Amphista Therapeutics appoints Dr Victoria Lovatt as Vice President of Intellectual Property

Cambridge, UK – January 30, 2023 – Amphista Therapeutics, a leader in next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, has announced the appointment of Victoria Lovatt as Vice President of Intellectual Property.

Amphista’s CEO Nicola Thompson said, “I am delighted to welcome Victoria as our Vice President of Intellectual Property. Victoria is an IP strategist who brings a wealth of expertise from her experience working across the globe in the biotech and pharmaceuticals sectors. Victoria’s arrival further strengthens the Amphista team in Cambridge. Her specialist knowledge will support us as we continue our work to unlock the full potential of next generation TPD technology in order to bring transformative medicines to patients.”

Victoria commented on her appointment, “I am delighted to join Amphista’s world class team. Amphista is founded on transformational science and I’m looking forward to building on strong IP foundations to develop a broad strategic IP portfolio as we execute our mission of building the leading TPD company.”

Victoria joins Amphista from Mundipharma where she was Director of IP Strategy. Prior to that, she has held IP roles across the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals industries. Victoria is a Chartered UK Patent Attorney, a European patent attorney and a Singapore patent attorney. She holds a BSc (Hons) from Nottingham University in chemistry/biochemistry and a PhD in neuroimmunology from the University of Cambridge.

– Ends –

About Amphista Therapeutics
Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases including cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD) that address the challenges faced by earlier stage TPD research and to realise the full therapeutic potential of this transformational approach. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised over $60M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/

CONTACTS:

Lynn Granito
Berry & Company Public Relations
lgranito@berrypr.com
212 253 8881

Dementia Discovery Fund invests in Amphista Therapeutics as it targets neurodegenerative diseases

Cambridge, UK – December 13, 2022 – Amphista Therapeutics, a leader in next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, today announced a Series B extension investment by the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF). The investment is in recognition of the progress made in relation to Amphista’s Eclipsys™ platform and its potential to enable therapies to treat diseases of the central nervous system, with a focus on neurodegeneration.

Amphista’s CEO Dr Nicola Thompson said, “This investment from specialist investor DDF will enable us to accelerate the application of our technology into indications largely inaccessible using traditional TPD approaches. It will enable further pre-clinical development with a focus on diseases of the central nervous system, particularly dementia. This additional investment is excellent news and supports our ambition as a world-leading, next generation protein degradation company delivering ground-breaking new medicines to patients in areas of high unmet need.”

Dr Christian Jung, Partner at DDF, said, “Amphista’s Eclipsys™ platform offers impressive differentiation when compared to first-generation protein degradation platforms and enables Amphista to widen its target and indication scope, including in the CNS. We look forward to working with Amphista to support the Company in realising the full potential of their transformational technology, and in delivering disease-modifying therapies in neurodegeneration and beyond.”

Amphista’s next generation bifunctional molecules use a novel approach that makes use of a wider range of the body’s own innate protein degrading mechanisms, instead of the very narrow set of ubiquitin E3 ligase-based mechanisms used by most other TPD companies. This proprietary approach offers the potential to overcome many of the limitations seen with current TPD approaches, providing the opportunity to treat a wider range of diseases. Amphista is focused on biological targets with a high level of clinical or genetic validation, allowing the team to focus on the translation of their novel TPD approach for clinical benefit in areas of high unmet need.

In association with this financing, Amphista has added Dr Christian Jung to the Board.

– Ends –

About Amphista Therapeutics
Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases including cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD) that address the challenges faced by earlier stage TPD research and to realise the full therapeutic potential of this transformational approach. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised over $60M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/

Trademarks: Amphista, the Amphista logo and Eclipsys are all trademarks of Amphista Therapeutics Limited.

About the Dementia Discovery Fund
The Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) is a specialist venture capital fund, managed by SV Health Managers. DDF invests in, and creates, biotech companies pursuing transformational therapeutic approaches for dementias including Alzheimer’s disease.  DDF’s investment team is responsible for managing more than $475m, using its significant capital and domain expertise to enable talented entrepreneurs to bring therapeutics addressing one of the world’s largest unmet medical needs to the clinic – ultimately aiming to generate significant returns for its investors. DDF is enabled by its networks and influential group of investors including some leading pharmaceutical companies (Biogen, Eli Lilly and Co., GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Otsuka (Astex), Pfizer and Takeda), along with AARP, Aegon, Bill Gates, British Patient Capital, NFL Players Association, Quest Diagnostics, UnitedHealth Group, the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care, and the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK. Learn more at www.ddf.vc.

