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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Feb. 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc., an oncology-focused precision medicine company committed to the discovery and development of targeted therapeutics to treat cancer, announced the appointments of Frank McCormick, Ph.D., FRS, and William Sellers, M.D., to its Scientific Advisory Board. 

Dr. McCormick is a Professor in the University of California, at San Francisco (UCSF), Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and holds the David A. Wood Chair of Tumor Biology and Cancer Research at UCSF.  Prior to joining UCSF, Frank was Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, building on his earlier research and leadership experiences at Cetus and Chiron.  At Onyx, he initiated and led drug discovery efforts that led to the approval of Sorafenib for treatment of renal cell cancer and liver cancer.   Dr. McCormick has served as President of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and has a leadership role at the Frederick National Lab for Cancer Research, overseeing an NCI supported national effort to develop therapies against Ras-driven cancers.

Dr. Sellers is a Core Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member and senior advisor to the president for experimental therapeutics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI).  He previously served as Vice President and Global Head of Oncology at Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research, where he led drug discovery efforts in oncology and pioneered cutting edge genetic and functional genomic approaches to therapeutic discovery.  Among other achievements in his career, Dr. Seller's seminal work in the identification of EGFR mutations in lung cancer led to life-saving EGFR inhibitors as standard-of-care for lung cancer patients.

"IDEAYA's approach of integrating target and biomarker discovery with small molecule drug discovery are enabling potential therapeutics across three classes of precision medicine including direct targeting of oncogenic pathways, synthetic lethality and immuno-oncology," said Dr. McCormick.  "Synthetic lethality represents an emerging class of precision medicine targets, and IDEAYA is well positioned to develop the next generation of synthetic lethality therapies beyond PARP, including programs that target DNA damage repair and tumor metabolism," said Dr. Sellers.

"Frank and Bill are both distinguished scientists, who have made substantial contributions to our understanding of cancer biology and the discovery of innovative cancer therapies," said Yujiro S. Hata, Chief Executive Officer and President at IDEAYA Biosciences.  "We are thrilled to have them join our Scientific Advisory board and look forward to their contributions to IDEAYA across our pipeline of precision medicine programs." 

About IDEAYA Biosciences

IDEAYA is an oncology-focused precision medicine company committed to the discovery and development of targeted therapeutics for patient populations selected using molecular diagnostics.  Our approach integrates extensive capabilities in identifying and validating translational biomarkers with small molecule drug discovery to select patient populations most likely to benefit from our targeted therapies.  We are applying these capabilities across three classes of precision medicine including direct targeting of oncogenic pathways, synthetic lethality – which represents an emerging class of precision medicine targets – and immuno-oncology.  For additional information, please visit www.ideayabio.com.

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SOURCE IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc.