On April 03, 2024 Nimble Therapeutics reported the opening of a second R&D site in Philadelphia, PA (Press release, Nimble Therapeutics, APR 3, 2024, View Source [SID1234641755]). The new site, located in B+Labs, a hub for scientific innovation in University City Philadelphia, will focus on progressing Nimble’s growing pipeline of orally-delivered peptide therapeutics into clinical development. The Philadelphia site will synergize with activities at Nimble’s main R&D site in Madison, WI, which is focused on leveraging its proprietary platform to optimize oral peptide therapeutics at unprecedented scale and speed.
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"This is a reflection of the growing maturity of our internal pipeline of orally-delivered peptide therapeutics, and the need to build additional capabilities as we progress candidates into the clinic."
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In addition to the new site, Nimble also announced the appointment of two senior leaders to spearhead the drug discovery efforts and catalyze the build out of the Philadelphia site and team. Shelley Allen will join as Head of Drug Discovery and will lead the advanced optimization and characterization of clinical candidate peptides and their progression into the clinic. Munir Mosaheb will join as Head of Biology and will lead the pharmacological, immunological and translational aspects of Nimble’s drug discovery programs.
Shelley has over 25 years of experience in the discovery and development of high-impact medicines. She joined Nimble from Think Bioscience where she was VP, Medicinal Chemistry, and responsible for establishing drug discovery teams and capabilities to develop their internal programs. Previously, Shelley spent 22 years with Array Biopharma / Pfizer in roles of increasing responsibility, contributing to the discovery of several clinical candidates including oncology therapeutics Vitrakvi and Tukysa. As director of medicinal chemistry at Pfizer, she led teams and programs from lead discovery to IND in the kinase space. Shelley began her career at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer after completing undergraduate studies at DeMontfort University of Leicester. She has published > 40 scientific papers and patents and is active in the American Chemical Society community.
Munir has over 15 years of experience in developing and applying novel immunological insights in academic and biotech settings. Most recently Munir was the Head of Translational Biology and Immunology at Senda Biosciences (now Sail Biomedicines), where he built a Translational Biology team and led platform and program development, and IND-enabling preclinical data generation. Prior to Senda, Munir received broad training across diverse aspects of immunology. He explored molecular vaccinology during his time at Merck & Co. and the Wetzler lab at BU, studied T cell biology while at the Flavell lab at Yale, and immuno-oncology and cell trafficking as a post-doctoral fellow in the von Andrian lab at Harvard.
"We are pleased to open our second R&D site in the Philadelphia area," said Jigar Patel, founder & CEO of Nimble Therapeutics. "This is a reflection of the growing maturity of our internal pipeline of orally-delivered peptide therapeutics, and the need to build additional capabilities as we progress candidates into the clinic."
"I’m thrilled to have Shelley and Munir join us at this exciting stage in the journey of Nimble," said Pete Gough, CSO of Nimble Therapeutics. "They both bring a wealth of experience in the key areas of immunology, drug discovery and pre-clinical development and will be instrumental in building and leading the teams that will take our programs into the clinic."
"As a medicinal chemist of 25 years, I am incredibly impressed by the power and unprecedented speed of the Nimble platform to identify and optimize oral therapeutic peptides. I’m very much looking forward to partnering with our team in Madison to deliver a robust pipeline of clinical candidates to patients," said Shelley.
"Despite the progress we’ve made with parenteral biological therapies for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases over the past couple of decades, patients want oral medicines. Because of our platform, Nimble is uniquely placed to become a leader in developing oral peptide therapeutics as next-generation treatments for these patients and I’m excited to be part of the team to help this vision become reality," said Munir.