Sosei Group Corporation, a specialist in GPCR medicine design and development, announced that Dr Fiona Marshall has resigned from her position as Executive VP and Chief Scientific Officer of Sosei to assume a senior role outside the company.
Dr Marshall will leave Sosei at the end of February 2018.
“As a co-founder of Heptares, I am very proud to have been associated with building a team of talented scientists in the past decade, who has made many important breakthroughs in the field of GPCR stabilisation and structure-based drug design, a unique technology that now underpins Sosei’s powerful drug discovery capability,” said Dr Marshall.
“With the team in excellent hands, I feel the time is right for me to move on to new challenges and I wish everyone at Sosei the best for what looks set to be an exciting future for the company.”
Peter Bains, CEO at Sosei, said: “Marshall has been a pivotal figure in advancing the science of GPCR stabilisation and in creating Sosei StaR technology, a legacy that in time we believe will lead to the development of new and innovative medicines.”
“Thanks to Marshall, we have built a deep pool of talented scientists who will continue to carry on our world-leading work in GPCR-focused drug discovery and development and execute on our vision to become a fully integrated global biotechnology company. The board and I express our sincere thanks to Marshall for her significant contributions to Sosei and wish her the very best in her exciting new role.”
Sosei’s R&D activities will continue under the leadership of Dr Malcolm Weir, co-founder and CEO of Heptares, and Executive VP and Chief R&D Officer of Sosei.
Separately and reflecting the progress of Sosei’s proprietary pipeline of drug development candidates, Dr Tim Tasker is promoted to the executive management team of Sosei as an Executive VP and Chief Medical Officer (CMO). Dr Tasker will continue to report to Dr Malcolm Weir, Chief R&D Officer.
Bains said: “Tasker’s promotion is thoroughly deserved and reflects the increasing importance of clinical development expertise in the team.”
“This expertise is crucial to supporting our partnered programmes and more importantly to drive our proprietary programmes, of which we plan to advance at least six candidates into clinical studies in the next two years, including HTL0018318, our selective muscarinic M1 agonist, which we expect to start a Phase 2 trial in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) in Japan during this year.”
