Erasca Strengthens Leadership Team with Two Key Executive Appointments

Lisa Tesvich-Bonora appointed as Chief People Officer

Robert Shoemaker promoted to Senior Vice President of Research

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Erasca, Inc. (Nasdaq: ERAS), a clinical-stage precision oncology company singularly focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing therapies for patients with RAS/MAPK pathway-driven cancers, today announced the appointment of Lisa Tesvich-Bonora as Chief People Officer and the promotion of Robert Shoemaker to Senior Vice President of Research.

“I am thrilled to welcome Lisa to the Erasca family. With over two decades of experience in creating collaborative and engaging environments where employees can thrive, she brings a wealth of strategic leadership expertise in organizational development and talent management,” said Jonathan E. Lim, M.D., Erasca’s chairman, CEO, and co-founder. “Lisa will help architect and implement Erasca’s people-centric initiatives, including recruitment, training, and professional development. We look forward to Lisa taking the lead in advancing our culture and talent initiatives at Erasca, reinforcing our core values and cultivating the development of our most important asset: our people.”

Dr. Lim continued, “I am also very pleased to announce Robert’s promotion to Senior Vice President of Research. Robert was a core member of Erasca’s founding, has been instrumental in elevating the quality and visibility of Erasca’s science, helped Erasca raise $665 million in financing, and is well-respected across both internal and external stakeholders. We are excited to promote Robert to lead the integration of Discovery Research activities across Biology, Chemistry, and DMPK to drive successful advancement of Erasca’s product candidates from Research to Development.”

About Lisa Tesvich-Bonora, Ph.D.

Dr. Tesvich-Bonora brings more than 20 years of experience as a strategic leadership consultant, with expertise in organizational development, culture, and talent management. She has partnered with diverse leaders and teams in the life sciences industries of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and contract research organizations as well as across a multitude of other industries including hospitals, technology, energy, financial services, telecommunications, and law enforcement, and she has served as a volunteer coach to former U.S. Navy SEALs. Prior to joining Erasca, she was founder and president of Inspire True Leadership, an organizational advisory company focused on enabling business growth through leadership excellence and a strong people agenda. She also was a director at Mellon Financial and a director in the global human resources practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Dr. Tesvich-Bonora holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in industrial/organizational psychology from Tulane University and a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

About Robert Shoemaker, Ph.D.

Dr. Shoemaker has served as Erasca’s Vice President of Biology since helping launch the company in July 2018. Bringing over 20 years of experience and education in computational biology, he has deep biology, bioinformatics, and drug development experience. Prior to Erasca, Dr. Shoemaker led the computational biology group at Ignyta, where he worked since the company’s inception in 2011 until its acquisition by Roche in 2018. He contributed to the successful development of lead drug candidate entrectinib by developing a patient selection strategy. He also led biomarker development for other preclinical and clinical candidates and developed a novel prototype blood-based next generation sequencing (NGS) assay for detecting autoimmune diseases. Before working at Ignyta, he was a scientist at Illumina, where he helped develop new products and investigate product quality via NGS data analysis. Dr. Shoemaker earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego.

About Erasca
At Erasca, our name is our mission: To erase cancer. We are a clinical-stage precision oncology company singularly focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing therapies for patients with RAS/MAPK pathway-driven cancers. Our company was co-founded by leading pioneers in precision oncology and RAS targeting to create novel therapies and combination regimens designed to comprehensively shut down the RAS/MAPK pathway for the treatment of cancer. We have assembled what we believe to be the deepest RAS/MAPK pathway-focused pipeline in the industry. We believe our team’s capabilities and experience, further guided by our scientific advisory board which includes the world’s leading experts in the RAS/MAPK pathway, uniquely position us to achieve our bold mission of erasing cancer.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Erasca cautions you that statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations and include, but are not limited to, the planned advancement of our development pipeline. Actual results may differ from those set forth in this press release due to the risks and uncertainties inherent in our business, including, without limitation: our approach to the discovery and development of product candidates based on our singular focus on shutting down the RAS/MAPK pathway, a novel and unproven approach; delays in our preclinical and clinical development programs; our dependence on third parties to conduct manufacturing, research, and preclinical and clinical testing; unexpected adverse side effects or inadequate efficacy of our product candidates that may limit their development, regulatory approval, and/or commercialization, or may result in recalls or product liability claims; unfavorable results from preclinical studies or clinical trials; results from preclinical studies or early clinical trials not necessarily being predictive of future results; regulatory developments in the United States and foreign countries; our ability to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection for our product candidates and maintain our rights under intellectual property licenses; our ability to fund our operating plans with our current cash, cash equivalents, and investments; our ability to maintain undisrupted business operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and other risks described in our prior filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including under the heading “Risk Factors” in our Form 10-Q for the three months ended June 30, 2021, and any subsequent filings with the SEC. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update such statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date hereof. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement, which is made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Contact:
Joyce Allaire
LifeSci Advisors, LLC
jallaire@lifesciadvisors.com

Source: Erasca, Inc.