Key Appointments Strengthen Mission Therapeutics’ Senior Management Team

• Dr Paul Thompson promoted to Chief Scientific Officer
• Dr Nick Edmunds promoted to Chief Technology Officer

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mission Therapeutics (“Mission”), a drug discovery and development company focused on selectively inhibiting deubiquitylating enzymes (DUBs), today announced the promotions of Dr Paul Thompson to CSO and Dr Nick Edmunds to CTO with immediate effect.

Dr Paul Thompson (CSO)

In his new role, Dr Thompson assumes responsibility for Mission’s discovery, validation and translational science activities, as well as biomarker research and target selection on novel DUBs.

Dr Thompson has ~18 years’ experience in translational research and early clinical development. He joined Mission as Medical Director for CNS in 2016, and in 2018 was promoted to Vice President of Clinical Development.

Previously, he has worked at ONO Pharma UK, where he was Clinical Science Director, and GlaxoSmithKline, where he led global project teams as Director of Discovery Medicine in Neurology, following earlier roles leading laboratory biomarker research and experimental medicine studies. Dr Thompson holds a PhD in Immuno- and Cell Biology from University College London and an MBiochem from the University of Oxford.

Dr Nick Edmunds (CTO)

Dr Edmunds assumes responsibility for Mission’s world-leading DUB platform and chemistry, in addition to exploratory toxicology and ADME activities.

With over 15 years’ pharmaceutical industry experience, Dr Edmunds has a track record in drug discovery and early clinical development. He joined Mission as a Senior Director in September 2018 from AstraZeneca and was promoted later that year to Vice President and Head of DUB Discovery.

At AstraZeneca Dr Edmunds held senior roles in Drug Safety and Metabolism, including Senior Director, Head of New Modalities and Director of Safety Pharmacology. Prior to that, he was a Research Fellow at Pfizer Global Research and Development, US, and the Cardiovascular Discipline Leader in Global Safety Pharmacology at Pfizer Global Research and Development, UK. Dr Edmunds holds a PhD from the Department of Pharmacology, University of Bath, and a BSc in Pharmacology from the University of Leeds.

Commenting on the appointments, Dr Anker Lundemose, CEO of Mission Therapeutics, said: “We are very pleased to be able to make these well-deserved promotions. Both Paul and Nick have already made substantial contributions to the advancement of Mission’s platform and pipeline. They will continue to play a pivotal role as the Company embarks upon the next exciting stage in its development, to continue progress of the AbbVie and Pfizer collaborations and bring our first-in-class USP30 inhibitor into the clinic.”

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NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Mission Therapeutics

Mission Therapeutics is an early-stage drug development company targeting the ubiquitin pathway for the treatment of kidney disease, neurodegenerative disease, rare mitochondrial diseases and fibrosis. 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. Steve Jackson’s Cancer Research UK Laboratories at the University of Cambridge Gurdon Institute, and leading UK centres in neurodegenerative diseases. The Company also has secured major industry partnerships, including its collaboration with AbbVie in November 2018, for the research and preclinical development of specified DUB inhibitors for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. The Company is managed by a team with broad international, commercial and clinical-science experience.

To date the Company has received £73 million / $101 million in funding and its investors comprise blue chip institutional and corporate investors including: Pfizer Venture Investments, Sofinnova Partners, Roche Venture Fund, SR One, IP Group and Schroders Adveq. Mission Therapeutics was founded in 2011 and is based at the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge, UK.

For more information, please visit our website, www.missiontherapeutics.com, or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.