- Four renowned experts join to advise Bicycle as the company advances pipeline of novel cancer therapeutic candidates
Bicycle Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: BCYC), a biotechnology company pioneering a new and differentiated class of therapeutics based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide ( Bicycle® ) technology, today announced that leaders in the fields of oncology, immunology, pharmacology, and translational research have been appointed to the Company’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).
“It is an honor to welcome Drs. FitzGerald, Grogan, Reis e Sousa, and Swanton, all accomplished scientists and clinicians who are highly regarded in their respective fields, to Bicycle’s SAB,” said Nicholas Keen, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics. “At Bicycle, we have an ambitious vision of leveraging our innovative technology to develop a novel class of Bicycle -based medicines that could enable new treatment paradigms for patients with cancer. The experience and insights of our SAB members will be critical to helping us realize that vision by informing our path forward as we continue to advance our Bicycle Toxin Conjugates and tumor-targeted immune cell agonists, or TICAs™, into and through clinical development.”
The additions to Bicycle’s SAB include:
- Garret FitzGerald, M.D., FRS: Dr. FitzGerald is the McNeil Professor in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics. Previously, he chaired the University’s Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics for more than 20 years. Dr. FitzGerald has been a visiting scholar at Calico (a Google company), Genentech and the Genomics Foundation of Novartis.
Dr. FitzGerald is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy and of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of the Leopoldina and of the Accademia dei Lyncei, and a Fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences and of the Royal Society. Dr. FitzGerald completed his medical studies at University College Dublin. He holds honorary degrees from University College Dublin, the Goethe University of Frankfurt, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and King’s College London.
- Jane Grogan, Ph.D.: Dr. Grogan is the Chief Scientific Officer of ArsenalBio, a biotechnology company founded to discover, develop, and commercialize curative immune cell therapies. Prior to that, she was Head of Adaptive Tumor Immunity and Principal Scientist in Cancer Immunology discovery research at Genentech for over 15 years.
Dr. Grogan received a Ph.D. in Immunology at Leiden University in The Netherlands. She completed post-doctoral training at the German Rheumatism Research Centre Berlin as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and at the University of California, San Francisco as a Howard Hughes Fellow.
- Caetano Reis e Sousa, DPhil, FRS, FMedSci : Dr. Reis e Sousa is a senior group leader and assistant research director at the Crick Institute, where he heads the Immunobiology Laboratory. He is also Professor of Immunology in the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London and holds honorary professorships at both University College London and King's College London.
Dr. Reis e Sousa is a Fellow of the Royal Society and The Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, and was made an Officer of the Order of Sant'Iago da Espada by the government of Portugal. Dr. Reis e Sousa earned a DPhil in Immunology from the University of Oxford and subsequently trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
- Charles Swanton, M.D., Ph.D., FRS, FMedSci, FRCP: Dr. Swanton is Cancer Research UK’s Chief Clinician and leads the Cancer Evolution and Genome Instability Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute. His research is focused on how tumors evolve over space and time, and he has authored over 250 papers developing an understanding of branching evolutionary histories of solid tumors, processes that drive cancer cell-to-cell variation, and the impact of cancer diversity on effective immune surveillance and clinical outcome.
Dr. Swanton is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He completed his M.D., Ph.D. training at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories.
The new advisors will join existing SAB members Sir Keith Peters, GBE, Sc.D., FRCP, FRS, FMedSci (Chairman), Sir Gregory Winter, Ph.D., FRS and Dr. Geoffrey Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D.
About Bicycle Therapeutics
Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BCYC) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel class of medicines, referred to as Bicycles ®, for diseases that are underserved by existing therapeutics. Bicycles are fully synthetic short peptides constrained with small molecule scaffolds to form two loops that stabilize their structural geometry. This constraint facilitates target binding with high affinity and selectivity, making Bicycles attractive candidates for drug development. Bicycle’s lead product candidate, BT1718, a Bicycle Toxin Conjugate (BTC) that targets MT1-MMP, is being investigated in an ongoing Phase I/IIa clinical trial in collaboration with the Centre for Drug Development of Cancer Research UK. Bicycle is also evaluating BT5528, a second-generation BTC targeting EphA2, in a Company-sponsored Phase I/II study. BT8009 is a BTC targeting Nectin-4, a well-validated tumor antigen, and is also currently being evaluated a Company-sponsored Phase I/II trial. Bicycle is headquartered in Cambridge, UK with many key functions and members of its leadership team located in Lexington, MA. For more information, visit bicycletherapeutics.com .
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may be identified by words such as “aims,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “forecasts,” “goal,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “possible,” “potential,” “seeks,” “will” and variations of these words or similar expressions that are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Bicycle’s ability to develop a novel class of medicines to enable new treatment paradigms for patients with cancer and Bicycle’s ability to advance its product candidates through clinical development. Bicycle may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in these forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including: risks presented by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; uncertainties inherent in the initiation and completion of clinical trials and clinical development of Bicycle’s product candidates; availability and timing of results clinical trials; whether initial or interim results from a clinical trial will be predictive of the final results of the trial or the results of future trials; expectations for regulatory approvals to conduct trials or to market product; and other important factors, any of which could cause our actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, are described in greater detail in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in Bicycle’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 5, 2020, as well as in other filings Bicycle may make with the SEC in the future. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof, and Bicycle expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.
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