Date: 2016-05-24
Type of information: Nomination
Compound:
Company: Silence Therapeutics (UK)
Therapeutic area:
Type agreement: nomination
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Disease:
Details: * On May 24, 2016, Silence Therapeutics, a UK company specialised in the discovery, development and delivery of novel RNA therapeutics for the treatment of serious diseases, announced changes to the Board, the establishment of a Technology Advisory Board and a senior scientific appointment. Silence Therapeutics also announced the formation of its Technology Advisory Board (TAB). This is chaired by Dr Jörg Vollmer, who brings over sixteen years of experience in drug discovery and development. He is currently an Executive Board Member at BioRiver and was previously CEO at Nexigen. Prior to Nexigen GmbH, he was Managing Director and Site Head at Pfizer’s Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Unit and held various senior positions at Coley Pharmaceuticals. Jörg holds a PhD from the Max-Planck Institute for Immunology and a BSc from the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg.
David Ellam will become Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and a director from 18 July 2016. He has previously occupied several senior finance roles within both US & UK publicly owned life science companies, most recently as Senior EUMEA Finance Director at BioMarin Pharmaceuticals Inc. from 2010 to 2016, as CFO of Plethora Solutions Plc (2008-2009) and as Group Financial Controller at Ark Therapeutics Plc (2001-2008). He is a Chartered Accountant.
Current CFO Timothy Freeborn will leave the Board at the annual general meeting (AGM) to be held on 17 June 2016. He will move to Berlin and transition to an operational role as Managing Director of Silence Therapeutics GmbH. Tim will continue his role as CFO until 18 July 2016.
The Board intends to adopt a more-US style board where CEO and CFO are the only executive directors. To this effect, Dr Mike Khan will also retire from the Board at the AGM. He will become a consultant to the Company in translational science. As announced on 5 April 2016, the Company will seek to make further non-executive appointments to the Board.
Professor Kevin Morris will also be part of the TAB. Kevin is Associate Director at the Center for Gene Therapy as well as a professor at City of Hope and the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He was previously Associate Professor at The Scripps Research Institute. Kevin’s research focuses on non-coding RNAs and the delivery of therapeutic RNA molecules using different vehicles. Kevin received his BSc from Humboldt State University and his PhD from the University of California Davis.
Silence’s TAB is completed by a third member, a former executive within the RNA therapeutics division of a top-tier pharmaceutical company. The Company believes that the combined expertise that these three individuals bring to the team will be highly beneficial to its R&D progress. As technology in the RNA field evolves at an ever-faster rate, the TAB will help to assess our competitive position in technology and offer guidance in developing it.
Silence Therapeutics has also appointed Dr Mark Cameron as Head of Chemistry. He joins the company after spending five years at J-Star Research as Senior Principal Scientist and fifteen years at Merck&Co. Mark held positions of increasing responsibility at Merck, making key contributions to its drugs Invanz and Maxalt prior to moving into the RNA therapeutics group and leading the oligonucleotide synthetic capabilities. He subsequently led a team of medicinal chemists to develop lipid nanoparticles for siRNA delivery. He holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Manchester and a BSc in Applied Chemistry from Huddersfield University.
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