(Reuters) - Mirati Therapeutics Inc named industry veteran David Meek as its chief executive officer on Monday as it pushes on with the development of its promising candidates for cancer treatment. 58-year-old Meek will join the company’s board and replaces Charles Baum, who has served as the president and CEO of California-based Mirati since 2012. Meek most recently headed gene-therapy company FerGene, which was launched in 2019 by Swiss drugmaker Ferring Pharmaceuticals and investment firm Blackstone Life Sciences. He has also held leadership roles at other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies such as French firm Ipsen, Baxalta and Novartis Pharma. Mirati has focused on developing cancer treatments and its two lead candidates - adagrasib and sitravatinib - are in late-stage development. “I am confident in David’s abilities to lead Mirati through its next chapter as we bring adagrasib, sitravatinib and other novel oncology therapeutics to patients,” said Baum, who will continue to head the company’s R&D division and stay on its board. Separately, Mirati said adagrasib - which targets a mutated form of the KRAS gene - had shown a high rate of responses in a small study of patients with advanced lung cancer. The drug showed an objective response rate of 43% and a disease control rate of 80% in the study. The drug developer said on Sunday adagrasib in combination with older cancer drug Erbitux shrank tumors in 39% of patients with advanced colorectal cancer treated in a small trial. Mirati expects to submit a marketing application for adagrasib with the U.S. drug regulator in the fourth quarter of this year.