- Mr. Epstein brings more than 30 years of global drug development and commercialization experience to support Frontier’s next phase of growth as it continues to advance its pipeline of covalent precision medicines
BOSTON and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (April 13, 2026) – Frontier Medicines Corporation, a clinical-stage precision medicines company unlocking the proteome to develop small molecule oncology and immunology drugs against previously undruggable disease-causing targets, today announced the appointment of David R. Epstein to its board of directors. Mr. Epstein currently serves as chairman and chief executive officer of Ottimo Pharma and was most recently chief executive officer of Seagen, where he led the company through a period of significant growth and innovation, culminating in its acquisition by Pfizer in 2023.
“David is a transformative leader with an exceptional track record of building and scaling innovative biopharmaceutical organizations,” said Chris Varma, Ph.D., co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Frontier Medicines. “His deep expertise across oncology, global drug development and commercialization will be invaluable as we advance our pipeline, continue to expand the reach of the Frontier Platform and work to develop breakthrough medicines for patients.”
Mr. Epstein is a highly accomplished biopharmaceutical executive with more than three decades of experience spanning drug discovery, development, commercialization and strategic transactions. During his career, Mr. Epstein has played a central role in the development and commercialization of more than 30 new molecular entities and over 100 approved indications, including breakthrough medicines such as Gleevec, Tasigna, Gilenya, Afinitor, Cosentyx, Padcev and Entresto. He previously served as chief executive officer of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, a division of Novartis AG. Prior to this, David started and led Novartis’ Oncology and Molecular Diagnostic units, and under his leadership, the company’s oncology business grew to the second largest in the world. He currently serves on the boards of several biotechnology companies, including Valo Health, Agomab and Tempus AI, and brings extensive experience supporting both established and emerging companies.
“Frontier Medicines is working to redefine what’s possible in drug discovery with a pipeline of potentially best-in-class programs, including FMC-242, an allosteric breaker of the PI3Kα-RAS interaction, and FMC-376, a KRAS G12C ON and OFF inhibitor with promising clinical data,” said Mr. Epstein. “Supported by a platform that integrates covalent chemistry and AI to expand the reach of precision medicine, Frontier is well positioned to make a meaningful impact for patients. I look forward to advancing this work alongside the company’s experienced leadership team.”
About the Frontier™ Platform
The Frontier™ Platform integrates chemoproteomics, artificial intelligence, and direct-to-biology approaches to accelerate the discovery and development of precision covalent medicines. The platform maps covalent binding sites across the proteome, identifies actionable ligands, and enables rapid optimization of compounds into clinical candidates. Years of systematic data generation have produced CoGT™ (the Covalent Ground Truth), which powers Frontier’s CovalentAI™ engine, a component of the Frontier™ Platform and an AI engine that characterizes and scores binding sites for covalent drug discovery, optimizes compounds, and guides the design of Frontier’s proprietary covalent fragment library. Profiling this library against the human proteome has yielded Frontier’s Druggability Atlas™, covering more than 90% of the human proteome.
About Frontier Medicines
Frontier Medicines is a clinical-stage precision medicines company pioneering groundbreaking medicines to transform treatment for genetically defined patient populations, starting with oncology and immunology. Our proprietary chemoproteomics-powered drug discovery engine, the Frontier™ Platform, leverages covalent chemistry and artificial intelligence to unlock difficult-to-drug, disease-causing proteins for drug development. Today, we are advancing a diversified pipeline of wholly owned precision medicines against the most critical drivers of cancer and high-value immunology programs. For more information, please visit www.frontiermeds.com. Follow Frontier on LinkedIn.
Media Contacts
Frontier Medicines:
Ashlea Kosikowski (1AB)
(704) 488-7369