With over 30 years of professional management experience, Brian Frenzel served as president and chief executive officer at Adeza Biomedical and Centaur Pharmaceuticals. In addition to receiving his bachelor of science degree in physics and chemistry from Stanford University, Brian Frenzel also holds an MBA in finance and marketing from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Currently the CEO of Tosk, Inc. in Mountain View, California, Brian Frenzel is an avid Stanford football fan. Mr. Frenzel has held season tickets to Stanford football games since his first year at Stanford. During that timeframe, he has missed only a handful of home games, and he has attended away games at such diverse locations as Japan, Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arizona. He has never missed a Stanford Rose Bowl game and can recount with pleasure the heroics of Jim Plunkett and Don Bunce in the 1971 and 1972 Rose Bowl games, as well as those of Christian McCaffrey in the 2016 Rose Bowl. Mr. Frenzel has never missed a home Big Game with the University of California and has traveled to Berkeley for many away games. He attended the 1982 Big Game in Berkley and had an excellent view from the stands of the three missed officials’ calls (knee down, forward lateral, Cal fans on the field) that resulted in the ignominious “The Play.” Frenzel’s view was later validated by the television crew of the 25th anniversary of The Play, who declared that “The Play would have been reversed upon replay, had replay existed.” He was also present in Berkeley for the redemption in 1990 afforded by “The Play II,” also known as “12 Seconds Over Berkeley.” Down 18-25 with 12 seconds on the clock, Stanford scored 9 points on 6 plays in the final 12 seconds to win the game 27-25. There were no disputed officials calls in this finish, and The Play II stands as a record for most points scored to win a football game with 15 seconds or less to go.
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Brian Frenzel has devoted his career to developing new medical products to address important, unmet medical needs. He has co-founded and invested in a number of innovative biomedical companies, including biopharmaceutical, cell therapy, medical device, and diagnostic product companies. In the process, Brian Frenzel has found himself at the forefront of medical research in such diverse fields as AIDS, Hepatitis C, pre-term labor, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, and neurodegenerative diseases such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease. Brian Frenzel’s most recent startup company, Tosk, Inc., is dedicated to improving outcomes for cancer patients. The company’s first products are designed to block the dose-limiting and potentially fatal adverse side effects of widely used cancer therapies. Recently, Tosk has discovered a new method to screen drugs for their potential to block cancer genes. This technology involves genetically modifying strains of the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, by implanting human genes into their genomes in such a way that compounds can be screened for their ability to block the cancer gene’s activity. Tosk uses this platform to discover candidate drugs for previously considered “undruggable” targets, such as the kRAS oncogene. Tosk believes that using a whole animal model, instead of traditional approaches, such as cell culture and molecular modeling, provides a relatively better platform to discover drugs for difficult-to-modulate targets. The company is deploying this approach to discover and develop new drugs for kRAS positive cancers, which include 90% of pancreatic, 45% of colon, and 35% of lung cancers. Life science entrepreneur and private investor Brian Frenzel has extensive experience founding and growing startups and guiding them to successful exits for investors. Drawing on his deep knowledge of biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals, Brian Frenzel is the CEO of Tosk, Inc. Tosk’s mission is to improve outcomes for cancer patients by eliminating the dose-limiting, often debilitating, and potentially fatal adverse effects of cancer therapies and to make certain therapies effective in patients who currently do not benefit from treatment. One of these drugs is TK-90, which recently completed the first phase of human clinical trials. TK-90 is designed to protect against the mucositis triggered by certain cancer therapies and antibiotics. Mucositis is caused by inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract and can result in painful ulcers in the mouth and throughout the GI tract. Mucositis can open a route of infection that can be dangerous for immune-compromised patients. Mucositis can also limit the dosing of certain cancer drugs to less than would otherwise be desirable. TK-90 has now entered the second phase of testing in head and neck cancer patients. This phase is designed to determine the optimal dose of TK-90 and to further demonstrate both the safety and efficacy of the drug. As a member of the Membership Committee of Band of Angels in California’s Silicon Valley, Brian Frenzel has decades of experience as a successful biomedical entrepreneur. Brian Frenzel currently heads the oncology drug research and development company Tosk, Inc. and serves on the Management Advisory Board of SanBio, Ltd., which is developing regenerative medicines for patients with neurodegenerative disorders such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, and Parkinson’s disease. Although researchers have yet to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease, a variety of treatment options exist. Physicians often recommend a regimen of exercise and physical therapy to help improve balance and mobility. In some cases, working with a speech-language pathologist can help treat speech impairments. Medications also may play an important role in treating Parkinson’s disease, especially in its later stages. One of the most common, levodopa, converts to dopamine in the brain, thereby improving mobility. Often, physicians prescribe carbidopa with levodopa to prevent the breakdown of levodopa before it enters the brain. Patients with extreme symptoms may want to consider surgery, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS), or cell therapy. In each case, physicians work with patients to treat individually manifesting symptoms. A pharmaceutical executive based in the United States, Brian Frenzel serves as the president and chief executive officer of Tosk, Inc. Brian Frenzel is also a director of SanBio, Inc., where he oversees the development of drugs for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. A progressive disorder characterized by tremors, stiffness, and slowing of movement, Parkinson’s disease is caused by decreased production of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. Pharmaceutical treatments for Parkinson’s typically focus on supplying the brain with the dopamine it needs. However, because dopamine cannot pass the blood-brain barrier, currently available drugs to treat Parkinson’s must use other mechanisms other than dopamine replacement to be effective. One of the most common pharmaceutical treatments for Parkinson’s disease is levodopa, which converts into the active form of dopamine once it enters the brain. Another class of Parkinson’s drugs are the dopamine agonists, such as pramipexole and ropinirole, which mimic the effects of dopamine without being converted to dopamine. Other Parkinson’s drug treatments include MAO-B inhibitors such as selegiline, which slow the breakdown and increase the bioavailability of dopamine in the brain. However, there is currently no Parkinson’s treatment to recover the function of dopamine-producing cells in the brain. SanBio is developing cell therapy products derived from mesenchymal stem cells to help restore the function of dopaminergic neurons in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Brian Frenzel, President and CEO of life sciences of the biopharmaceutical R&D firm Tosk, Inc., oversees the investigation of potentially cancer-causing genes such as kRAS. Under Brian Frenzel's direction, Tosk is currently pursuing research into drugs that may block an important kRAS gene mutation.
The Kristen rat sarcoma viral oncogene, or kRAS, has captured the attention of the scientific and oncology research communities. When it functions normally, the protein product of the kRAS gene plays important roles in cell division, cell differentiation, and apoptosis. The kRAS protein is a GTPase, an intrinsic enzyme that converts guanidine triphosphate (GTP) molecule to guanidine diphosphate (GDP). The kRas protein acts as a molecular on/off switch. To transmit signals, the normal kRAS protein can be transiently turned on by stimulus from cell surface receptors that promote kRAS bound to GTP. The kRAS protein is switched off when it converts the GTP to GDP, subsequently leading to activation of many downstream signal transduction pathways. However, certain mutations in the kRAS gene result in the constant expression of kRAS proteins. This causes uncontrolled cell growth and proliferation, which in turn can cause the cell to become cancerous. Researchers have discovered this process at work in a number of human cancers, including more than 90 percent of carcinomas in the pancreas. Scientists have also found similar correlations in lung, colorectal, and other cancers. |
AuthorAt Genelabs Technologies in the 1980’s, Brian Frenzel served on the front lines in the war on HIV/AIDS and championed projects to identify and diagnose new hepatitis viruses. Archives
June 2020
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