Southampton’s Curve Therapeutics makes pair of senior appointments

Curve Therapeutics, a Southampton-based biotech pioneering an intracellular screening platform to tackle complex disease targets, has appointed Andre Hoekema as chair and Cora Griffin as head of business development.

Andre is an experienced biotech executive with 40 years of experience in the industry.

He served as chief business officer and member of the executive committee at Galapagos Pharma for 18 years, with responsibility spanning M&A, business development and intellectual property.

During his time at Galapagos, he led multiple pharma partnerships, acquisitions and divestments, including two landmark deals with Gilead.

He was also part of the team that completed successful IPOs on Euronext in 2005 and Nasdaq in 2015.

Andre serves on the advisory boards of Artax Biopharma, Fibrocor Therapeutics and Mimetas BV.

“Curve is an ambitious and innovative biotech with the mission to revolutionize the drug discovery space with its Microcycle discovery platform,” he said.

“Through its pioneering and truly unique approach, Curve is building an innovative therapeutic pipeline and establishing strong relationships with major pharma.

“I look forward to working with Simon and the leadership team to help the company progress to the next stage of growth.”

Curve has also welcomed Cora, an accomplished life sciences business development professional and entrepreneur.

Cora has considerable experience in developing and implementing portfolio strategies from startups to large pharmaceutical companies.

She was previously head of business development and alliance management at ReViral and oversaw its acquisition by Pfizer for $525 million, where she then served as anti-infectives strategy lead.

Cora is a jury member for the European Innovation Council’s EIC accelerator programme and board observer at Oppilotech.

Simon Kerry, CEO of Curve Therapeutics, said: “Following the significant Series A financing, we’re building a world-class leadership team to turbocharge our proprietary discovery platform and rapidly progress our pipeline.

“Andre’s wealth of experience in the sector and significant track record, and Cora’s visionary outlook and strategic nous, will be invaluable as we grow the business and progress our lead candidate towards the clinic.

“We’re well placed to accelerate our ambition to build out the pipeline and work with strategic partners to address complex and challenging disease targets and improve patient outcomes.”