CONTACTS:

Amphista
Lynn Granito
Berry & Company Public Relations
lgranito@berrypr.com
212 253 8881

Dementia Discovery Fund
Tanya Finn
tfinn@svhealthinvestors.com

Fierce Biotech Names Amphista Therapeutics as One of its “Fierce 15” Biotech Companies of 2022

Cambridge, UK – September 12, 2022 – Amphista Therapeutics, a leader in next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, today announced that Fierce Biotech has named it as one of 2022’s Fierce 15 biotechnology companies, designating it as one of the most promising early-stage biotechnology companies in the industry.

Amphista is a world leading next-generation Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) company with the mission to unlock the full therapeutic potential of TPD by addressing the limitations of first-generation approaches. Amphista advantages include: targeting of a non-cereblon component with a more consistent expression profile that enables increased tissue reach, broader disease applicability and potentially greater clinical efficacy. This mechanistic approach, leveraging an essential protein, offers the potential for reduced clinical resistance.  Amphista’s TPD therapeutics are designed to be drug-like molecules with oral bioavailability and the potential for CNS penetration.  Amphista has built a strong IP foundation for the platform including its proprietary warheads, forming the basis of a true platform approach to TPD.

Nicki Thompson, CEO of Amphista, said “We are delighted to be selected as a ‘Fierce 15’ company in a year where we have made outstanding progress in advancing our proprietary Eclipsys™ platform and therapeutic portfolio and in expansion of our world-leading team.  This also comes in a year where our technology has been further recognized and validated by our strategic collaborations with global pharmaceutical companies Merck Healthcare, a division of Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb worth more than $2 billion.  We remain dedicated to advancing our ground-breaking science with the potential to open up this exciting modality by delivering medicines to patients across a wider range of diseases.”

Every year Fierce Biotech evaluates hundreds of early-stage companies from around the world for its annual Fierce 15 list, which is based on a variety of factors such as the strength of its technology, partnerships, venture backers and a competitive market position.  The Fierce 15 celebrates the spirit of being “fierce” – championing innovation and creativity, even in the face of intense competition.

About Fierce Biotech

Fierce Biotech is the biotech industry’s daily monitor, an email newsletter and web resource providing the latest biotech news, articles, and resources related to clinical trials, drug discovery, FDA approval, FDA regulation, patent news, pharma news, biotech company news and more. More than 450,000 top biotech professionals rely on Fierce Biotech for an insider briefing on the day’s top stories. Signup is free at www.fiercebiotech.com/signup.

About Amphista Therapeutics
Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases including cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD) that  address the challenges faced by earlier stage TPD research and to realise the full therapeutic potential of this transformational approach. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised over $60M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/

###

CONTACTS:

Lynn Granito
Berry & Company Public Relations
lgranito@berrypr.com
212 253 8881

Amphista Therapeutics appoints Dr Stuart Wood as VP, Discovery Technology

Cambridge, UK, 7 July 2022 – Amphista Therapeutics, a leader in next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, today announced the appointment of Dr Stuart Wood as Vice President of Discovery Technology.

Stuart has held a series of leadership roles in Biotech for over ten years, most recently as Chief Technology Officer at Nanna Therapeutics. Across his roles, Stuart has worked to develop novel solid state nanopore sequencing systems, and applied microfluidic solutions to increase throughput of a range of biochemical and cellular assay systems. More recently at Nanna, Stuart developed a microdroplet screening platform for natural products and medicinal chemistry approaches which underpinned the building of the technology platforms and therapeutic areas at Nanna.

As Nanna grew from two to over twenty staff, Stuart was central to the build of the company and development of early therapeutic programs to tackle mitochondrial dysfunction with application in rare diseases and neurodegeneration in partnership with clinical and academic groups through to the company’s acquisition in 2020 by Astellas.

Stuart began his scientific career working on bacterial genetics & biochemistry studying DNA repair and homologous recombination. He moved to Cambridge to undertake a career development fellowship at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit. Here he studied how errors in mitochondrial DNA replication and transcription led to human disease, developing novel techniques to study mitochondrial nucleic acids.

