STORM Therapeutics Expands R&D Leadership Team
pharmafile | January 10, 2023 | News story | Business Services |
10 January 2023, Cambridge, UK: STORM Therapeutics Ltd. (STORM), the clinical stage biotechnology company discovering and developing novel small molecule therapies targeting RNA modifying enzymes (RMEs) for oncology and other diseases, today announces the appointment of Matthew Fyfe as Senior Vice President of Therapeutics and the promotion of Beth Thomas to Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry.
Matthew Fyfe has over 20 years’ experience in drug discovery and development, having formerly held Senior Leadership positions at Sitryx (Oxford), TopiVert (London), Oryzon (Barcelona) and Prosidion (Oxford). Matthew has successfully led multiple research programs in several therapeutic areas, delivering clinical candidates that have reached Phase 2 or further in oncology, immunology, metabolic disease, neurology and ophthalmology. Matthew obtained degrees from the University of Glasgow (BSc), Columbia University (MA) and the University of Birmingham (PhD) prior to postdoctoral studies at UCLA with Nobel prize winner Sir Fraser Stoddart. He is a Chartered Chemist, a Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry, an author of more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and an inventor on over 90 patent applications. Matthew will work with the leadership team to progress STORM’s pipeline while working with functional heads and project leaders to define medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, DMPK, PK–PD, CMC and preclinical development strategies.
Newly promoted Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry, Beth Thomas has over 20 years of experience in medicinal and computational chemistry and joined STORM Therapeutics in 2016. In her new role, she will be responsible for medicinal chemistry strategy to enable the discovery and progression of clinical candidates from Storm’s project portfolio. Beth has experience in industrial, academic and not-for-profit roles, leading inter-disciplinary drug discovery teams at Celltech, UCB, BioFocus, University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. Beth has a BSc in Chemistry from the University of St Andrews and a PhD in polyketide biosynthesis with Professors Staunton and Leadlay at the University of Cambridge.
Oliver Rausch, Chief Scientific Officer of STORM Therapeutics, said: “I am delighted to welcome Matthew to the leadership team at STORM. His extensive experience and insight will be invaluable as the team continues to develop its strategies and progress our innovative, discovery pipeline for the benefit of cancer patients. The promotion of Beth is a credit to her talent, dedication and continued commitment to STORM as she steps up to take on overall leadership of medicinal chemistry efforts across our discovery pipeline.”
Matthew Fyfe, Senior Vice President of STORM Therapeutics, commented: “I am excited to be joining this strong and experienced drug discovery and development team. I look forward to utilizing my experience and knowledge to the advancement of STORM’S innovative drug candidates, which have the potential to ultimately transform and improve patient outcomes.”
Beth Thomas, Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry of STORM Therapeutics, added: “I am passionate about the groundbreaking work we are undertaking at STORM in leading projects on novel drug targets to create novel therapies, and I am excited to take on this new role as Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry.”
The appointment and promotion follow on from STORM’s recent closing of a USD $30M Series B financing and the commencement of a Phase 1 clinical study of its first-in-class candidate STC-15, an orally bioavailable, highly selective METTL3 inhibitor which began a clinical trial in cancer patients with solid tumors in November 2022. Details of the study can be found on clinicaltrials.gov under the identifier NCT05584111. Initial results from the Phase 1 study are anticipated to be presented in 2023.
