Team Autifony

Management Team
Charles H. Large, PhD
(Chief Executive Officer)

Charles Large received his first degree and PhD from the University of Bristol and has more than 20 years of experience of drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry. Before founding Autifony, he was Director of Molecular and Cellular Biology within the Neuroscience Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery at GlaxoSmithKline, and has worked on programs focused on schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, bipolar disorder, and major depression. He is an expert on drugs that modulate voltage gated ion channels and their application to neurological and psychiatric disorders. He has built up a reputation in the field of sodium channel blocking drugs, and has collaborated widely with academic groups. He has authored over 50 papers, book chapters and patents relating to ion channel modulators.

Giuseppe S. Alvaro, PhD
(Founder and Head of Drug Discovery)

Giuseppe Alvaro was previously a Director and Chemistry Leader within the Neuroscience Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery at GlaxoSmithKline. He obtained his PhD. in organic chemistry at the University of Bologna, where his research focused on the study of the reactivity and stereoselectivity of organometallic reagents for addition to chiral imines. Over the last 14 years, he has led programs focused on the identification of candidate molecules for CNS disorders and has acquired a deep understanding of the characteristics of small molecules essential for their development as pharmaceuticals. Dr Alvaro has an outstanding track record of identification of quality candidates that have successfully passed into the clinical phase. He is lead author and co-author of 55 articles and patents.

Peter Harris, BSc, MBBS
(Chief Medical Officer)

Peter Harris was previously VP oncology and renal medicine and site head for Genzyme Europe Research, responsible for EU clinical development of Genzyme's programmes through phase III and with global responsibility for translational research. Prior to that he was CMO at Algeta, Oslo, initiating the successful global registration study of Alpharadin, the only alpha emitter approved for marketing. Before gaining US drug development experience at Oxigene, in Boston, MA, he was Development Director at KuDOS in Cambridge UK, where he was responsible for the preclinical and clinical development of DNA repair inhibitors including olaparib. The FIH study of the latter resulted in that company's purchase by AstraZeneca in which earlier company he had previously been Head of Medical Affairs and chair of the global clinical operations group. His first industry appointment was within Roche where he oversaw the development of midazolam as well as a FIH study of a benzodiazepine antagonist. His major interest remains translational R&D.

Barbara Domayne-Hayman, DPhil.
(Chief Business Officer)

Barbara Domayne-Hayman brings a broad range of commercial experience, with many years of business development. Barbara was CEO of Stabilitech, a platform technology company, for over four years where she raised funding (including non-dilutive), and established twelve commercial collaborations. Previously she was Commercial Director at Arrow Therapeutics, an antiviral drug discovery and development company, until the company was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2007. Prior to Arrow, Barbara was Senior Business Development Manager at Celltech. She previously held senior international commercial strategy and marketing positions at Zeneca where she worked for over ten years. She holds a Sloan Fellowship from London Business School and has a BA and D.Phil in chemistry, from the University of Oxford.


Board Of Directors
John Berriman
(Non-Executive Chairman)

John Berriman is the Chairman of Heptares Therapeutics Ltd and past Chairman (now deputy Chairman) of Algeta ASA (OSE.ALGETA). He is also a non-executive director of Cytos AG (SW.CYTN) and ReNeuron Group PLC (L.RENE). Until its sale to Amgen in the spring of 2012 he was a director of MicroMet, Inc. (NASDAQ.MITI). Previously he was a director of Abingworth Management, an international healthcare venture capital firm, where he was involved in founding, financing and serving as a director of several biotechnology companies in Europe and the USA, many of which obtained listings on public stock exchanges. Prior to that, he spent 14 years with Celltech Group plc and was a member of its Board when it listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1994. He has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the London Business School.


Kate Bingham

Kate Bingham joined SVLS in 1991. Kate currently serves or has served on the boards of companies in the UK, US, Ireland, Sweden and Germany. She has been responsible for past investments in Alantos, Auxilium, ESBATech, EUSA, Hexagen, Kinetix, KuDOS, Leukosite, Mednova, Micromet, PowderMed, RespiVert and current investments including Autifony, Bicycle, Convergence and TopiVert. Prior to joining SVLS, Kate worked in business development for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company in Cambridge, MA and at Monitor Company, a strategy consulting firm. Kate has a first class degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University and graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA.



Maina Bhaman

Maina Bhaman is Director of Healthcare Investments at Imperial Innovations. Maina has led a number of investments in Imperial Innovations' healthcare portfolio including recent investments into Psioxus Therapeutics and Cellmedica . Maina currently serves on the board of Autifony Therapeutics, Cell Medica, Ixico, Psioxus Therapeutics and Topivert Pharma. Maina was also served on the board of Acrobot and Molecular Vision Ltd. Maina joined Innovations in 2006 and prior to that worked in the research and development team at Celltech (previously Oxford Glyco Sciences). Maina's experience includes Chimeric Therapies, a cell therapy start-up based in Philadelphia and GeneMedicine, a gene therapy company based in Houston, Tx. Maina has a BSc from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the Imperial Business School.



