Polleo Pharma co-founders join Chronos Therapeutics

Oxford, UK-based Chronos Therapeutics has appointed Dr Fraser Murray and Dr Timothy Schulz-Utermoehl as vice presidents of pre-clinical development.

Together, they will oversee three pre-clinical research programmes recently acquired by the privately-held biotech, which target fatigue in multiple sclerosis, addictive behaviours and post-traumatic stress disorder, respectively.

Dr Murray (pictured above) brings over 20 years of drug discovery and early development experience to the role, spread across a range of therapeutic areas including dermatology, inflammation, neurodegeneration, psychiatry.

Prior to co-founding Polleo Pharma in 2014, Dr Murray served as senior director and head of discovery biology for Shire Specialty Pharmaceuticals, with a focus on central nervous system and gastrointestinal disorders.

He has also held a number of leadership roles at AstraZeneca, Calcico Therapeutics and Merck & Co.

Meanwhile, Dr Schulz-Utermoehl (pictured left) brings 17 years of early- and late-stage discovery research and preclinical development expertise to Chronos.

As well as co-founding Polleo Pharma alongside Dr Murray, he has worked at AstraZeneca, Merck & Co, Novo Nordisk and, most recently, Shire, where he served as a director in its exploratory projects department in the UK.

Chief executive officer of Chronos Dr Huw Jones said: “We are delighted to welcome Fraser and Timothy to Chronos at a time of significant expansion of our research portfolio.

“They bring substantial pre-clinical development expertise to our organisation and are synergistic to our recent acquisition.
“In particular, their experience as co-founders of Polleo will be invaluable as we advance our behavioural brain disease portfolio.”