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Pioneers in
science

Motivated to
change lives

PYC Therapeutics is a drug-development company offering a new generation of RNA therapeutics to meet unmet need in disease.

We have world-leading RNA targeted therapeutics design capabilities which are supported by our revolutionary delivery technology based on Cell Penetrating Peptides (CPPs) to overcome the ‘delivery challenge’ in genomic therapies.

Our differentiated drug delivery capability and RNA drug design experts means we have the skills and means to discover and develop RNA-targeted therapeutics in a truly innovative way. We have three defined preclinical programs for Inherited Retinal Diseases, and a strong focus on Central Nervous System diseases.

Guided by world-class scientists and business leaders who are at the forefront of innovation in their fields, our team has significant experience in the biotechnology sector.

Pioneers in RNA therapeutics, combined with a proprietary delivery technology

Our life-changing science is based on combining our platform technologies: Our proprietry Cell-Penetrating Peptide technology and our PMO-design technology (PPMOs).

Our dedicated team of international scientists are guided by our Chief Scientific Officer, Professor Sue Fletcher, a pioneer in RNA therapies who co-invented Exondys-51, Vyondys-53 and Casimerson (commercialized by Sarepta).

We are harnessing a new generation of RNA-targeted therapeutics called PPMOs to develop precise and highly effective treatments for disease.

Our people

Executive Leadership Board of Directors Scientific Advisory Board

Sahm Nasseri

Incoming Chief Executive Officer (USA)

About Sahm:

Sahm Nasseri holds an extensive background in commercial drug development from his roles over the past 7 years while in the USA with Merck & Co, one of the world’s leading global biopharma companies. In that time, Sahm has built experience leading product teams and commercial strategy across a range of therapeutic areas, modalities and geographies as well as within Merck’s investor relations and business development functions. Prior to Merck, Sahm was a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Sydney. He holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering with Honours from the University of New South Wales and an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York City.

Sue Fletcher

PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

About Sue:

In addition to her role as Chief Scientific Officer at PYC, Professor Sue Fletcher is a Senior principal Research Fellow at Murdoch University.

Sue obtained a BSc in Zoology and Chemistry at the University of Zimbabwe and a PhD in Physiology at the University of Western Australia. Professor Fletcher’s research at The University of Western Australia and Australian Neuromuscular Research Institute (currently the Perron Institute) was as a molecular biologist, studying muscle regeneration and developing therapies for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Professor Fletcher together with Prof. Steve Wilton pioneered the development of a novel therapy for the devastating childhood disorder, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, through the design of antisense oligonucleotide therapies.

In 2016, the USA Food and Drug Administration gave accelerated approval to one of Prof. Fletcher and Prof. Wilton’s compounds, called Exondys-51 (previously Eteplirsen). This is the first dystrophin restoring drug of its type ever approved by the FDA. This has been followed by a second compound, Vyondys-53 (previously Golodirsen), gaining approval in 2019, for the treatment of a different sub-type of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Prof. Fletcher continues her Neuromuscular research alongside research in other muscle diseases, neurodegenerative disease and Inherited Retinal Dystrophies.

Glenn Noronha

PhD

Chief Development Officer (USA)

About Glenn:

Glenn Noronha has held leadership positions for over 20 years at pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including three start-ups. Most recently, at BridgeBio Pharma, Inc., Glenn was Chief Scientific Officer at BridgeBio owned companies Fortify Therapeutics and Retinagenix Therapeutics, and Head of Translational Medicine at Navire Pharma. At Fortify and Retinagenix, he led R&D for therapies targeting ocular pathologies that are genetic in origin, traversing both preclinical and clinical development; and at Navire, he interfaced across clinical, pharmacokinetics and biomarker efforts in an oncology program. Previously, he served as Chief Scientific Officer at Clearside Biomedical, Inc, a company that focused on ophthalmology. There, he led overall R&D strategy including clinical and regulatory strategy and development from Phase 1 through Phase 3 trials, resulting in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) New Drug Application (NDA) for the lead program in uveitis. He was also one of the three executives who took Clearside public in 2016. Prior, Glenn was Head of R&D at Sucampo Pharma Americas and Chief Scientific Officer at JW Therapeutics. As Global Lead for Retina Development at Alcon, subsequently part of Novartis, Glenn led six ophthalmology programs from candidate nomination through clinical development and approval. Prior, he played a key role in developing the oncology and ophthalmology programs at TargeGen.

Glenn has overseen end-to-end development in ophthalmology — his experiences include programs in macular degeneration, diabetic eye disease, venous occlusive disease, and uveitis, in addition to programs in oncology, and experience in gastrointestinal (GI) and CNS diseases. His experience spans small molecules, biologics and gene therapies, including programs in rare diseases in ophthalmology. He has involvement with the development of four approved drugs. He has deep experience with health and ethics bodies, and regulatory agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency, in addition to regulatory bodies in Asia. He has over 25 issued and pending patents.