Elaine Jones

Elaine V. Jones, Ph.D. is an Executive Director, Venture Capital, with Pfizer Venture Investments. She is responsible for making and managing venture investments for Pfizer and currently manages the PVI investments in Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, Flexion Therapeutics, Merus, MIRNA Therapeutics, Neuronetics and TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals. Elaine brings 10 years of venture capital experience and a strong background in research and product assessment, built on her significant experience in pharmaceutical drug discovery and business development to the PVI team.

Elaine was a General Partner with EuclidSR Partners, where she was responsible for the fund's investments in Acurian, Fluidigm, InnaPhase and Targacept. Prior to joining ESR, Dr. Jones began her private equity career in 1999 at S.R. One, GlaxoSmithKline's venture fund, where she managed investments including Adolor, Avantium, Nucleonics, Scynexis and Vicuron. Previously, she served as Director of Scientific Licensing and was a research scientist in SmithKline Beecham. Dr. Jones is a graduate of Juniata College and received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh.

Atul Pande

Atul Pande, M.D., is President of Verity BioConsulting, an independent drug development consulting firm. Previously he was Senior Vice President and Senior Advisor, Pharmaceutical R&D at GlaxoSmithKline. For more than two decades he has been active in the development of many important CNS drugs while holding various senior roles in Pfizer R&D, Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert, and Lilly Research Laboratories. His experience includes pre-IND development, proof of concept to registration development, launch and lifecycle management in the areas of anxiety, depression, epilepsy, neuropathic pain, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury, and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Most recently he was also instrumental in the NDA and MAA submission and approval of medicines for asthma, COPD, HIV and cancer.

Atul is a psychiatrist and Fellow of several scientific societies. He began his career as a faculty member at the University of Michigan Medical School where his research focused on mood disorders. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and over 100 abstracts, book chapters, and book reviews

Scientific Advisory Board
Dr Tim Corn
(Chairman)

Dr Tim Corn is Chief Medical Officer at EUSA Pharma International, a division of Jazz Pharmaceuticals and also serves as Non-executive Director on the Boards of Circassia Limited and Reneuron plc.

Dr. Corn qualified in medicine at King's College Hospital, London after gaining a Master's degree in biochemistry from Imperial College. He became consultant and senior lecturer in neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, and is the author of more than forty scientific publications. Dr Corn has held senior positions at GlaxoWellcome, MSDRL, Athena Neuroscience, Elan and Zeneus as well as in the UK regulatory agency, and has played a key role in twenty regulatory approvals for products in the fields of neurology and oncology. He was elected Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine in 1996 and of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1998.

Prof. Frank Lin
(Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore )

Frank R. Lin, M.D. Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, Geriatric Medicine, Mental Health, and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Lin completed his medical education and residency in Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and his Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He completed further otologic fellowship training in Lucerne, Switzerland with Professors Thomas Linder and Ugo Fisch. Dr. Lin's clinical practice is dedicated to the medical and surgical management of otologic conditions, and his research is focused on studying questions at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology, and public health.

Prof. Bill Deakin
(University of Manchester)

Professor Bill Deakin graduated in Medicine at Leeds University having obtained with a 1st in Physiology on the way. He specialised in Psychiatry and joined the Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park, London, a MRC schizophrenia research unit. He was a MRC Training Fellow for 5 years and he obtained his PhD on the role of 5HT (serotonin) neurone pathways in rat behaviour.

Bill is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Manchester. His group have produced novel insights into molecular, neurotransmitter and cognitive mechanisms of psychosis, mood disorders and addictions. This has led to new treatment approaches in schizophrenia through research council and industry funding.

Bill is the experimental medicine lead of the UK Mental Health Research Network, a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Prof. David McAlpine
(UCL Ear Institute)

David McAlpine is Professor of Auditory Neuroscience at University College London, and Director of the UCL Ear Institute. Following undergraduate studies at the University of Western Australia, he read for his doctorate at Oxford University beforing moving to the MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham as an MRC Training Fellow. Following a short period as a lecturer at Sheffield University, he moved in to UCL in 1999, and has held the Directorship of the Ear Institute since 2006. In collaboration with the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital he have overseen the development of a translational research programme designed to ensure that basic scientific findings find their way to the clinic. His own research interests include investigations into brain mechanisms underlying spatial hearing, cochlear implantation and biological advances in hearing therapies including tinnitus.

Investors
Autifony Therapeutics Limited is a privately funded company. The main investors are:

SV Life Sciences

SV Life Sciences is a leading international life sciences venture capital firm. SVLS affiliated funds have been investing in life sciences companies since the early 1980s and the firm closed its first dedicated life sciences fund in 1994. The SVLS team manages five venture capital funds and a publicly traded investment trust with approximately $2 billion of capital under management. The firm employs a diversified strategy within life sciences in order to selectively capitalize on an expanding opportunity in biotech, medical devices and health-care services. SVLS has offices in Boston, London and San Francisco.

