Actym Therapeutics, pioneering a new drug modality to treat solid tumors, has appointed Thomas Smart as Chief Executive Officer.
 
With over two decades of experience in senior management and executive roles as well as Board of Directors positions across the biopharmaceutical industry, Smart brings a track record in leading organizations through value-building transitions. His breadth of expertise will be highly beneficial to Actym as it prepares to enter clinical evaluation of its lead candidate, ACTM-838, later this year.
 
“Tom is an extremely valuable addition to Actym’s leadership, bringing extensive experience in corporate development and strategic planning, coupled with a profound understanding of how to translate innovative R&D into novel therapeutics. With Tom at the helm, we are ready for our next stage of corporate growth as we close in on the start of our Phase 1 clinical development program for ACTM-838,” said Julie Cherrington, Ph.D., Executive Chair of the Actym Board of Directors. “We extend our thanks to Chris Thanos for his founding contributions to the company.”
 
“Actym represents an exceptional opportunity to achieve a new level of therapeutic impact across multiple tumor types. In addition to moving ACTM-838 into the clinic in the second quarter, our goal is to expand our pipeline with additional candidates from Actym’s modular platform. The STACT approach provides both efficacy and safety advantages by leveraging a genetically modified bacteria vehicle, systemically administered, that achieves tissue-specific delivery of large nucleic acid payloads,” said Smart. “I look forward to collaborating with the Board of Directors and the entire Actym team to maximize the potential of ACTM-838 and our platform.”

Experience

Smart has a 25-year career as a biotech executive, demonstrating dynamic leadership in roles such as CEO, CBO, SVP, and Board Member. In addition, Smart has a comprehensive background in therapeutic modalities ranging from antibodies and small molecules to peptides, RNA, DNA, CAR-T, and other cell therapies.
 
Before joining Actym Therapeutics, Smart founded Gravitas Therapeutics, where he served as CEO and Board Chair and orchestrated the acquisition and subsequent sale of the clinical-stage antifungal asset, GR-2397, to Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd in October 2023. His prior leadership roles include serving as CEO and Board Chair of AnaptysBio, Chief Business Officer of XOMA, and various positions at Genetics Institute (now Pfizer), GenVec, Searle (now Pfizer), and Cell Genesys.
 
Smart holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.