Amphista’s CSO Dr Ian Churcher said, “On behalf of everyone at Amphista, I am delighted to welcome Stuart to the R&D leadership team. Stuart’s outstanding track record of constant innovation and successful development & application of novel technology strategies to drug discovery projects will enable us to further accelerate the development of Amphista’s next generation Targeted Protein Degradation platform and therapeutic portfolio.”

Amphista’s new VP of Discovery Technology, Dr Stuart Wood, commented on his appointment, “I’m excited to be joining the Amphista team and working alongside many of their pioneers and leaders in the TPD field, an area where there are so many opportunities to apply new technology solutions to the identification and optimisation of new protein degrading drugs. TPD has the potential to deliver transformational medicines and Amphista’s approach promises to overcome many of the limitations now emerging with first generation TPD approaches.”

– Ends –

Media contacts:

Amphista Therapeutics
CEO NicolaThompson
+44 7464 974714
nicki@amphista.com

Berry & Company Public Relations
Doug Haslam
dhaslam@berrypr.com
+1 212 253 8881

About Amphista Therapeutics
Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases including cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD), which address the challenges faced by the field and to realise the full therapeutic potential of this transformational approach. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised over $60M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/

Amphista Therapeutics Enters Strategic Collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb for Discovery and Development of Targeted Protein Degradation Therapeutics

  • Amphista and Bristol Myers Squibb to collaborate and leverage Amphista’s proprietary Eclipsys™ targeted protein degradation platform to develop novel protein degrading therapeutics
  • Collaboration includes an upfront payment of $30 million, the potential for up to $1.25 billion in performance-based milestone payments and payments for a limited expansion of the collaboration, as well as royalties on global net sales of products

Cambridge, England, May 4th, 2022 – Amphista Therapeutics, a global leader in the discovery and development of next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) therapeutics, today announced a strategic collaboration and license agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb.

Under the terms of the agreement, Bristol Myers Squibb and Amphista will work collaboratively to discover and develop small molecule protein degraders.  Bristol Myers Squibb will be granted a global exclusive license to the degraders developed and will be responsible for further development and commercialization activities.  Amphista will receive a $30 million upfront payment, the potential for up to $1.25 billion in performance-based milestone payments and payment for a limited expansion of the collaboration, as well as royalties on global net sales of products. The closing of the transaction is subject to the parties obtaining regulatory clearances or approvals.

Nicola Thompson, CEO of Amphista, said, “Our collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb is a powerful validation of our advances in TPD research and the capabilities of our Eclipsys next-generation TPD platform.  Combining our expertise with Bristol Myers Squibb’s strong legacy and experience in the protein degradation space brings new promise to the potential of delivering more effective new treatment to patients seeking treatment options.”

TPD therapies are designed to use physiological mechanisms to remove pathogenic protein from the body, offering the potential to access many disease targets previously considered “undruggable.” Amphista’s technology is specifically designed to develop next generation TPD therapeutics based on advanced mechanistic insights and novel chemistry approaches that enable the development of novel protein degrading therapeutics.

“Bristol Myers Squibb continues to build its leadership and scientific expertise in the protein degradation space,” said Rupert Vessey, M.A., B.M., B.Ch., FRCP, D.Phil., Executive Vice President, Research & Early Development, Bristol Myers Squibb. “We look forward to collaborating with Amphista and using its TPD platform to potentially develop new targeted protein degradation therapies.”

About Amphista Therapeutics

Amphista Therapeutics is a global leader in the discovery and development of next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) medicines, addressing the challenges faced by the field to realise the full potential of this transformational modality.

The company’s proprietary Eclipsys™ Platform supports development of multiple innovative therapeutic candidates able to overcome the limitations associated with traditional TPD approaches with superior levels of efficacy and broad therapeutic applicability. The Amphista team includes pioneers and established leaders in TPD research and all phases of drug discovery and development. The company is supported by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: http://www.amphista.com

Media contacts:

Amphista Therapeutics
CEO Nicola Thompson
+44 (0)7436 102411
nicki@amphista.com

Berry & Company Public Relations
Doug Haslam
dhaslam@berrypr.com
+1 212 253 8881

Amphista Therapeutics Enters Strategic Collaboration with Merck for Discovery and Development of Targeted Protein Degradation Therapeutics