Rohan Hockings

MBBS (Hons) JD GDLP

Chief Executive Officer (Australia)

About Rohan:

Rohan Hockings holds double degrees in medicine and law. He has worked across both disciplines following an internship at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and admission to practice in the Supreme Court of Victoria respectively.

He spent four years with McKinsey & Company and a further two years in the Private Equity industry before joining PYC Therapeutics. Rohan brings a deep affinity for conceptual thinking to PYC Therapeutics along with an understanding of the company’s technology and its commercialisation path.

Kaggen Ausma

Chief Business Officer

About Kaggen:

Kaggen Ausma holds double degrees in Law and Economics. Before joining PYC Therapeutics, Kaggen spent 4 years at McKinsey and Company across Australia, Asia, and the US where he focused on corporate strategy, venture capital, private equity, and technology in many sectors including life sciences. Kaggen has also held a role in the Economics team at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, a sell-side institutional broking firm based in Hong Kong.

Paula Cunningham

Vice President of Research and Development

About Paula:

Paula holds a PhD in Microbiology, a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Genetics with Honors in Microbiology and a Masters in Environmental Science. She is an experienced scientist with excellent analytical, project management and team building skills. Paula has a strong background in molecular genetics, cell biology and immunology, with specific expertise in allergy and cancer research.

Her research interests focus on the development of highly efficient delivery methods for gene therapies of disease with specific emphasis on inherited retinal diseases. Prior to working at PYC Therapeutics, Paula was Group Leader of Bioassay Development for Phylogica Limited and a Senior Research Officer for Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, Western Australia.

Chris McFarlane

Vice President – Strategy and Operations (Australia Office)

About Chris:

Chris McFarlane holds a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours in Mechanical Engineering and a
Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics. Before joining PYC Therapeutics, Chris was a Senior
Manager at Bain & Company, where he spent six years consulting for clients across the globe with a
focus on performance improvement and strategy. He is an experienced leader of high performing
teams and has strong intellectual curiosity.

Alan Tribe

Chairman

About Alan:

Mr Tribe has a background in the accounting profession both in the UK and Australia. Moving into industry he became the Managing Director of a group of companies with interests in natural resources in Australia and overseas. The group also included a technology company which grew through both successful product development and acquisitions.

He was closely involved in establishing subsidiary operations in the USA, UK and Singapore to access markets worldwide.
Most recently he was the catalyst for the development for large retail operations in Western and South Australia.

Mr Tribe will contribute his broad experience in successfully commercialising technology internationally. He represents a large shareholding in PYC Therapeutics.

Sahm Nasseri

Incoming Chief Executive Officer (USA)

About Sahm:

Sahm Nasseri holds an extensive background in commercial drug development from his roles over the past 7 years while in the USA with Merck & Co, one of the world’s leading global biopharma companies. In that time, Sahm has built experience leading product teams and commercial strategy across a range of therapeutic areas, modalities and geographies as well as within Merck’s investor relations and business development functions. Prior to Merck, Sahm was a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Sydney. He holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering with Honours from the University of New South Wales and an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York City.

Rohan Hockings

MBBS (Hons) JD GDLP

Chief Executive Officer (Australia)

About Rohan:

Rohan Hockings holds double degrees in medicine and law. He has worked across both disciplines following an internship at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and admission to practice in the Supreme Court of Victoria respectively.

He spent four years with McKinsey & Company and a further two years in the Private Equity industry before joining PYC Therapeutics. Rohan brings a deep affinity for conceptual thinking to PYC Therapeutics along with an understanding of the company’s technology and its commercialisation path.

Bernard Hockings

RFD, MD, MBBS, FRACP, FCSANZ, GAICD

Non-Executive Director

About Bernard:

Dr Hockings was previously an interventional cardiologist and Clinical Associate Professor in Medicine at the University of Western Australia. Past appointments have included Director of the Coronary Care Unit at Royal Perth Hospital, Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee Mount Hospital, Director of the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory St John of God Hospital Bunbury and Director of Health Reserves (WA) for the Royal Australian Air Force.

Dr Hockings has previously served on the board of the WA branch of the National Heart Foundation.

Dr Hockings has a lifelong interest in medical research. His doctoral thesis concerned vasodilator therapy in the treatment of heart failure.

Dr Hockings is a major shareholder in PYC Therapeutics.

Fred Chen

PhD

Scientific Advisory

About Fred:

Fred Chen is the head of Ocular Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the Lions Eye Institute, Perth, Western Australia. He was awarded a PhD in cell transplantation for the treatment of retinal diseases in 2010 from the University College of London after completing a double fellowship training in surgical and medical retina at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. He returned to Perth in 2010 to join Lions Eye Institute as a clinician academic with a focus on diagnosis and treatment of inherited retinal diseases and macular degeneration.

