CRT appoints Director of Discovery

Dr Ryder has more than 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, most recently as director of drug discovery at Almirall. He will lead operations at CRT’s Development Laboratories and oversee the continuing expansion of the staff and facilities. He will report to Dr Keith Blundy, Chief Executive of CRT.

The Development Laboratories are a key feature of CRT’s business, enabling the company to add value to projects in-licensed from its parent organisation, Cancer Research UK, as well as other academic and industry partners. The current expansion plans will see the number of scientific staff double from around 45 to 90 by mid-2009.

Increasing the capacity of the labs will help meet growing demand and, in particular, enable projects to be completed more quickly, ensuring potential therapeutics are developed as soon as possible. It will consolidate CRT’s leading position in translational cancer drug discovery and biotherapeutic development.

Commenting on the appointment, Dr Blundy said: “This is an extremely exciting period of growth for CRT. I’m delighted that Hamish Ryder will be joining us as director of discovery. He has a great depth of experience of drug discovery in several therapeutic areas, including oncology at Xenova, and has successfully reorganised and expanded Almirall’s discovery capability.”

In addition to the appointment of Dr Ryder, CRT has created a position of Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) which also reports to Dr Blundy. Dr Clive Stanway, whose previous role included establishing and running the DL, will assume this new role which will involve the strategic development of the entire CRT project portfolio and the assessment of future technologies and project opportunities. He will also liaise with CRT Inc (CRT’s US subsidiary) and Cancer Therapeutics (CRT’s collaborating organisation in Australia) regarding project selection and development.

Dr Stanway said: “I’m sure Hamish will relish the challenge of overseeing the continuing growth of our scientific activities. We expect to generate many new partnering opportunities, providing leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies with exciting and novel opportunities to supplement their pipelines.”

Commenting on his new role, Dr Ryder said: “I’m delighted to be joining CRT at this critical and exciting stage of expansion. CRT provides a unique environment for drug discovery, drawing on world-class basic research funded by Cancer Research UK and having patient need as the sole driver. I’m looking forward to playing my part in building on the excellent team already in place and to contributing to the discovery of new treatments for cancer patients.”

Hamish Ryder is a drug discovery professional with 21 years experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector, working for Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Xenova and latterly Almirall. He has worked in the therapeutic areas of gastrointestinal disease, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s, oncology and, most recently, autoimmune and respiratory diseases. He has directed discovery programmes targeting proteases, ion channels, phophodiesterases, kinases and GPCRs.

His experience in oncology was obtained at Xenova where he led the MDR programme that discovered the p-glycoprotein inhibitor tarquidar. Tarquidar reached phase III trials in NSCLC, and is currently in phase II trials in combination with docetaxel.

Hamish spent 11 years as Director of Discovery at Almirall, successfully reorganising and driving the expansion from 55 to almost 150 internal Discovery staff. In this period more than 25 drug candidates were forwarded to development, many of them reaching efficacy trials in humans. He made key contributions to the discovery and development of aclidinium bromide, a once-daily inhaled muscarinic antagonist, currently well advanced in phase III trials for COPD and a key element in Almirall’s recent IPO.

Hamish is author/inventor on over 50 peer-reviewed articles and patent applications.