Ikarovec is a pre-clinical phase gene therapy company. Our programmes are aimed at treating common eye diseases. Our technology allows for targeting multiple disease targets and pathways thereby improving efficacy and restoring sight and preventing blindness.

PepGen’s ambition is to harness the power of peptide conjugation technologies in order to address the delivery challenge associated with nucleic acid therapeutics and thus realise the clinical potential of these transformative therapeutics.

I proactively and strategically led a multidisciplinary team to deliver a Parkinson’s gene therapy into clinical trial. This product was recently acquired by Axovant Gene TherapiesI led the team to win a £3.6M Innovate UK grant to support the development of the Parkinson’s gene therapy product and managed the 3 year grant successfully to completion I co-ordinated and led the initial project planning to ensure that strategies were in place to deliver the project according to the company budget and time linesIn my previous role as non-clinical study manager I delivered the efficacy and GLP toxicology packages for the Parkinson’s product on time and in budget and played a key role in developing regulatory documents including the Investigator BrochureWith my experience in the gene therapy field I am a subject matter expert with an ability to contribute to all sub-teams including research, non-clinical, CMC, clinical and more recently medical device development (for direct intraputaminal delivery)I tracked delivery of milestones and implemented strategies to ensure timelines were protected including identifying and mitigating risks and managing issuesI ensured project progress was communicated effectively through reports and regular meetings and often presented at internal meetings and international conferencesI am a named author on 6 issued patents, 23 original papers, 4 review articles and 1 book chapter and have given oral presentations at international conferences.

I coordinated and managed pivotal non-clinical efficacy and GLP toxicology studies across multidisciplinary teams to ensure studies were delivered in accordance with scientific and regulatory requirements and company objectives. I played a leading role in the design and management of pivotal GLP studies for five gene therapy programmes (4 ocular and 1 CNS) to ensure reports would be delivered according to regulatory requirements, budget and time linesI was responsible for writing preclinical sections of regulatory submissions for US and European, Investigator Brochures, ethical reviews, study reports and peer reviewed manuscriptsI maintained collaborations with our commercial partners (Sanofi-Aventis), key opinion leaders and CROs through regular contact, report writing and attending conferencesI developed effective relationships with CROs, negotiated protocols, budgets and contractsI was OXB Biological Safety Officer and Chair of the Genetic Modification Committee to advise and review new GM projects both internally and externally

I directed the team that created three novel ocular gene therapies (RetinoStat®, StarGen™ and UshStat®) that transitioned to clinical trial using disease-specific modelsMy team investigated the design of novel therapies to physiologically target diseases typified by hypoxia (cancer, chronic anaemia, cardiac/peripheral infarction and retinopathy) through research collaborations and work with CROsI was invited to present research at International and National conferences (Oral presentation and posters) and chaired sessions at the American Society of Cell and Gene Therapy I have published over 25 research articles in gene therapy journals working with different gene therapy vector platforms including lentivirus, AAV and adenovirus vectors (see below) My work on a hypoxia regulated eryropoeitin (AAV-2) based gene therapy for anaemia published in Blood (2002) was recognised by Prof. Prchal in N Engl J Med (2003)