Dr Chen has over 10 years of experience in clinical and translational research in the field of retinal disease diagnosis and treatment. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed journal articles and several book chapters and has been invited to speak at national international conferences on the topic of retinal imaging, retinal diseases and stem cells. He has previously served on the Board of Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia and is a section editor for the journal, Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.

Dr Chen has a broad network of research collaborators extending across medical subspecialties, optical engineering, computer science, stem cell biology, material science, and clinical trials. He has been a principal and associate investigator for over 20 industry-sponsored trials and served on image grading panel, and data safety and monitoring committees. With his clinical, surgical and research background, Fred brings his ophthalmic and clinical trials expertise to facilitate Phylogica’s direction towards developing novel retinal therapeutics.

Judy Lieberman

MD, PhD

Scientific Advisory

About Judy:

Judy Lieberman, MD, Ph.D, holds a Chair in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, is Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and is Chair of the Executive Committee of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. She earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Rockefeller University and worked as a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Fermilab, received an M.D. from Harvard and MIT, did a postdoctoral fellowship in immunology in the Cancer Center at MIT and worked as hematologist/oncologist at Tufts Medical Center.

Her laboratory has been in the forefront of developing RNAi-based therapeutics and using RNAi for genome-wide screening. They were the first to show that siRNAs could be used to treat disease in vivo and to develop cell-targeted RNAs.

The Lieberman laboratory has developed strategies for cell-specific siRNAs that knockdown gene expression in vivo in T lymphocytes and cancer cells. They also investigate the role of microRNAs in regulating cell differentiation and cancer. This laboratory also studies cytotoxic T lymphocytes and their role in immune protection from infection and cancer.

Dr. Lieberman served as the Chair of the Medical Sciences section and on the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She has received numerous awards for her research on vaccines, immunology and cancer. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Rakesh N. Veedu

MSc, PhD, MRACI

Scientific Advisory

About Rakesh:

Rakesh N. Veedu completed his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry in early 2006 from the University of Queensland (UQ) after completing MSc in Clinical Microbiology from Griffith University in mid-2002. Later, he joined the Nucleic Acid Centre, University of Southern Denmark as a Danish National Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (2006-2010) under Professor Jesper Wengel.

In June 2010, he returned to UQ where he established the first research group in Nucleic Acids Chemical Biology with an independent research grant. In 2015, Dr Veedu moved to Murdoch University and Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science as a McCusker Foundation Fellow and a Laboratory Head of Precision Nucleic Acid Theranostics research group within the Centre of Molecular Medicine and Innovative Therapeutics. Dr Veedu is also appointed as an Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Southern Denmark (2017-2022), and also at School of Pharmacy, University of Queensland (2018 – 2021).

Dr Veedu has over 13 years’ experience in basic and translational research in the field of oligonucleotide therapeutic development, including the design, chemical synthesis and evaluation of various chemically-modified splice modulating antisense oligonucleotides (AOs). He has published >84 journal articles, 1 book, three book chapters, and guest edited 3 journal special issues including “Antisense Oligonucleotide Chemistry and Applications” in the journal Molecules. With industry & philanthropic funding, he has recently developed two potential splice modulating AO drug molecules for the treatment of diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration, and for the treatment of type-2 diabetes. Dr Veedu has an extensive network of research collaborators in various countries across industry and academia in the field of oligonucleotide drug development.

Stephen Doberstein

BSChE, PhD

Scientific Advisory

About Stephen:

Steve Doberstein joined Nektar Therapeutics in January 2010 as Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer to lead all aspects of the company’s drug discovery research.

Dr. Doberstein has over 17 years of experience in biotechnology research and development, and prior to joining Nektar Therapeutics was Vice President of Research at XOMA (NASDAQ:XOMA) where he was responsible for directing the discovery and development of their drug candidates, including antibody discovery and support of clinical development through non-clinical safety, translational medicine and
pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics.

Dr. Doberstein also served as Vice President, Research at Five Prime Therapeutics (NASDAQ:FPRX), a protein and antibody discovery and development company where he built and led a high performance discovery research and process development group.
While at Five Prime, he established programs resulting in multiple strategic alliances with pharmaceutical partners, built a strong proprietary pipeline, and moved multiple product candidates from concept to pre-IND stages in diabetes, oncology, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Prior to working with Five Prime, Dr. Doberstein was Vice President, Research at Xencor (NASDAQ:XNCR), an antibody and protein engineering and development company. At Xencor, he was instrumental in advancing its protein platform technologies and preclinical product candidates.

Dr. Doberstein received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and completed his postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley. Earlier in his career, Dr. Doberstein held a variety of engineering roles at DuPont after receiving his B.S.Ch.E. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware.

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