Bicycle Therapeutics Limited Announces The Appointment Of Dr. Kevin Lee As Chief Executive Officer
CAMBRIDGE, UK. – September 21, 2015 – Bicycle Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing a new therapeutic modality based on bicyclic peptides, today announced the appointment of Kevin Lee, Ph.D., as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Lee brings more than 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development leadership, most recently from Pfizer, spanning the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as well as academia.
“Kevin is an accomplished leader with a proven track record developing novel biopharmaceuticals and business collaborations across therapeutic areas", said Andrew Sandham, Chairman of Bicycle Therapeutics. “His experience in translating emerging science into innovative drugs will be invaluable as we apply our product platform to create a pipeline of new therapeutics in oncology and other therapeutic areas.
Bicycle’s product platform has broad application in oncology, respiratory, inflammatory and ophthalmology diseases. In oncology, Bicycle is focussed on Bicycle Drug Conjugates (BDCs), which combine high-affinity bicyclic peptides targeting tumour antigens with toxin payloads. BDCs penetrate deep into tumour tissue and are rapidly cleared from the circulation, limiting non-tumour exposure.
Commenting on his appointment, Kevin Lee, Chief Executive Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics, said “Bicycle Therapeutics has developed a novel platform for drug development that will transform how we create therapeutics. I am very excited to be joining the accomplished team here that has successfully created this platform and look forward to working with them to create an industry-leading pipeline of therapeutics that offer new treatment options for patients.”
Dr. Lee joins Bicycle Therapeutics from Pfizer where he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Rare Disease Research Unit. In that role, he held responsibility for more than 20 novel programs across the full spectrum of R&D, established Pfizer’s Rare Disease strategy, conceptualized and implemented the company’s Gene Therapy strategy with the creation of the Genetic Medicine Institute and also founded the Rare Disease research consortium. Prior to joining Pfizer, Kevin worked at GSK and, as well as leading the formation of multiple strategic commercial and academic partnerships, he led epigenetics research and was responsible for the creation of the EpiNova DPU.
About Bicycle Therapeutics
Bicycle Therapeutics has created a new therapeutic modality based on bicyclic peptides (‘bicycles’) that provide antibody-like affinity and selectivity in a much smaller chemically synthesised molecule. Bicycle’s technology is based on the work performed at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge by the scientific founders of the company, Sir Gregory Winter and Professor Christian Heinis. The company is funded by Atlas Venture, Novartis Venture Fund, SVLS, SR One and Astellas Venture Management. For more information visit www.bicycletherapeutics.com.
About Bicycles
Bicycles are short peptide sequences constrained by a chemical scaffold core to form a structure with two loops of amino acids. By constraining the peptide structure, bicycles are able to target protein-protein interactions with affinities in low to sub-nanomolar range and selectivity similar to antibodies. The small size of Bicycles make them ideal agents for rapid tissue penetration and their fully synthetic nature allows extensive chemical modification to create optimal pharmacokinetic properties.
Bicycles are discovered using a proprietary genetic display technology that allows the rapid screening of compounds from large and highly diverse libraries containing over 1012 bicycle structures.
About Bicycle Drug Conjugates (BDCs)
BDCs have shown superior properties to Antibody Drug Conjugates in preclinical disease models showing extensive tumour penetration with high affinity target binding and rapid cell killing; this combined with fast elimination of the bicycle from the body serves to limit non-tumour exposure.
These features may result in BDCs having high therapeutic index in the treatment of a range of solid tumours
For further information, please contact:
Bicycle Therapeutics Limited
Kevin Lee, Chief Executive Officer
+44 (0)1223 497393
kevin.lee@bicycletherapeutics.com
Help employers find you! Check out all the jobs and post your resume. www.bicycletherapeutics.com Consilium Strategic Communications Mary-Jane Elliott / Ivar Milligan +44 (0)20 3709 5700 bicycle@consilium-comms.com
“Kevin is an accomplished leader with a proven track record developing novel biopharmaceuticals and business collaborations across therapeutic areas", said Andrew Sandham, Chairman of Bicycle Therapeutics. “His experience in translating emerging science into innovative drugs will be invaluable as we apply our product platform to create a pipeline of new therapeutics in oncology and other therapeutic areas.
Bicycle’s product platform has broad application in oncology, respiratory, inflammatory and ophthalmology diseases. In oncology, Bicycle is focussed on Bicycle Drug Conjugates (BDCs), which combine high-affinity bicyclic peptides targeting tumour antigens with toxin payloads. BDCs penetrate deep into tumour tissue and are rapidly cleared from the circulation, limiting non-tumour exposure.
Commenting on his appointment, Kevin Lee, Chief Executive Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics, said “Bicycle Therapeutics has developed a novel platform for drug development that will transform how we create therapeutics. I am very excited to be joining the accomplished team here that has successfully created this platform and look forward to working with them to create an industry-leading pipeline of therapeutics that offer new treatment options for patients.”
Dr. Lee joins Bicycle Therapeutics from Pfizer where he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Rare Disease Research Unit. In that role, he held responsibility for more than 20 novel programs across the full spectrum of R&D, established Pfizer’s Rare Disease strategy, conceptualized and implemented the company’s Gene Therapy strategy with the creation of the Genetic Medicine Institute and also founded the Rare Disease research consortium. Prior to joining Pfizer, Kevin worked at GSK and, as well as leading the formation of multiple strategic commercial and academic partnerships, he led epigenetics research and was responsible for the creation of the EpiNova DPU.
About Bicycle Therapeutics
Bicycle Therapeutics has created a new therapeutic modality based on bicyclic peptides (‘bicycles’) that provide antibody-like affinity and selectivity in a much smaller chemically synthesised molecule. Bicycle’s technology is based on the work performed at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge by the scientific founders of the company, Sir Gregory Winter and Professor Christian Heinis. The company is funded by Atlas Venture, Novartis Venture Fund, SVLS, SR One and Astellas Venture Management. For more information visit www.bicycletherapeutics.com.
About Bicycles
Bicycles are short peptide sequences constrained by a chemical scaffold core to form a structure with two loops of amino acids. By constraining the peptide structure, bicycles are able to target protein-protein interactions with affinities in low to sub-nanomolar range and selectivity similar to antibodies. The small size of Bicycles make them ideal agents for rapid tissue penetration and their fully synthetic nature allows extensive chemical modification to create optimal pharmacokinetic properties.
Bicycles are discovered using a proprietary genetic display technology that allows the rapid screening of compounds from large and highly diverse libraries containing over 1012 bicycle structures.
About Bicycle Drug Conjugates (BDCs)
BDCs have shown superior properties to Antibody Drug Conjugates in preclinical disease models showing extensive tumour penetration with high affinity target binding and rapid cell killing; this combined with fast elimination of the bicycle from the body serves to limit non-tumour exposure.
These features may result in BDCs having high therapeutic index in the treatment of a range of solid tumours
For further information, please contact:
Bicycle Therapeutics Limited
Kevin Lee, Chief Executive Officer
+44 (0)1223 497393
kevin.lee@bicycletherapeutics.com
Help employers find you! Check out all the jobs and post your resume. www.bicycletherapeutics.com Consilium Strategic Communications Mary-Jane Elliott / Ivar Milligan +44 (0)20 3709 5700 bicycle@consilium-comms.com