Engitix appoints two additional international biotech industry leaders as Scientific Advisors

LONDON, June 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Engitix Ltd (‘Engitix’), a biotechnology company with a portfolio of drug discovery programmes in fibrosis and solid tumours using its proprietary human extracellular matrix (ECM) platform, today announces the appointment of two biotech industry leaders as Scientific Advisors: Adrian S. Ray, PhD, and Scott Turner, PhD.

These appointments support Engitix’s evolution as it harnesses its ECM platform to discover new targets and biomarkers for therapeutic benefit and advances towards clinical development.

Dr Giuseppe Mazza, CEO of Engitix said, “We are pleased to welcome Dr Adrian Ray and Dr Scott Turner as new scientific advisors. Their combined industry insights, strong translational science and small molecule and biologic drug discovery experience across cancer and fibrosis disease will enhance our R&D efforts. Their strategic guidance will be invaluable as we continue to advance discoveries from our proprietary ECM platform technologies into transformational therapies for patients with fibrosis and solid tumours.”

Dr Adrian Ray has over two decades of experience in biotech working at Gilead, Nimbus, Morphic and, most recently, serving as Chief Scientific Officer at Third Harmonic Bio. He has provided leadership for small molecule drug discovery, nonclinical development and translation across therapeutic areas contributing to numerous IND and successful worldwide registrational filings. Dr Ray completed his graduate studies in the Pharmacology Department at Yale University, having received his undergraduate degree in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz graduating with highest honours.

Dr Adrian Ray said, “Engitix has an unparalleled understanding of the extracellular matrix. I’m excited to work with the team on leveraging their deep data set to identify new therapeutics for fibrosis and solid tumours.”

Dr Scott Turner is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at Arda Therapeutics. Prior to joining Arda, Scott served as CSO at Pliant Therapeutics, where he played a pivotal role in the creation of Pliant’s fibrosis discovery platform and spearheaded the development of their anti-fibrotic pipeline. His innovative approaches, including pioneering the use of single-cell data to dissect drug mechanisms of action and driving an advanced biomarker strategy, led to remarkable successes in achieving clinical proof of concept. Prior to Pliant, Dr Turner led research and development at KineMed Inc. a platform technology company developing translational biomarkers in fibrosis and metabolic disease. Dr Turner gained his PhD from University of California, Berkeley in Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology.

Dr Scott Turner said, “In spite of recent advances, fibrosis remains a significant unmet medical need. New strategies are needed to address this challenging problem. I am excited to work with the Engitix team and advisors to leverage their novel ECM platform to identify new treatments.”

Engitix new scientific advisors bring extensive scientific and industry expertise and diverse perspectives that will complement and enhance the knowledge of its original eight Scientific Advisors, who are renowned global academics and clinical leaders across diseases of the gastrointestinal system, skin and lung fibrosis and cancers.

Current scientific advisors also include Professor Massimo Pinzani, MD, PhD, FAASLD, FRCP, Alex Lugovskoy, PhD, Doug Thorburn, MD, Emmanuel Tsochatzis, MD, MSc, FEBTM, FRCP, PhD, Tu Vinh Luong, MD, FRCPATH, Antonio Di Sabatino, MD, Hendrik-Tobias Arkenau, MD, PhD, FRCP and Giuseppe Fusai, MD. Biographies for all scientific advisors are available on Engitix’s website here.

Engitix also recently expanded its leadership team with the appointment of Matthew Edwards, Ph.D., as Senior Vice President of Discovery Sciences, and Emma Huang, Ph.D., as Vice President of Data Sciences.

Notes to Editors:

About Engitix Ltd

Engitix is progressing a portfolio of internal and partnered drug discovery programmes in fibrosis and solid tumours using its pioneering human extracellular matrix (ECM) platform. Engitix patient-centric ECM platform is underpinned by an extensive bioarchive, one of the world’s largest ECM databases, and best-in-class, human in vitro 3-D cell culture bioassays. Together, these unique capabilities transform its ability to identify new targets and biomarkers, investigate novel mechanisms of action, and more accurately predict the efficacy of therapeutic candidates. It has a strategic drug discovery partnership with Dompé farmaceutici where Engitix’s internal drug development programmes are being accelerated by leveraging Dompé’s AI-enabled high performance computing platform, Exscalate, and drug discovery and development collaborations with Takeda in advanced fibrotic liver diseases, including metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), and in fibrostenotic Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Established to commercialise cutting-edge research from the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, Division of Medicine, University College London (UCL), Engitix is headquartered in Westworks, White City Place, London, UK. It has raised more than $60m in equity from investors including Netherton Investments (a fund investing on behalf of Mike Platt) and Dompé farmaceutici S.P.A.

For more information, please visit www.engitix.com

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For more information:

At the Company
Giuseppe Mazza, CEO
E: giuseppe.mazza@engitix.com

Media enquiries (for Engitix)
Sue Charles, Charles Consultants
T: +44 7986 726585
E: sue@charles-consultants.com