SLN.L Share News (SLN)

(Sharecast News) - Silence Therapeutics announced the appointment of John Strafford to the newly-created role of senior vice-president of business development, alliance management and new product development on Wednesday, effective immediately.
The AIM-traded firm said Strafford joined the company in 2018, and had served as vice-president head of business development and member of the executive leadership team since 2019.

In the new role, he would continue to drive all business development and alliance management activities, as well as lead the new product development function, helping to define the future commercial strategy for its proprietary 'mRNAi GOLD' development pipeline.

The board said Strafford had 14 years of business development and strategic consulting experience in the biopharma industry.

During his time at Silence, he had led the formation of collaborations with AstraZeneca, Mallinckrodt and Takeda, as well as a range of undisclosed research collaborations in support of its extra-hepatic delivery strategy.

Together, those collaborations had delivered more than $100m in upfront payments, and represented a total potential deal value of over $6bn.

Before joining Silence, Strafford held positions of increasing responsibility at Antisoma, Easton Associates, Novasecta and Concordia International.

He holds a PhD in biochemical engineering from University College London, an MRes in bioinformatics from the University of York, and a BSc in molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh.

In 2009, Strafford was awarded the Pharma Licensing Group (PLG) Business Development Best Newcomer of the Year award.

"John has played a critical role in establishing key strategic partnerships that further expand our portfolio of mRNAi GOLD platform programs and continues to serve as an important source of non-dilutive capital," said president and chief executive officer Mark Rothera.

"As we build and advance our proprietary and partnered pipelines, John will be taking on increasing responsibilities in this new role which recognizes not only his prior efforts but my anticipation of all the important work he will be doing during this transformative period at Silence."

At 0900 BST, shares in Silence Therapeutics were up 0.17% at 580p.