Imperial Innovations

Imperial Innovations was founded in 1986 as the technology transfer office of Imperial College London and was admitted to the AIM of the London Stock Exchange in 2006. Until 2011, Innovations invested only in companies based on intellectual property developed at Imperial College. In January of that year, the company raised 140 million to invest in businesses built on intellectual property developed at or associated with the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and University College London, in addition to Imperial College London. Since admission to AIM in 2006, we have raised over 200 million to invest in and grow technology and healthcare businesses based on pioneering academic research. Innovations have invested over 121 million in this time, and their portfolio of companies has raised over 408 million.

Pfizer Venture Investments

Pfizer Venture Investments (PVI), the venture capital arm of Pfizer Inc., was founded in 2004 and invests for return in areas of current or future strategic interest to Pfizer. As part of Worldwide Business Development, PVI seeks to remain at the forefront of life science advances, looking to identify and invest in emerging companies that are developing compounds and technologies that have the potential to enhance Pfizer's pipeline and shape the future of the pharmaceutical industry. PVI invests in companies at any stage of development, with a strong focus on growth stage opportunities and is actively seeking to make new investments in a broad array of healthcare related areas, including therapeutics, platform technologies, diagnostics, drug delivery, pharmaceutical services, healthcare IT, and other technologies impacting drug discovery and development.

Additional Funding
Additional Funding for Autifony has also been obtained from UCL Business and from The International Biotechnology Trust (IBT).

 

For anyone wondering how Autifony's drug works-

"AUT3, a Kv3.1 positive modulator, suppresses chronic noise-induced tinnitus in a rat model Jeremy G. Turner 1,2, Deb Larsen 1 , Charles Large 3 1 Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield IL, USA 2 Illinois College, Jacksonville IL USA 3 Autifony Therapeutics Limited, London, UK

Kv3.1 channels are voltage-gated potassium channels that enable fast repolarization of the neuronal action potential, and are essential for the high frequency, high fidelity firing of neurons in the auditory brainstem and midbrain. Altered activity of these neurons has been implicated in the generation of tinnitus induced by noise exposure. Furthermore, loss of Kv3 channel function has been observed shortly after noise exposure, which may contribute to the maladaptive plasticity leading to the emergence of tinnitus. In the current study, 20 Long Evans rats (and 10 sham controls) were exposed to a unilateral 116 dB, 16 kHz octave-band noise for one hour in order to induce temporary hearing loss and chronic tinnitus. Thirty days after the noise exposure, a subset of approximately half of the noiseexposed rats demonstrated deficits in auditory gap processing, consistent with the presence of tinnitus. All 30 rats were administered 30 and 60 mg/kg of AUT3 (a Kv3.1 positive modulator) and vehicle in a counterbalanced order, with 48-hours washout between treatments. Both the 30 and 60 mg/kg doses of AUT3 abolished evidence of tinnitus, while the drug had no effect on the behavior of control animals or noise-exposed animals without tinnitus. These results suggest that AUT3 has potential in the treatment of chronic tinnitus associated with noise-induced hearing loss."

 

Nice one Danny boy.

 

Thanks ^_^.

 

thanks danny

 

Just nice to know the people behind Autifony have excellent track records!

 

yes they look cute and nice 98% in marketing BUT i wish they make us all a miracle

 

I believe they will.

 

If you were to wager on current research models, which area do you think will repair ear damage first? Not tinnitus itself, I am referring to cellular repair of the ear to reverse damage. Who do you believe to be closest?

 

I can't answer that question. I seen the studies and nothing is concrete. Maybe 10 years from now.

 

Well I would love to hear any guess you may have. There are those that believe t is irreversible, even if the organ can be repaired.

 

Well, I can't comment as we won't know if regenerating hair cells, can cure tinnitus until it happens.

 

Regeneration is possible http://www.stemcellsresearch.tv/stem-cells/stem-cells-restore-toddlers-hearing.php

But why it is not more actual and in active focus I do not know...maybe because of strong hearing adds lobby, that would be destroyed if treatments like this begins to be often and available for wide population...

 

Autifony is developing and testing compounds that act on neurons in the central nervous system. The channel targeted by this drug is expressed at very high levels in auditory processing centers of the brainstem and midbrain. The drug mentioned here, AUT3, modifies the excitability of neurons in auditory processing centers of the brain. Hair cells, supporting cells and other cell types in the inner ear do not express the type of channel that is targeted by this drug. The logic is that tinnitus arises from hyperactivity in auditory processing regions of the brain and this drug might change excitability in a way that provides relief for tinnitus.

And I wouldn't hold your breath for hair cell regeneration. It's a tough problem to solve and we are likely many years away. The upside is that dozens of labs and several companies are hard at work on the problem. Even if they are successful, the benefit for tinnitus is difficult to predict. For one thing, a regenerated hair cell doesn't do much good if it can't "talk" to an auditory nerve fiber. Nerve fibers are the conduit that conveys acoustic signals from the hair cells to the brain. The dialog between a hair cell and a nerve fiber can only take place when they are very very very close to each other (a few microns). When hair cells are damaged or eliminated, nerve fibers retract like the power cord on a vacuum. So, regenerating cells in the adult inner ear is a major challenge in itself. The challenge is further compounded by the fact that the nerve fiber (if it hasn't died as well) has to be 'coaxed' back into position.