  • Amphista and Merck will collaborate to leverage Amphista’s proprietary Eclipsys™ TPD platform and generate novel protein degrading therapeutics in oncology and immunology
  • Collaboration includes up to €39 million ($44 million*) in combined upfront and R&D funding payments for an initial three programs
  • Amphista will potentially receive up to €893.5 million ($1.0 billion*) in total payments across three programs plus mid-single digit royalties

Cambridge, England, May 4th, 2022 – Amphista Therapeutics, a global leader in the discovery and development of next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) therapeutics, today announced a strategic collaboration with Merck Healthcare, a division of Merck. Under the terms of the agreement, Merck and Amphista will work collaboratively to discover and develop small molecule protein degraders for an initial three targets in oncology and immunology indications. Amphista will receive an upfront payment, R&D funding and success-based milestone payments of up to €893.5 million ($1.0 billion*) as well as royalties in the mid-single digit range. Completion of the transaction is subject to the parties obtaining any necessary regulatory clearances or approvals.

Nicola Thompson, CEO of Amphista, said, “We are extremely pleased to enter into this collaboration with Merck. This is a significant validation of the progress we have made in TPD research and the potential of our Eclipsys next-generation TPD platform. We look forward to working with the Merck team, using our combined expertise to develop new TPD therapies to treat cancers and immuno-inflammatory diseases.”

TPD therapies are designed to use physiological mechanisms to remove pathogenic protein from the body, offering the potential to access many disease targets previously considered “undruggable.” Amphista’s technology is specifically designed to develop next generation TPD therapeutics based on mechanistic insights and novel chemistry approaches that enable the company to develop novel protein degrading therapeutics with superior levels of efficacy and broad therapeutic applicability. 

About Amphista Therapeutics

Amphista Therapeutics is a global leader in the discovery and development of next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) medicines, addressing the challenges faced by the field to realise the full potential of this transformational modality.

The company’s proprietary Eclipsys™ Platform supports development of multiple innovative therapeutic candidates able to overcome the limitations associated with traditional TPD approaches with superior levels of efficacy and broad therapeutic applicability. The Amphista team includes pioneers and established leaders in TPD research and all phases of drug discovery and development. The company is supported by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: http://www.amphista.com

Media Contacts:

Amphista Therapeutics
CEO Nicola Thompson
+44 (0)7436 102411
nicki@amphista.com

Berry & Company Public Relations
Doug Haslam
dhaslam@berrypr.com
+1 212 253 8881

 

* US$ calculated based on Q1 2022 average FX exchange rate

 

 

Amphista Therapeutics Appoints Dr Martin Pass as CDO

Cambridge, England, 6 December 2021 – Amphista Therapeutics, a leader in next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, today announced the appointment of Dr Martin Pass, as Chief Development Officer (CDO).

Martin joins Amphista from AstraZeneca, where he was Vice President, Head Early Oncology Projects and led successful clinical development efforts. Martin has over 30 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry with many successes spanning early drug discovery through to Phase 3 clinical development.

Previously, Martin was a medicinal chemist at GlaxoSmithKline where he helped progress multiple candidates into clinical development in the cardiovascular, CNS and gastrointestinal therapeutic areas. He has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Imperial College London and worked in post-doctoral research at the University of Virginia, USA. He is a co-author on over 60 patents and peer-reviewed publications.

Amphista’s CEO Dr Nicola Thompson said, “On behalf of the Amphista team, I am delighted to welcome Martin as our CDO. Martin brings a wealth of strategic clinical development expertise from an impressive global career as a leader in clinical trials, in two world leading pharmaceutical companies. Martin’s leadership will support the realisation of the full potential of our proprietary next generation TPD technology across multiple therapy areas in order to bring transformative medicines to patients.”

Amphista’s new CDO, Dr Martin Pass, commented on his appointment, “I’m delighted to join Amphista’s dynamic, world class team. Amphista is founded on transformational science and I am looking forward to driving the Company’s clinical development programmes and research as we pursue our mission of building the world’s leading TPD company and ultimately bringing benefit to patients.”

