Oxford Cancer Biomarkers appoints Nick McCooke as its CEO

Oxford Cancer Biomarkers has appointed Nick McCooke as CEO, a key growth milestone for the company which aims to benefit cancer patients through development of tests that allow medicines to be personalised.

Founded by Nick La Thangue, Ph.D., Chair of Cancer Biology at Oxford University and David Kerr, CBE, D.Sc., M.D. FMedSci, Professor of Cancer Medicine at Oxford University, Oxford Cancer Biomarkers uses its proprietary platform CancerNav™ to rapidly generate predictive biomarkers for cancer drugs.

“We are delighted to welcome Nick McCooke to Oxford Cancer Biomarkers, said Nick La Thangue. His experience in building successful biotech companies is exceptional – we all know the Solexa story for example – and his appointment is a timely and welcome development for the company”.

Nick McCooke was most recently CEO of Pronota, the Belgian protein biomarker company, which he led for six years, raising over €25M of venture capital funding. Previously, he was CEO of Solexa, the pioneer of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), which he led through its ground-breaking technology development phase and to NASDAQ listing, raising over £20M in this period.

Nick commented: “I’m excited to be joining Oxford Cancer Biomarkers at this important stage of its development. The company has great potential, leveraging both its novel platform and its unique relationship with Quintiles, and I look forward to helping this to be fully realised”.

The company’s major investor is Quintiles with whom it also it has a strategic relationship in the biomarker space.

About Oxford Cancer Biomarkers

Oxford Cancer Biomarkers translates ground-breaking scientific discovery into predictive biomarker diagnostic products that allow medicines to be personalised for the benefit of the cancer patient. Its consultancy arm offers expertise in the development, placement, conduct and analysis of early phase oncology trials. It is a spin-out of the University of Oxford and has strong links with the Oxford Institute of Cancer Medicine. For more information, please visit www.oxfordcancerbiomarkers.com.

About Quintiles

Quintiles is the only fully integrated biopharmaceutical company offering clinical, commercial, consulting and capital solutions worldwide. The Quintiles network of more than 20,000 engaged professionals in 60 countries works with an unwavering commitment to patients, safety and ethics. Quintiles helps biopharmaceutical companies navigate risk and seize opportunities in an environment where change is constant. For more information, please visit www.quintiles.com.

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