Avacta appoints new chief scientific officer, plans clinical trials
Avacta Group PLC on Monday said it has promoted Francis Wilson to chief scientific officer.
Former CSO Michelle Morrow is leaving the firm ‘to pursue another opportunity’, Avacta noted.
The London-based pharmaceutical firm focused on cancer treatment originally hired Wilson back in 2022 as vice president of chemistry.
Prior to that, Wilson worked at Nasdaq-listed Summit Therapeutics Inc, and at Roche Discovery Welwyn, the UK research arm of Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG. He is a chartered chemist and fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Avacta noted Wilson’s ‘instrumental’ role in developing the company’s preCISION platform, and the sustained release mechanism used in Avacta’s FAP-Exd/AVA6103 programme, for which the company plans to start clinical trials ‘in the near term’.
‘As Avacta enters a period of potentially significant preclinical development and intellectual property generation, we look forward to leveraging Francis’ expertise and leadership in the drug development arena,’ commented Chief Executive Christina Coughlin.
‘In addition to his leadership internally, he has also been a key member of the team positioning our business across the international drug development sector,’ Coughlin added.
Avacta shares were up 2.5% at 62.00 pence on Monday morning in London.
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