Tim Haystead, who worked in Philip Cohen's lab as a scientific officer from 1983-1985 and then carried out his PhD at Dundee with Grahame Hardie, has sold Serenex, the company he founded, to Pfizer for several hundred million US dollars.
Tim formed Serenex in 2000 to exploit new drug discovery technology he developed (called proteome mining) that enables new drug candidates to be identified in large combinatorial libraries. The selected candidates are then progressed to Phase 1 clinical trials through directed iterative chemistry. Unlike traditional methods of screening drug targets, proteome mining uses a reverse screen whereby 'druggable' compounds are used to identify biologically relevant targets, and by design, corresponding drug candidates. The technology was validated by the rapid discovery of an active anti cancer agent (SNX5422), which targets HSP90 and began Phase 1 clinical trials in June 2007. Several such trials are underway and one is nearing completion with a favourable toxicity profile in humans. The first Phase 2 trial for non-small cell lung cancer is scheduled to begin in late 2008 and will be coordinated by the US National Cancer Institute. The technology platform that was the basis for Serenex has been improved and is now being developed to discover novel antibiotics to which bacteria cannot develop drug resistance. To do this, Tim has set up a Not-for-Profit organisation, the Institute for Global Disease Mechanisms into which some of the proceeds of the sale of Serenex will be put.
After leaving Dundee in 1988, Tim carried out postdoctoral work with Edwin Krebs at the University of Washington, Seattle before becoming an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1991. He joined the Pharmacology Department at Duke University as an Associate Professor in 1996 being promoted to Full Professor in 2000. From 2000-2008 he was also the Chief Scientific Officer and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Serenex.
Tim's Ph.D. studies with Grahame Hardie focused mainly on the mechanisms by which insulin and adrenalin regulate acetyl CoA carboxylase, which catalyses the rate limiting step in fatty acid synthesis, Tim published seven first authored papers during this period, including one describing the effects of the tumour promoter okadaic acid on intracellular protein phosphorylation and metabolism (Haystead et al (1989) Nature 337, 78-81) which has been cited 739 times.
Tim formed Serenex in 2000 to exploit new drug discovery technology he developed (called proteome mining) that enables new drug candidates to be identified in large combinatorial libraries. The selected candidates are then progressed to Phase 1 clinical trials through directed iterative chemistry. Unlike traditional methods of screening drug targets, proteome mining uses a reverse screen whereby 'druggable' compounds are used to identify biologically relevant targets, and by design, corresponding drug candidates. The technology was validated by the rapid discovery of an active anti cancer agent (SNX5422), which targets HSP90 and began Phase 1 clinical trials in June 2007. Several such trials are underway and one is nearing completion with a favourable toxicity profile in humans. The first Phase 2 trial for non-small cell lung cancer is scheduled to begin in late 2008 and will be coordinated by the US National Cancer Institute. The technology platform that was the basis for Serenex has been improved and is now being developed to discover novel antibiotics to which bacteria cannot develop drug resistance. To do this, Tim has set up a Not-for-Profit organisation, the Institute for Global Disease Mechanisms into which some of the proceeds of the sale of Serenex will be put.
After leaving Dundee in 1988, Tim carried out postdoctoral work with Edwin Krebs at the University of Washington, Seattle before becoming an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1991. He joined the Pharmacology Department at Duke University as an Associate Professor in 1996 being promoted to Full Professor in 2000. From 2000-2008 he was also the Chief Scientific Officer and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Serenex.
Tim's Ph.D. studies with Grahame Hardie focused mainly on the mechanisms by which insulin and adrenalin regulate acetyl CoA carboxylase, which catalyses the rate limiting step in fatty acid synthesis, Tim published seven first authored papers during this period, including one describing the effects of the tumour promoter okadaic acid on intracellular protein phosphorylation and metabolism (Haystead et al (1989) Nature 337, 78-81) which has been cited 739 times.