Mission Therapeutics Strengthens Senior Management Team with Appointment of Dr Paul Thompson, Vice President, Clinical Development

CAMBRIDGE, UK – 1 March 2018 – Today Mission Therapeutics, a drug discovery and development company focused on treating fibrosis, neurodegenerative and other diseases by selectively targeting deubiquitylating enzymes (DUBs), announced the promotion of Dr Paul Thompson to Vice President, Clinical Development with immediate effect.

Dr Thompson has over 15 years’ experience in translational research and early clinical development. He joined Mission as Medical Director for CNS in 2016 from ONO Pharma UK, where he was Clinical Science Director. Prior to this he worked at GlaxoSmithKline, where he led global project teams as Director of Discovery Medicine in Neurology, following previous roles in laboratory biomarker research and experimental medicine study leadership. Dr Thompson holds an MBiochem from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Immuno- and Cell Biology from UCL.

He is also a member of the British Pharmacological Society, Society for Neuroscience and American Academy of Neurology, and is currently the Principal Investigator on a Target Validation award from the Michael J Fox Foundation.

Commenting on the appointment, Dr Anker Lundemose, Mission’s CEO, said:

“Paul’s promotion reinforces our drug discovery and development expertise as we continue our mission to translate scientific advances in the DUB field into transformative therapies. He has already made a substantial contribution to the development of our internal pipeline. He will continue to play a pivotal role in driving the pre-clinical validation and prioritisation of our first-in-class compounds as we progress them towards clinical testing.”

Dr Paul Thompson, newly appointed VP, Clinical Development, Mission Therapeutics, said:

“This is an exciting opportunity to further influence and shape the Company’s therapeutic programs at the senior management level. I look forward to working with the team to continue improving our understanding of DUBs as therapeutic targets and their multiple potential applications to serious diseases with high unmet need, including fibrosis, rare mitochondrial disease and neurodegeneration.”

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

 Mission Therapeutics Ltd

Anker Lundemose MD PhD

Chief Executive Officer

Tel: +44 (0) 1223 497199

 Instinctif Partners

Melanie Toyne-Sewell / Eileen Paul / Priya Kalia

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7457 2020

missiontherapeutics@instinctif.com

 

NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Mission Therapeutics

Mission Therapeutics is an early-stage drug development company targeting the ubiquitin pathway for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease, rare mitochondrial diseases, fibrosis and inflammation. The Company has built a leading platform for the discovery and development of first-in-class, small-molecule drugs that selectively target deubiquitylating enzymes (DUBs) – an emerging drug class that is attracting significant commercial interest in the area of protein homeostasis.

Mission has strong links with key academic and research centers, including Prof. Jackson’s Cancer Research UK Laboratories at the University of Cambridge Gurdon Institute, and leading UK centres in neurodegenerative diseases. The Company is managed by a team with broad international, commercial and clinical-science experience.

In February 2016, the Company completed an $86m financing that was led by Imperial Innovations (now part of IP Group) and Woodford Patient Capital Trust and included participation from existing investors Sofinnova Partners, Roche Venture Fund, Pfizer Venture Investments and SR One. Mission Therapeutics was founded in 2011 and is based at the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge, UK.