The culmination of a decade of work by pioneering researchers and biotech leaders has created PepGen's revolutionary Enhanced Delivery Oligonucleotide (EDO) platform allowing the company to build a pipeline of therapeutics to treat a range of devastating diseases.
In preclinical studies, PepGen's proprietary enhanced delivery cell-penetrating peptide technology has enabled highly efficient, safe and reliable delivery of our oligonucleotide candidates to skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle, as well as to areas of the central nervous system (CNS). This enables more therapeutic oligonucleotide reaching affected tissues, eliminating the need to use high doses of oligonucleotides and thereby avoiding the historically unacceptable trade-off between efficacy and toxicity. PepGen is currently advancing two programs towards the clinic: one for DMD patients treatable with an exon 51 skipping oligonucleotide and the other targeting myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), both rare genetic diseases with a high unmet medical need.
While the company's current pipeline focuses on neuromuscular diseases, PepGen believes the broad applicability of our delivery platform should enable it to create breakthrough therapeutics targeting a wide variety of diseases.
Speaker: Smita Gunnoo, PhD, Principal Scientist at PepGen
Smita’s academic background is focused on conjugation reactions between various biomolecules. She completed her DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford on the modulation of antibody affinity via chemical modification. Smita then moved to Belgium to do a postdoc at Ghent University under the supervision of Professor Dr Annemieke Madder. She most recently worked at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) as a peptide chemist. At PepGen, Smita manages the production of peptide delivery vectors and conjugate therapeutics and leads the development of PepGen’s technology platform.
Caroline Godfrey, PhD, Senior Vice President Discovery and Founder
Caroline Godfrey currently serves as Senior Vice President of Discovery at PepGen. She is a co-founder of PepGen and led the company as CEO from spinout, successfully raising seed funding of £4.5M and a Series A of $45M. Caroline has deep experience with PepGen’s enhanced delivery oligonucleotide therapeutics, having worked as a post-doctoral researcher developing this proprietary technology at the University of Oxford. Before this, Caroline held several scientific positions studying genetics in the private and NHS settings and received her PhD from University College London following research in the field of neuromuscular diseases.
James McArthur, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer
James McArthur currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of PepGen and serves on the company’s Board of Directors. James has 25+ years of industry experience, has cofounded 5 biotechnology companies, 3 of which were acquired, and has served as a Director of two companies through successful initial public offerings. Before these companies, James held senior research leadership roles in several pioneering gene and stem cell therapy companies. He was a Venture Partner at RA Capital and an entrepreneur in residence at HealthCare Ventures. James was previously a post-doctoral fellow at MIT and UC Berkeley working with Drs. David Raulet and Nobel Laureate James Allison, before which he received his PhD in molecular oncology and BSc in biochemistry from McGill University in Montreal.