OMass Therapeutics Expands Leadership Team with Two New Appointments

• Appointment of two senior executives in newly created roles
• Peter Phillips M.D., Ph.D. joins as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development and Julia Sampson Ph.D. joins as Vice President of Non-clinical Development

Oxford, United Kingdom – 02 August 2023 – OMass Therapeutics (‘OMass’, or ‘the Company’), a biotechnology company that identifies medicines against highly validated target ecosystems, today announces the expansion of its leadership team with the appointment of two senior executives in newly created roles.  Peter Phillips M.D., Ph.D. has joined as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development and Julia Sampson Ph.D. as Vice President of Non-clinical Development.

“Both Peter and Julia have a huge amount of experience in taking programs from preclinical through to clinical development and I am hugely excited about what they will bring to the OMass team,” said Ros Deegan, CEO of OMass Therapeutics. “With our solid financial backing and new expanded facilities, we are growing our team strategically as we advance our pipeline of exciting early-stage assets in immunology and rare diseases. The addition of Peter and Julia will aid us in the next phase of the OMass journey, as our pipeline continues to progress towards the clinic and ultimately, bring benefit for patients.”

Dr. Phillips brings over 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry, predominantly in early phase immunology, immuno-oncology and respiratory therapeutic areas. Most recently, he was VP, Clinical Lead for Early Development Programmes at Evelo Biosciences where he led the company’s first bacterial extracellular vesicle program to clinical development in psoriasis. Prior to this, he held senior clinical development roles at the UCL spin-out company, NovalGen as well as UCB, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer. Earlier in his career, he was a practising physician in Respiratory and General Medicine in the NHS having trained at Cambridge University and the Royal London Hospital. He is a Member of the Royal College of Physician (MRCP) and has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Imperial College, London. 

Dr. Sampson brings more than two decades of experience in pharmaceutical safety risk assessment covering small molecules, biologics and botanicals. In her most recent role at Kalvista Pharmaceuticals, she was responsible for strategy, leadership, recruitment and management of the non-clinical safety assessment team, leading toxicology, safety pharmacology and DMPK functions. Previously, she worked at AstraZeneca, Shire Pharmaceuticals, OSI Pharmaceuticals and GW Pharmaceuticals, and has experience in multiple disease areas, including rare diseases, central nervous system, respiratory, gastrointestinal and metabolic disease. Dr. Sampson has a B.Sc. in Applied Biological Sciences from Manchester Metropolitan University and gained her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Pharmacognosy from the London School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK under a CASE award with GlaxoGroup Research.

OMass moved to a new purpose-built 16,000ft² facilities on the ARC Oxford campus earlier this year and has expanded over the past 12 months, bringing its headcount to 59 employees. It has raised over $160M (£129M) from a top-tier international investor syndicate, which has allowed the company to continue to progress its pipeline and build the infrastructure required to become a fully integrated biotechnology company.

About OMass Therapeutics

OMass Therapeutics is a biotechnology company discovering medicines against highly-validated target ecosystems, such as membrane proteins or intracellular complexes. The company’s unique OdyssION™ technology platform comprises novel biochemistry techniques, next-generation native mass spectrometry, and custom chemistry. This allows OMass to interrogate not just the target, but also the interaction of the target with its native ecosystem, separate from the confounding complexity of the cell. The result is cell-system fidelity with cell-free precision. OMass is advancing a pipeline of small molecule therapeutics in rare diseases and immunological conditions, that target solute carriers, complex-bound proteins, and GPCRs.

Headquartered in Oxford, UK, OMass has raised over $160M (£129M) from a top-tier international investor syndicate, including Syncona, Oxford Science Enterprises, GV, Northpond Ventures, Sanofi Ventures and British Patient Capital.

To learn more, please visit www.omass.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.