CAMBRIDGE, England & BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bicycle Therapeutics, a biotechnology company pioneering a new class of therapeutics based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide (Bicycle®) product platform, today announced two senior appointments to facilitate its expanding and advancing clinical pipeline. Lisa Mahnke, M.D., Ph.D., joins as Senior Vice President and Head of Clinical. Terrence West, MBA, joins as Vice President and Head of Program Management.
Dr. Mahnke has completed multiple successful investigational new drug (IND) applications and brings deep expertise in pharmaceutical development to Bicycle, including experience in clinical development, clinical pharmacology and translational medicine. Mr. West is a seasoned biopharma executive with experience across multiple therapeutic areas and project functions.
“As Bicycle expands its pipeline and our programs mature, it is critical that we deliver an effective clinical strategy, and these two new clinical team members are an integral part of our strategy,” said Kevin Lee, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics. “Lisa and Terry have exceptional track records as senior leaders navigating programs through the clinic. I am very pleased to welcome them both to the Bicycle team.”
Lisa Mahnke will lead Bicycle’s clinical efforts. Most recently, Dr. Mahnke was Head of Clinical Development at Dragonfly Therapeutics and Syros Pharmaceuticals. Before that, she held positions of increasing responsibility in clinical pharmacology and clinical development, including medical lead and Head of Clinical Pharmacology, at BMS, Merck, EMD Serono and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. She is a licensed and prior board-certified physician in internal medicine and infectious diseases. Dr. Mahnke holds a B.S. in chemistry from Ripon College, a Ph.D. in biochemistry and an M.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Terrence West was most recently Executive Director, Project Management, at EMD Serono, where he successfully led multiple teams from discovery through initial FDA filings, including Phase I-III clinical program approvals and launches. He has also worked in program management for companies including ZioPharm Oncology, Stryker Regenerative Medicine, Dynavax Technologies and Exelixis, Inc. Mr. West holds a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Arizona and an MBA in Technology Management from the University of Phoenix.
About Bicycle Therapeutics
Bicycle Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a novel class of medicines, referred to as Bicycles®, for diseases that are underserved by existing therapeutics. Bicycles are fully synthetic short peptides constrained to form two loops that stabilize their structural geometry. This constraint is designed to confer high affinity and selectivity, and the relatively large surface area presented by the molecule allows targets to be drugged that have historically been intractable to non-biological approaches. We have a novel and proprietary phage display screening platform that we use to identify Bicycles in an efficient manner. Our initial internal programs are focused on oncology indications with high unmet medical need. Our lead product candidate, BT1718, is a Bicycle Toxin Conjugate being investigated for safety, tolerability and efficacy in an ongoing Phase I/IIa clinical trial in collaboration with, and fully funded by, the Centre for Drug Development of Cancer Research UK. Bicycle was founded in 2009 as a result of innovative science conducted by Sir Greg Winter and Professor Christian Heinis. Sir Greg Winter is a pioneer in monoclonal antibodies; in 2018, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry for the invention of the technology underpinning our proprietary phage display screening platform that we use to identify Bicycles. Bicycle is headquartered in Cambridge, U.K., with many key functions and members of its leadership team located near the biotech hub of Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, visit BicycleTherapeutics.com, connect with us on LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter at @Bicycle_tx.