– Ends –

Media contacts:

Amphista Therapeutics
CEO NicolaThompson
+44 7464 974714
nicki@amphista.com

Scius Communications
Katja Stout
+44 7789 435990
katja@sciuscommunications.com

About Amphista Therapeutics
Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases including cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD), which address the challenges faced by the field and to realise the full therapeutic potential of this transformational approach. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised over $60M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/

Amphista Therapeutics Appoints CBO, Beverley Carr

Cambridge, England, 1 November 2021 – Amphista Therapeutics, a leader in next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, today announced the appointment of a Chief Business Officer (CBO), Beverley Carr.

Amphista’s CEO Dr Nicola Thompson said, “On behalf of the Amphista team, I am thrilled to welcome Beverley as our CBO.  Beverley brings a wealth of business development expertise from an impressive career as a business leader, spanning both global Pharma and Biotech. Beverley’s leadership of this strategically important function will be key to ensuring that the full potential of our proprietary next generation TPD technology is captured across therapy areas in order to bring transformative medicines to patients.”

Amphista’s new CBO, Beverley Carr, commented on her appointment, “I’m delighted to join Amphista’s world class team. Amphista is founded on transformational science and I’m looking forward to driving the Company’s business development strategy as we execute our mission of building the leading TPD company.”

Beverley joins Amphista from Achilles Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: ACHL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, where she was CBO. Previously Beverley was Vice President Business Development for the Immunoinflammation Therapy Area at GSK, where she led over twenty transactions for the immune-inflammation therapy area. Beverley has negotiated and closed major deals across all stages of drug discovery and development. She is a scientist by training with an MA and DPhil in chemistry from Oxford University and has an MBA from Cambridge University.

– Ends –

Media contacts:

Amphista Therapeutics
CEO Nicola Thompson
+44 7464 974714
nicki@amphista.com

Scius Communications
Katja Stout
+44 7789 435990
katja@sciuscommunications.com

About Amphista Therapeutics

Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases including cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD), which address the challenges faced by the field and to realise the full therapeutic potential of this transformational approach. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised over $60M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/

Amphista Therapeutics Appoints New Chairman, Joshua T. Brumm

Glasgow, UK, 21 September 2021 – Amphista Therapeutics, a leader in next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, today announced the appointment of Joshua T. Brumm as its new Independent Chairman, succeeding Satish Jindal.

Amphista’s CEO Dr Nicola Thompson said, “On behalf of the Amphista team I am thrilled to welcome someone of Josh’s calibre to the Board. I look forward to working with Josh as we rapidly develop our pipeline of TPD therapeutics in oncology and beyond and unlock the full therapeutic potential of this exciting new modality. I would also like to thank our outgoing Chairman, Satish Jindal, who has tirelessly given his support as we have successfully advanced Amphista to this next stage of growth.”

Josh Brumm, Amphista’s new Chairman, commented on his appointment, “I am delighted to join Amphista as its Chairman. The company, founded by leading pioneers in the field, has a unique, truly differentiated approach to targeted protein degradation and the opportunity to develop transformational therapies for patients. The potential of the technology is extremely exciting and together with Amphista’s world class team, I’m looking forward to executing on our mission of building the leading TPD company.”

Founding investor Raj Parekh, General Partner, Advent Life Sciences added, “I am excited to welcome Josh as Amphista’s new Chairman. He brings a wealth of experience that will compliment the work that Nicki and the team have achieved and will support Amphista’s ambitious strategy”.

Josh Brumm is the president and CEO of Dyne Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: DYN), a leading muscle disease company focused on advancing innovative life-transforming therapeutics for people living with genetically driven diseases. Before joining Dyne, he served as COO and CFO of Kaleido Biosciences, leading the company’s IPO, and helped bring the lead program into Phase 2 development.  Prior to this he was COO and CFO at Versartis, where he oversaw the company’s financial strategy including the successful completion of its IPO. Brumm has also held senior positions at Pharmacyclics, ZELTIQ Aesthetics and Proteolix, Inc as well as investment banking positions at Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. and Morgan Stanley. Over the course of his career, he has raised nearly $2 billion in capital. He holds a B.A. in business administration from the University of Notre Dame.

