Belharra Therapeutics Announces Appointment of Sean Buchanan, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer and Retirement of Gary O’Neill, Ph.D.
- Dr. Buchanan will helm Belharra’s research organization as the company progresses its lead immunology and oncology programs, advances activities with its pharma collaborators, and enriches its Searchlight™ chemoproteomics platform
SAN MATEO, Calif. and SAN DIEGO, Jan. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Belharra Therapeutics, a next-generation chemoproteomics company transforming small molecule drug discovery by illuminating binding pockets on elusive, high-value drug targets across the proteome, today announced the appointment of Sean Buchanan, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). Dr. Buchanan, who previously served as Senior Vice President, Head of Biology at Belharra, assumed leadership of the company’s research organization upon the concurrent, planned retirement of Gary O’Neill, Ph.D., the company’s founding CSO. Dr. O’Neill will continue to serve as a senior advisor to Belharra.
“We are thrilled to announce Sean Buchanan’s appointment as Belharra’s new CSO. His ascension to this role is a natural evolution based on the significant impact he has had scientifically, strategically, operationally, and culturally at Belharra,” said Jeff Jonker, Chief Executive Officer at Belharra. “I look forward to Sean’s skillful leadership and close collaboration as we continue to advance our lead internal oncology and immunology programs, progress the exciting activities underway with our pharma partners, and enrich our Searchlight™ chemoproteomics platform.”
Mr. Jonker continued, “I am profoundly grateful to Gary O’Neill for his immeasurable contributions to Belharra. Gary established our research organization and solidified it with his wealth of experience as a seasoned biotech executive and his expertise as a talented people leader. By balancing long-term vision and near-term pragmatism, Gary skillfully laid the groundwork that will enable us to grow and thrive as we advance our mission on behalf of patients. We look forward to Gary’s continued impact as a senior advisor, and we wish him all the best in his well-deserved and no doubt hugely productive retirement.”
Dr. Buchanan commented, “I’m very excited to embark on this new journey as CSO, working with my talented colleagues at Belharra, as we build on the firm scientific foundation Gary established as my predecessor. 2025 will be a pivotal year for Belharra as we see the novel insights that we’ve uncovered through our uniquely unbiased chemoproteomics screening capabilities translate to investigational medicines with groundbreaking potential to help patients in need.”
Prior to joining Belharra, Dr. Buchanan served as Executive Director of Cancer Therapeutics at Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), where he was responsible for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) San Diego Oncology Drug Discovery portfolio. Prior to Novartis, Dr. Buchanan was at Eli Lilly for over a decade, serving in various roles and contributing to multiple cancer medicines and drug candidates. He began his industry career in 1999 at SGX Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Eli Lilly in 2008), where he led the biology team.
Dr. Buchanan received his Ph.D. and Master’s degrees in Biochemistry at Cambridge University in the UK and did his post-doctoral research in Molecular Genetics at University of California San Diego.
About Belharra Therapeutics
Belharra Therapeutics, Inc. is a next-generation chemoproteomics company developing a pipeline of first-in-class and best-in-class small molecule therapeutics for well validated targets in oncology and immunology. We aim to transform non-covalent small molecule drug discovery by illuminating binding pockets on elusive, high-value targets across the proteome using our proprietary Searchlight™ screening platform.
Complementing our internal discovery efforts, we partner with industry-leading companies, lending the power of our platform to find new starting points for groundbreaking medicines targeting partner-identified proteins across all disease areas while growing the platform’s datasets.
Belharra’s primary lab and offices are in San Diego, California, with an additional presence in the San Francisco Bay Area. To learn more, please visit www.belharratx.com.
Contacts:
Liz Melone
(617) 256-6652
liz@melonecomm.com
Jessi Rennekamp
jessi@astriorcomms.com
