Former Amgen SVP of Global Research and Renowned Cell Biologist Ray Deshaies Named to Iambic’s Scientific Advisory Board

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Iambic Therapeutics, a clinical-stage life science and technology company developing novel medicines using its AI-driven discovery and development platform, today announced that Ray Deshaies, PhD, has joined its scientific advisory board. A biochemist and cell biologist, Dr. Deshaies most recently led global research for Amgen following a distinguished academic career at the California Institute of Technology.

“I am deeply impressed with Iambic’s team, its platform and application of AI and machine learning to address some of the most complex challenges in cancer and drug discovery,” said Dr. Deshaies. “Iambic has differentiated itself by using its technology to uncover truly differentiated oncology candidates and rapidly advancing them into the clinic. I look forward to supporting the team’s breakthrough science as they work to bring new therapies to patients.”

Prior to Amgen, Dr. Deshaies was a professor of biology at Caltech and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focused on mechanisms and regulation of protein homeostasis in eukaryotic cells, with a particular focus on the ubiquitin-proteasome system and the degradation of proteins – work that provided the biochemical foundation for his lab’s discovery of proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACS) as a new class of candidate therapeutics. He also co-founded the biotechnology companies Proteolix and Cleave Biosciences and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

“We are thrilled to have Ray join our SAB and look forward to collaborating with him as we shape our pipeline of clinical programs and broaden the potential of our platform to unlock new targets for a range of critical disease areas,” said Tom Miller, PhD, Iambic’s co-founder and CEO. “Ray’s achievements as a scientist, an innovator and a builder of world-class research organizations, make him an ideal partner as we continue to scale and define opportunities enabled by our AI-driven discovery engine.”

About Iambic’s AI-Driven Discovery Platform

The Iambic AI-driven platform was created to address the most challenging design problems in drug discovery, leveraging technology innovations such as Enchant (multimodal transformer model that predicts clinical and preclinical endpoints) and NeuralPLexer (best-in-class predictor of protein and protein-ligand structures). The integration of physics principles into the platform’s AI architectures improves data efficiency and allows molecular models to venture widely across the space of possible chemical structures. The platform enables identification of novel chemical modalities for engaging difficult-to-address biological targets, discovery of defined product profiles that optimize therapeutic window, and multiparameter optimization for highly differentiated development candidates. Through close integration of AI-generated molecular designs with automated chemical synthesis and experimental execution, Iambic completes design-make-test cycles on a weekly cadence.

About Iambic Therapeutics

Iambic is a clinical-stage life-science and technology company developing novel medicines using its AI-driven discovery and development platform. Based in San Diego and founded in 2020, Iambic has assembled a world-class team that unites pioneering AI experts and experienced drug hunters. The Iambic platform has demonstrated delivery of new drug candidates to human clinical trials with unprecedented speed and across multiple target classes and mechanisms of action. Iambic is advancing a pipeline of potential best-in-class and first-in-class clinical assets, both internally and in partnership, to address urgent unmet patient need. Learn more about the Iambic team, platform, pipeline, and partnerships at Iambic.ai