Vaccitech Appoints Bill Enright as New Chief Executive Officer
OXFORD, UK, August 27, 2019 / B3C newswire / — Vaccitech, a clinical-stage T cell immunotherapy company developing products to treat and prevent cancer and infectious diseases (ID), announced today that it has appointed Bill Enright as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Enright succeeds Tom Evans, MD who will make a planned transition to the role of Vaccitech’s Chief Scientific Officer.
Bill joins Vaccitech after an accomplished 11 years as CEO at Gaithersburg-based Altimmune Inc, a company developing novel immunotherapies and vaccines. He led Altimmune through a significant period of growth including a Series B financing, the acquisition of Immune Targeting Systems – a UK T-cell vaccine company – and taking the company public on NASDAQ through the acquisition of PharmAthene. Bill’s prior experience includes executive and management roles at GenVec (now Intrexon), Biotech Venture Management and Life Technologies Corporation (now ThermoFisher).
Dr. Andrew McLean, Vaccitech Board Member, Oxford Science Innovation, said “We’re incredibly excited to welcome Bill Enright to lead Vaccitech to build a world-leading T-cell induction immunotherapy company.”
“I am delighted to join Vaccitech during this exciting growth phase, ahead of pivotal Phase II data from its lead influenza program and several other key pipeline inflection points. I have been very impressed by the Company’s management team as well as its innovative T cell induction platform. I am looking forward to working with the team to drive the company through the next phase of its development.” said Bill Enright.
Having successfully built Vaccitech to a late clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, in his new role as CSO, Tom Evans MD, will focus more specifically on the science, research and development that underpin Vaccitech’s next generation T-cell induction products.
“We believe that Bill’s background and leadership skills are well suited to the Company’s next phase of development and are looking forward to welcoming him to the role. We are extremely grateful to Tom Evans under whose leadership the company has grown rapidly, with over 2000 participants currently in clinical trials. We look forward to Tom’s continuing involvement and excellent scientific leadership as Vaccitech’s CSO.” added Robin Wright, Vaccitech Chairman.
Vaccitech is a late-stage T cell immunotherapy company developing non-replicating viral vectors as vaccines to treat and prevent cancer and infectious diseases. The company’s proprietary technology platform, comprising Chimp Adenovirus Oxford (prime) and MVA (boost), is able to create high magnitude CD8+ and CD4+ T cell responses, which can be utilized to clear foreign pathogens and tumours. The Vaccitech prime-boost platform is licenced from the prestigious Jenner Institute for vaccine research at the University of Oxford. This platform has generated a robust pipeline of eight programmes (four of which are funded through partners). Vaccitech currently has a Phase 2b clinical programme for influenza and is poised to enter the clinic with HBV and HPV therapeutics. Vaccitech is also progressing other products funded by partners, including a Phase 2a study in prostate cancer and Phase 1 for MERS. Vaccitech is backed by leading investment institutions, including GV (formerly Google Ventures), Sequoia China and Oxford Sciences Innovation.
Contacts
Vaccitech
Pippa Rathbone
+44 (0) 1865 807 320
[email protected]
Scius Communications
Katja Stout
+44 (0) 7789435990
[email protected]
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Over the past 11 years, Chris has grown BioBuzz into a respected brand that is recognized for its community building, networking events and news stories about the local biotech industry. In addition, he runs a Recruiting and Marketing Agency that helps companies attract top talent through a blended model that combines employer branding and marketing services together with a high powered recruiting solution.