– Ends –

Media contacts:

Amphista Therapeutics
CEO Nicola Thompson
+44 7464 974714
nicki@amphista.com

Scius Communications
Katja Stout
+44 7789 435990
katja@sciuscommunications.com

About Amphista Therapeutics

Amphista Therapeutics is focused on transforming the lives of patients with severe diseases including cancer. The company is applying its proprietary Amphista degrader platform to advance new approaches in targeted protein degradation (TPD), which address the challenges faced by the field and to realise the full therapeutic potential of this transformational approach. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised over $60M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/

Amphista Therapeutics Expands Research Team by Appointing Martin O’Rourke as Head of Drug Discovery and James Osborne as Director of Chemistry

Amphista Therapeutics Expands Research Team by Appointing Martin O’Rourke as Head of Drug Discovery and James Osborne as Director of Chemistry

 

Glasgow, Scotland, 28 June 2021 – Amphista Therapeutics, a Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) biopharmaceutical company creating first-in-class cancer therapeutics that harness the body’s natural processes to remove disease-causing proteins selectively and efficiently, today announced the addition to their world class team of Martin O’Rourke as Head of Drug Discovery and James Osborne as Director of Chemistry.

 

Amphista’s Chief Scientific Officer and TPD pioneer Dr Ian Churcher said, “I am delighted to welcome Martin and James to the team. They both bring a wealth of expertise in drug discovery that will be invaluable to further strengthen our team as we progress our TPD pipeline to the clinic following our successful $53M Series B financing round. The funding is also helping us open whole new areas for exploration beyond Amphista’s cancer focus into areas largely inaccessible to the TPD field, such as CNS, with our approach that provides the best of both worlds: great drug like properties and a broad target and tissue scope.”

 

Amphista’s Head of Drug Discovery, Martin O’Rourke, commented on his appointment, “I’ve always been interested in progressing drug discovery projects in the oncology space. Working at Amphista excites me particularly due to the company’s unique, proprietary approach which builds on the huge promise of TPD while addressing the limitations with current methods. I am looking forward to exploring the opportunities Amphista’s platform provides, working alongside a world class team.”

 

Most recently, Martin has been a Director in the Oncology Bioscience group at AstraZeneca. As a member of the leadership team there he contributed to oncology strategy, new target selection and project leadership on early-stage projects. Prior to this Martin worked in a global position at Charles River contributing to a wide range of drug discovery projects. Additionally, whilst working in Professor Tracy Robson’s lab at Queen University Belfast, Martin co-invented a peptide therapeutic and, via his role at Almac Discovery, led the biology team to produce data enabling Phase 1 clinical trials. Martin holds a BSc in Applied Biochemical Science and a PhD from the University of Ulster.

 

James has significant experience in leading projects to delivery of development candidates for both oncology and CNS disorders. In James’s most recent position he led the Discovery function at GW Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for the delivery of several novel development candidates in the CNS space. James started his career at the Institute of Cancer Research where he was a key contributor to the delivery of the CHK1 clinical candidate SRA737. Since then he has successfully taken project and medicinal chemistry leadership roles at Astex Pharmaceuticals and Charles River Labs, where he worked across several different target classes and therapeutic areas. James holds an MSci in Chemistry and a PhD in organic synthesis, from Nottingham University and completed his postdoctoral studies at the University of Oxford.

 

Amphista has developed a proprietary broad technology platform with the potential to generate first-in-class small molecules (called ‘Amphistas’) that harness the body’s own protein degradation mechanisms to deliver highly potent pharmacology. Amphista’s unique approach offers the potential to overcome many of the limitations seen with current TPD technologies, providing greater opportunity to treat a wider range of diseases. Amphista is focused on biological targets in oncology and other therapy areas, focusing on the translation of their novel TPD approach for clinical benefit in areas of high unmet need.

 

  • Ends –

 

 Media contacts:

 

Amphista Therapeutics

CEO NicolaThompson

+447464974714

nicki@amphista.com

 

Scius Communications

Katja Stout

+447789435990

katja@sciuscommunications.com

 

About Amphista Therapeutics

 

Amphista Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company creating first-in-class therapeutics that harness the body’s natural processes to selectively and efficiently degrade and remove disease-causing proteins. The company’s pipeline of novel targeted protein degradation (TPD)-based medicines is focused on challenging diseases including cancer. Founded by Advent Life Sciences, Amphista is a spin-out of TPD expert Professor Alessio Ciulli’s labs at the University of Dundee. The company has raised approximately £45M to date and is funded by leading life science investors including Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, Advent Life Sciences, BioMotiv and Eli Lilly & Company.

 

For more information, please visit: https://amphista.com/