MISSION appoints Anker Lundemose as Chief Executive Officer

Appointment strengthens UK drug discovery team for transformational change.

Cambridge, UK – 9 January 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, announces the appointment of Dr Anker Lundemose MD PhD as Chief Executive Officer.

Dr Lundemose brings extensive experience to MISSION at a pivotal stage in the Company’s evolution, as it transitions from discovery to development. In a biopharma career spanning over two and a half decades, he was most recently CEO of Norwegian vaccine company Bionor Pharma ASA, and previously co-founder and CEO of Prosidion, the UK spin-out of OSI Pharmaceuticals’ diabetes and obesity assets, subsequently reversed into OSI.  The MISSION appointment constitutes Dr Lundemose’s fourth CEO position. As a CEO, Executive Vice President, co-founder and/or board member, he has been involved in a total of six biotech exits/IPOs.

Michael Moore, MISSION Executive Chairman, commented: “On behalf of the board and management I am delighted to welcome Anker at this exciting time for the Company, as it embarks on the preclinical development of its lead molecules. His extensive drug translational and business development experience across several therapeutic areas, among his other corporate credentials, will catalyze our transition from discovery to development and maximise the commercial horizons of the Company.”

Anker Lundemose commented: “I am thrilled to be joining MISSION at this transitional stage of the Company’s development.  MISSION clearly has the opportunity to become the world’s premier DUB R&D company given the world-class standing of its science, the track record of its management and the vision of its investor syndicate. I look forward to working with management and investors alike to build on the asset value already created by the MISSION team.”

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Notes To Editors

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.

MISSION was assisted in the recruitment of Dr Lundemose by Russell Reynolds Associates
Issued for and on behalf of MISSION Therapeutics by Instinctif Partners.
For more information please contact:

MISSION Therapeutics Ltd

Dr Michael Moore, Executive Chairman
+44(0)7909 090887

Dr Niall Martin, Chief Operating Officer
+44(0)1223 497451
Email: enquiries@missiontherapeutics.com

Instinctif Partners
Tim Watson
+44(0)20 7866 7861
Email: MissionTherapeutics@instinctif.com