Mogrify appoints Dr Jonathan Appleby as chief scientific officer
July 15, 2024 – Clinical Trials, Drug Discovery, Other, Pharmaceutical – Mogrify, appointments, cell and gene therapies, rare diseases
Strategic hire bolsters executive leadership team as company progresses multiple therapeutic programmes toward and into clinical development
15 July 2024 – Cambridge, UK – Mogrify, a regenerative medicine company developing a novel class of in vivo reprogramming therapies for diseases with high unmet clinical need, announces the appointment of Dr Jonathan Appleby as chief scientific officer. With decades of industry experience in translating both conventional and advanced therapeutic medicines, Jon will lead advancement of the company’s therapeutic programmes in areas including otology, ophthalmology and diabetes toward and into clinical development.
Dr Appleby is an accomplished medicines developer, having operated in all phases of therapeutic development from discovery to commercial launch. He joins Mogrify from the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, where he was executive director and chief scientific officer, and led the R&D group focused on ATMP manufacturing processes and analytical development for five years. Prior to this, Dr Appleby was CSO for Cell and Gene Therapy in GSK’s Rare Diseases Unit, where he led the team that developed Strimvelis, the multi-award-winning and first autologous paediatric CD34+ stem cell gene therapy to be approved for commercial use. He also led for two years the ARSA gene therapy, which was later out-licensed to Orchard Therapeutics and recently approved as Lenmeldy.
Dr Appleby previously held the position of director and portfolio manager at the GSK Centre of Excellence for External Drug Development, where he discovered, in-licensed and developed new technologies and assets across a broad range of therapeutic areas. He graduated from the University of Leeds, UK, with an honours degree in Genetics and a PhD from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Dr Darrin M Disley OBE, CEO, Mogrify, said “We are thrilled to welcome Jon to the Mogrify Executive Team. Following a comprehensive global search that considered experienced medicine makers from across the cell and gene therapy paradigm, Jon’s particular expertise in advancing innovative and first-in-class medicines for patients with limited treatment options makes him the ideal candidate for leading Mogrify’s pipeline of novel in vivo reprogramming therapies through pre-clinical translation and into first in-human studies.”
Dr Jon Appleby, chief scientific officer, Mogrify, added: “Mogrify’s proprietary platform for identifying and optimising transcription factor combinations capable of directly reprogramming cell function in vivo has the potential to address many diseases. Our multi-talented team has done incredible work in leveraging the technology to bring forward a portfolio of potentially transformative medicines. I am delighted to join them as we break new ground with an approach that combines the potential of both cell therapy and gene therapy in one novel regenerative modality.”
For further information about Mogrify’s team, please visit: www.mogrify.co.uk/team/leadership-team/
About Mogrify
Mogrify has developed a proprietary suite of platform technologies that utilise big data and advanced computational modelling to enable direct cellular reprogramming and the maintenance of cell identity. The platforms, MOGRIFY and epiMOGRIFY, developed over a 12-year period via a multi-national research collaboration, deploy next-generation sequencing, gene regulatory and epigenetic network data to enable the prediction of the transcription factors and growth factors required to produce any target human cell type from any source human cell type. The platforms can be used to enhance existing stem-cell forward programming methods, or bypass development pathways altogether, affecting a direct transdifferentiation between a mature cell type to another mature cell type. Mogrify is applying its proprietary and award-winning platforms to generate the functional cell types required to transform the lives of patients, by delivering a novel class of in vivo reprogramming therapies across otology, ophthalmology, diabetes and other areas of disease with a high unmet medical need. Uniquely positioned to address a regenerative medicine market estimated to be worth £120bn ($150bn) by 2028, Mogrify is commercialising its technology via a combination of in vivo reprogramming therapy development, co-development partnerships, as well as the exploitation of the platform in other therapeutic and non-therapeutic applications.
Based in Cambridge, UK, the company has raised over £37m ($49m) funding from Parkwalk, Ahren Innovation Capital, 24Haymarket, Trend Investment Group, Dr Darrin M Disley OBE, Dr Jonathan Milner and the University of Bristol Enterprise Fund III, as well as strategic investors; Astellas Venture Management. Visit: www.mogrify.co.uk.
