Appointment of Dr Cathy Tralau-Stewart as CSO

C4X Discovery Holdings plc

("C4XD", "C4X Discovery" or the "Company")

Dr Catherine Tralau-Stewart Appointed as C4XD's Chief Scientific Officer

21 December 2021 - C4X Discovery Holdings plc (AIM: C4XD), a pioneering Drug Discovery company, today announces the appointment of Dr Catherine Jane Tralau-Stewart, PhD, FRSC, as Chief Scientific Officer ("CSO"), as of 4 January 2022.

Cathy joins C4XD with more than 20 years of senior academic and industry leadership experience. Her broad and in-depth knowledge of drug discovery and translation of early research innovation into robust drug discovery programmes has enabled the development of scientific portfolios as well as the design and negotiation of many initiatives to support effective decision-making. Previously she was Senior Director, Alliances, for Takeda Pharmaceuticals where she was responsible for and contributed to the strategic development and management of academic alliances for Takeda for the US, Australia, Japan and Europe.  Having started her career at GSK, she moved into academia where she held senior leadership roles building drug discovery portfolios through to Phase III clinical studies, at Imperial College London, University of California San Francisco and Stanford University-Takeda Alliance for Innovative Medicines. 

Cathy has a BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences (Biochemistry/Pharmacology) and a PhD (Clinical Sciences) University College Hospital Medical School, National Medical Laser Centre, Dept. of Surgery and ICRF (CRUK).  She has been involved in advising on, evaluation and due diligence of over 500 projects and has supported and facilitated the translation of over 40 therapeutic technologies towards the clinic from academia and delivered strategies with effective milestone driven decision-making. Cathy is expert in transforming therapeutics projects from target identification and validation through lead optimisation to Clinical Proof of Concept in many therapeutic areas including Inflammation and Neurosciences. She has published more than 25 publications and is the inventor of three granted patents and is a non-inventor contributor of many more. 

Cathy received the President's award of Fellow Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), is International Meeting Chair 2022 & Previous Invited Board Director Society of Laboratory Screening & Automation (SLAS), Fellow of SLAS, Member of British Pharmacological Society, is currently supporting the development of Closed Loop Medicine's commercial Steering Group and has acted as advisor to many academic entrepreneurship & commercialization programmes including Stanford SPARK, UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, UC Davis and the NIH.

Clive Dix, Chief Executive Officer of C4X Discovery, commented: "Cathy is a highly respected scientific leader with strong and deep drug discovery expertise and we are delighted and proud that she will be joining the team here at C4XD. Her experience in building drug discovery portfolios and advancing programmes into clinical development will enhance the work of the team here at C4XD and expand our portfolio through her strong academic and industry network. We warmly welcome Cathy and look forward to working alongside her."

Cathy Tralau-Stewart added: "This is a fantastic opportunity to work at an innovative, Drug Discovery company with cutting-edge technologies and an inspirational scientific team. C4XD has made incredible progress to date and I am excited to be joining the team to build on and advance the portfolio towards future commercial partnership that could improve the lives of patients in need of new treatment options."

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About C4X Discovery

C4X Discovery ("C4XD") is a pioneering Drug Discovery company combining scientific expertise with cutting-edge Drug Discovery technologies to efficiently deliver world leading medicines, which are developed by our partners for the benefit of patients. We have a highly valuable and differentiated approach to Drug Discovery through our enhanced DNA-based target identification and candidate molecule design capabilities, generating small molecule drug candidates across multiple disease areas including inflammation, oncology, neurodegeneration and addictive disorders. Our commercially attractive portfolio ranges from early-stage novel target opportunities to late-stage Drug Discovery programmes ready for out-licensing to partners and we have two commercially partnered programmes with one candidate in clinical development.

We collaborate with leading pharmaceutical and life sciences companies to enrich our expertise and take our assets through pre-clinical and clinical development. Through early-stage revenue-generating licensing deals, we realise returns from our high value pre-clinical assets which are reinvested to maximise the value of our Drug Discovery portfolio.