1 Jun 2017 07:00
Hiring of Chief Operating Officer
1 June 2017
Silence Therapeutics plc, AIM:SLN ("Silence" or "the Company") a leader in the discovery, delivery, and development of novel RNA therapeutics for the treatment of serious diseases with unmet medical need, announces the hiring of Torsten Hoffmann as Chief Operating Officer, reporting directly to Ali Mortazavi, Chief Executive Officer. This is not a plc board appointment.
Torsten is joining Silence from Proteros biostructures where he served as Chief Scientific Officer and Managing Director from July 2015, and before then as Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President at Zealand Pharma from July 2013. Prior to that, he spent 16 years at Roche in roles of increasing responsibility up to Site Head of Medicinal Chemistry, and Head of the Global Roche Postdoc fellowship program. Torsten is the lead inventor of netupitant, discovered at Roche and approved by the FDA as Akynzeo© in 2014.
Torsten has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the ETH Zürich, Switzerland, which was followed by a role as research associate with Professor Richard A. Lerner at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He has authored more than 85 publications, patent applications and published conference reports, has served on advisory boards, and his awards include the Feodor Lynen award and fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany.
Ali Mortazavi, Chief Executive Officer of Silence Therapeutics, commented:
"I am delighted that Torsten has joined Silence at this pivotal time for the company. As we continue to make progress with our new GalNAc-based platform, Torsten brings an experienced rigour to our operations with his knowledge from target selection through to clinical trials. I have been impressed with his energy and the way that he has quickly formed a close working relationship with our Chief Scientific Officer, Dmitry Samarsky. As a consultant, he has already enabled us to drive efficiency through outsourcing certain activities and he will add further immediate benefits in the field of gene target selection and novel RNA therapeutics, helping to further differentiate Silence in delivering high quality medicines for better patients' lives."
Enquiries:
Silence Therapeutics plc Ali Mortazavi, Chief Executive Officer David Ellam, Chief Financial Officer
| Tel: +44 (0)20 3457 6900 |
Canaccord Genuity Limited (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker) Henry Fitzgerald-O'Connor/Emma Gabriel
| Tel: +44 (0)20 7523 8350 |
Peel Hunt LLP (Joint Broker) James Steel/Oliver Jackson
| Tel: +44 (0)20 7418 8900 |
Media Enquiries: FTI Consulting Simon Conway/Brett Pollard/Stephanie Cuthbert
| Tel: +44 (0) 20 3727 1000 |
Notes to Editors
About Silence Therapeutics plc
Silence Therapeutics develops a new generation of medicines by harnessing the body's natural mechanism of RNA interference, or RNAi, within its cells. Our proprietary technology can selectively inhibit any gene in the genome, specifically silencing the production of disease-causing proteins. Using our enabling delivery systems, we have achieved an additional level of specificity by delivering our therapeutic RNA molecules exclusively to target cells. Silence's proprietary RNA chemistries and delivery systems are designed to improve the stability of our molecules and enhance effective delivery to target cells, providing a powerful modular technology well suited to tackle life-threatening diseases.