Cancer Research Horizons appoints Therapeutic Innovation board to drive drug discovery strategy

Cancer Research Horizons, the innovation arm of Cancer Research UK, has appointed Carlos Garcia-Echeverria, Katharina Kreymborg and Karen Lackey as the first members of its Therapeutic Innovation board to steer its drug discovery strategy. 

Therapeutic Innovation is Cancer Research Horizons’ drug discovery division. From target identification to candidate drug nomination, Therapeutic Innovation’s scientists collaborate with academic and industrial partners to progress promising ideas, de-risk assets and bring projects to their next value inflection point.  

The new board members’ experience across academia and the biopharma industry brings a fresh perspective to reshape Cancer Research Horizons’ drug discovery strategy. 

Carlos Garcia-Echeverria has led drug discovery and development teams across the biopharma industry, including at EQRx, Sanofi and Novartis. 

Carlos Garcia-Echeverria says: “After three decades of working in drug discovery and development in pharma, it is an honour to join the board of Therapeutic Innovation, support its mission and bring real hope to cancer patients and their families by advancing effective, safe and affordable new medicines.” 

Katharina Kreymborg, SVP at Curie.Bio, brings perspectives on drug development from big pharma, biotech and venture capital. 

Katharina Kreymborg says: “Drug development is the successful fusion of many different disciplines. I am excited to support the purposeful orchestration of scientific innovation, technical rigour and commercial potential at Cancer Research Horizons for the benefit of patients.” 

Karen Lackey, CEO of X-Chem, brings over 30 years of leadership in drug discovery with previous roles at Roche, GSK, and Evotec.  

Karen Lackey says: “Therapeutic Innovation has an enormous scientific pool of opportunities to impact cancer treatments. We are here to help shape the drug discovery efforts into a high-quality pipeline of drug candidate molecules.” 

The new members join the inaugural chair of the board, Curie.Bio co-founder and CSO Christoph Lengauer, who was appointed in 2023.  

Christoph Lengauer says: “Having worked across academia, biotech, big pharma and venture capital, our new board members have the experience and contacts needed to help Cancer Research Horizons accelerate the discovery, development, and commercialisation of new therapeutics.” 

Cancer Research Horizons’ strategy focuses on generating a portfolio of projects, through engagement with its world-class network of academic science, to yield a steady flow of small molecule and antibody-based candidates for further drug development. The new approach will align priorities, resources and partnerships to accelerate the translation of the most promising approaches into new therapies for people with cancer.  

Hamish Ryder, CEO of Therapeutic Innovation at Cancer Research Horizons, says: “Karen, Katharina and Carlos have fantastic experience and will be vital to building on Therapeutic Innovation’s track record by helping reshape and drive our drug discovery strategy. Our aim is to progress promising approaches to candidates faster, because patient benefit is a function of speed as well as quality of the underlying science.” 

ENDS 

About Carlos Garcia-Echeverria  

Dr Carlos Garcia-Echeverria is an accomplished drug discovery scientist and pharma executive, focused on bringing new and effective therapies to patients in need. 

Carlos has provided scientific leadership to drug discovery and early clinical development teams across different modalities and diseases most recently at EQRx as chief of Rx Creation, Sanofi as chief operating officer of Research and Novartis as executive director, Oncology Drug Discovery Head. Carlos also has broad experience in managing research partnerships with biotech companies and academic institutions. His research accomplishments are documented by 190 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and review papers, 45 granted patents and over 40 IND filings. 

Carlos holds a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Barcelona and received the Leonidas Zerwas Award from the European Peptide Society in recognition of his outstanding contributions to peptide science. Carlos is a member of the scientific advisory boards of several biotech companies in Europe, USA and China. 

About Katharina Kreymborg 

Dr Katharina (Nina) Kreymborg is an experienced drug discovery scientist. Her professional passion is turning exciting scientific ideas and novel concepts into actual drugs. Nina held different positions in big pharma, biotech and venture capital, allowing her to experience and understand this journey from very different perspectives.  

Nina trained as a cancer immunotherapist in Jim Allison’s lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and subsequently joined pharma research and early clinical development at Roche. At Roche, and later at Morphosys, she led and supported multiple projects at different stages between target assessment and early clinical development, including targeted cytokines, T-cell engagers, checkpoint inhibitors, and myeloid activators. Most recently, Nina acted as an investor and company builder, identifying promising therapeutic concepts and building biotech start-up companies from the ground at Versant Ventures and now at Curie.Bio. In her current role, she works closely with founders to transform exciting scientific ideas into novel therapeutics for patients’ benefit.

About Karen Lackey 

Karen Lackey is the chief executive officer of X-Chem, a company dedicated to deliver on the promise of a leading small molecule drug discovery partner with unmatched excellence in DNA-encoded library technology, discovery chemistry with advanced computational platforms, and ArtemisAI. Karen's career of over 30 years encompasses international leadership roles within pharma (GSK, Roche), academia (MUSC, UA), biotech (including PyramidBio, BlinkBio, Centauri, Aurobac), and most recently as head of Integrated Drug Discovery at Evotec. She is a passionate drug hunter, playing a pivotal role in the discovery of Tykerb, and contributing to the advancement of numerous clinical candidates and launched drugs. Throughout her distinguished career, Karen has been at the forefront of integrated drug discovery, spanning diverse areas such as medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, biochemistry, discovery biology, pharmacology, DMPK, and the application and integration of new technologies.

About Christoph Lengauer 

As a principal investigator at the Vogelstein lab, Johns Hopkins University, Christoph helped identify several cancer genes, some of which are targets of approved drugs. After heading up drug discovery departments at Sanofi and Novartis, he became chief scientific officer of Blueprint Medicines and co-founded several other biotechs. In 2022 he cofounded Curie.Bio, a new model for venture capital in biotech focused on helping founders launch serious therapeutics companies.  

Cancer Research Horizons is the innovation engine of Cancer Research UK – the world's largest charitable funder of cancer research. We bring together world-leading minds, bold ideas and the right partners to bridge the gap between academic research and taking drugs to market. We focus on the tougher, more profound ideas that can lead to true innovation, translating them into effective treatments and diagnostics for cancer patients.   

To date, we've played an instrumental role in forming over 70 start-ups. We've helped bring 11 cancer drugs to market, borne out of Cancer Research UK's pioneering research. Through these drugs, we have enabled in excess of 6 million courses of treatment for cancer patients across the world.   

With access to Cancer Research UK's network of 4,000 exceptional researchers, and £400+ million of annual research spend, we're a powerful partner in the fight to conquer cancer. By uniting our commercial partnerships and therapeutic innovation capabilities, Cancer Research Horizons is uniquely placed to support translational funding, entrepreneurial development, licensing and collaboration, spinout creation, and offer a full spectrum of drug discovery and clinical capabilities.  

Every penny we make goes back into funding the next bold steps, to help bring forward the day when all cancers are conquered.  

For more information and to get in touch with the team, visit cancerresearchhorizons.com.