Curve Therapeutics strengthens Leadership Team with appointment of experienced biotech executive Simon Jones

News provided by

Jul 09, 2024, 03:30 ET

Accomplished CFO and COO with proven track record in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry
Strengthens Curve's Leadership Team following £40.5 million Series A financing

SOUTHAMPTON, England, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Curve Therapeutics ("Curve" or the "Company"), a private biotechnology company pioneering a revolutionary intracellular screening platform addressing complex and challenging disease targets, today announces the appointment of Simon Jones as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO).

Simon has over 20 years of experience in the biotech and pharma sector. He is an accomplished C-Suite executive with a skill set that includes senior operational and commercial roles within the life-science sector, including significant venture fundraising and deal-making. He joins from SpyBiotech, where he headed the Finance and Operations functions, during which time the Company successfully took its lead vaccine candidate into the clinic. This followed almost a decade as CFO at Karus Therapeutics where he managed the financial operations as the Company secured a sizeable funding round from US and EU investors, as well as investment through the UK Government's Future Fund Scheme. Prior to this, Simon was CFO at various early-stage life sciences companies, including Eykona Technologies and Glide Pharmaceutical Technologies, which transitioned from development to commercialisation.

Simon Kerry, Chief Executive Officer of Curve Therapeutics, commented: "Simon brings extensive financial experience at the leadership level from multiple clinical stage biotech companies. His appointment comes at a pivotal time as we look to expand our team, advance our proprietary Microcycle® discovery platform, and progress our pipeline of potential first-in-class assets."

Simon Jones, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Curve Therapeutics, said: "Curve's revolutionary Microcycle discovery platform and rich pipeline of assets means that it is a company primed to disrupt the drug discovery space. I am excited to be joining as the Company expands and transitions to become a clinical stage company."

Curve Therapeutics' mission is to unlock the therapeutic potential of complex and challenging disease targets that are intractable to conventional discovery methods. Through the utilisation of its world leading Microcycle discovery platform, Curve can screen directly inside mammalian cells, allowing for the identification of biologically active library members within an intracellular environment where both the library and the target are present in their native conformations. Curve is developing a small-molecule dual inhibitor of HIF-1 and HIF-2, along with an inhibitor of ATIC homodimerization, both with first-in-class potential.

About Curve Therapeutics
Curve Therapeutics is a private biotechnology company pioneering a revolutionary intracellular screening platform to enable the discovery of innovative therapeutics that address complex and challenging disease targets with the potential to transform the lives of patients. Curve originated from world-leading Microcycle research conducted by Professor Tavassoli's group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Southampton, UK. Curve is backed by blue chip investors including Advent Life Sciences, Epidarex Capital, Pfizer Ventures, Columbus Venture Partners and British Patient Capital. Curve has a US$1.7bn global research collaboration with MSD the trade name of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ USA, to discover and validate modulators of up to five therapeutic targets using its Microcycle technology, initially for oncology and neurology indications. For more information visit: www.curvetx.com.

About Curve's Microcycle platform
Curve has developed an IP-protected, mammalian cell platform technology for functional screening and enrichment of diverse hexameric cyclic peptide Microcycle libraries, to identify those library members that have the desired biological activity against a therapeutic target. Curve's platform allows direct screening for biologically active library members inside mammalian cells and facilitates small molecule hit-to-lead programmes. A key advantage of the technology is that both the library and the target are present in all their native conformations within a cell. Uniquely, the compact size and rigid structure of Microcycles enables the design of non-peptide small molecule leads. The platform can be used for a wide range of therapeutically relevant targets, including protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions, and has been used by Curve to develop a pipeline of cancer programmes against targets including a dual HIF-1/HIF-2 inhibitor and an inhibitor of ATIC homodimerization.

SOURCE Curve Therapeutics