, it is tapping Tennant to hit the ground running.
Gene therapies can, however, be a tough sell; it’s still a fairly new area, with few gene therapies on the market, and early work in the 1990s saw some serious side effects, the memory of which still haunts some doctors and researchers. Newer gene therapies have proven safer but incredibly expensive and, in one recent case, unsellable.
Just ask uniQure, which launched the Western world's first gene therapy, Glybera, for a rare blood disorder, simultaneously creating the world’s most expensive prescription drug at $1 million. Despite this technical and commercial feat, the Dutch company was forced to pull it from the market in 2017 after only one person used it, as it simply had no demand for the med after around five years from its first approval in Europe.
Tennant will hope to have better luck, and he comes with the chops to do so, with three decades of experience under his belt and having spent the past five years at Astellas US. Before that, he served seven years at Bristol Myers Squibb. For both of these roles, his focus was on the commercial side of oncology. He helped work on BMS’ Opdivo, one of the world’s largest cancer meds, and Xtandi, Astellas’ big-selling prostate cancer drug.
Before BMS, Tennant was at AstraZeneca, working in marketing and its neuroscience business unit.
Precigen has already been beefing up the commercial work for its therapy and back in March teamed up with the Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis Foundation to create an “RRP Awareness Day” on July 11.
"Phil is a recognized global commercial leader with an impressive 30-plus year track record building commercial organizations and scaling commercial operations to drive revenue growth for both niche and blockbuster therapeutics,” said Helen Sabzevari, Ph.D., president and CEO of Precigen, in a release.
"This is a transformational time for Precigen as we are transitioning toward a commercial-stage company and Phil's expertise is precisely tailored to propel our first potential commercial launch in the US. Phil's relationships with our target prescriber base will enable rapid growth in our key markets, enabling access to our potential life-changing RRP therapy for patients who urgently need it."