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.”