MISSION Therapeutics wins new Life Science Innovation Award

Recognition of outstanding progress in hitherto challenging therapeutic target area

Cambridge UK, 20 March 2015 – MISSION Therapeutics, a company focused on the discovery and development of modulators of the deubiquitylating (DUB) enzyme family for the treatment of cancer and other diseases, today announces that it has won the new Life Science Innovation Award at the 25th Anniversary Business Weekly Awards ceremony.

The award was accepted by Professor Steve Jackson, CSO at MISSION, at an awards dinner at Queen’s College, Cambridge on behalf of the Company, which was judged to have done most in the region to further the cause of life science discovery for the benefit of human healthcare. AstraZeneca and MedImmune, as sponsors of the Award, spearheaded the judging for the category, with AZ dealmaker, Shaun Grady, and MedImmune’s site leader in Cambridge, Jane Osbourn, as the judges.

The Business Weekly Awards attracts entries from across the East of England and is the longest-running B2B competition in the UK. Now in its 25th year, the Awards pride themselves on early identification of world-leading businesses. To mark the 25th anniversary, the awards categories were finessed to reflect the expansion of the region since the awards began, with eight award categories “up for grabs” including Start-up of the Year, International Trade Champion and Wireless Innovation.

Commenting on the award, CEO Anker Lundemose said: “To receive recognition from one’s peers is hugely gratifying. It is a credit to the team at MISSION that they have developed a highly promising pipeline of drug candidates in recent years, not just in our primary area of focus, cancer, but also a wider range of indications. Having recently joined the team, I am personally excited to be playing a lead role in advancing key assets from MISSION’s pipeline into the clinic, independently and through selective partnering.”
About MISSION Therapeutics

Founded in 2011, MISSION Therapeutics builds on the research of Professor Steve Jackson FRS, who holds the Frederick James Quick Chair of Biology at the University of Cambridge, by exploiting the new and extensive research emerging on the ubiquitin pathways that control cellular responses to DNA damage.

MISSION has established a broad platform of technologies for the discovery and preclinical development of first-in-class modulators of ubiquitin pathway enzymes involved in cancer and other diseases. The Company is developing drugs to inhibit the proliferation of tumour cells, exploiting certain properties of specific DUBs, such as their oncogene status or association with synthetic lethality, the latter now a clinically-proven mechanism for selectively killing tumour cells.

The Company has received £27 million in venture capital from a blue chip syndicate comprising institutional and corporate investors (Sofinnova Partners, Imperial Innovations, SR One, Roche Venture Fund and Pfizer Venture Investments) and is based at the Babraham Research Campus, south of Cambridge.
CONTACT:
MISSION Therapeutics Ltd
Dr Anker Lundemose, Chief Executive Officer
+44 (0)1223 497197
Email: enquiries@missiontherapeutics.com

Instinctif Partners
Tim Watson
+44 (0)20 7866 7861
Email: missiontherapeutics