LONDON, April 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Heptares Therapeutics ("Heptares"), the wholly-owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation (TSE Mothers Index: 4565), announces that Dr Fiona Marshall, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder, has been elected a Fellow of The Academy of Medical Sciences.

Fellows are drawn from laboratory science, clinical academic medicine, veterinary science, dentistry, medical and nursing care. Nominees are selected for their outstanding contribution to the advancement of medical science, or for the application of existing scientific knowledge or understanding in an innovative way.

Dr Marshall said: "I am honoured to join the Academy, which plays such an important role in promoting the excellence of UK medical science and in particular encourages partnerships between academia and industry - something I am very committed to."

Malcolm Weir, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Heptares, added: "We are delighted for Fiona; this is very well deserved and justified recognition of her important contribution to basic academic research coupled to the discovery of new medicines, and towards the success of the U.K. biotechnology sector."

Founded in 1998, the Academy of Medical Sciences is the independent body in the UK that represents the diverse spectrum of medical science - from basic research through clinical application to healthcare delivery. Its mission is to promote medical science and its translation into benefits for society.

Biography 

Dr Marshall has more than 25 years' experience, in the field of structure-based drug design and development with particular expertise in G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the most important family of receptors in the human body for drug targeting. She is inventor of seven patents and author of over 80 peer-reviewed scientific papers in the area. Her work has contributed to the discovery of drugs in development for cancer, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and migraine.

Dr Marshall set up Heptares Therapeutics with Dr Malcolm Weir in 2006, building the company into one of the UK's leading biotechnology companies prior to its acquisition in 2015 by Sosei Group, a Japan-based biopharmaceutical company. Following the acquisition, Dr Marshall became Executive VP and CSO of Sosei in addition to her current role as CSO of Heptares. She leads a team of 70 scientists at Heptares, which is pioneering a structure-based approach to GPCRs to create a broad pipeline of novel medicines with potential to transform the treatment of serious diseases. Heptares has established collaborations with Allergan, AstraZeneca, Kymab, MedImmune, MorphoSys, Pfizer and Teva.

Before Heptares, Dr Marshall worked in senior drug discovery roles at GlaxoWellcome / GlaxoSmithKline and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and then spent several years as an independent consultant to a variety of venture capital and biotech companies.

Dr Marshall is on the Translation Advisory Group of the Francis Crick Institute and on the Scientific Advisory board of the Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation (CTTV). She is also on the Board of Trustees of Alzheimer's Research UK (ARUK) and on the ARUK Drug Discovery Alliance Advisory Group.

Dr Marshall won the 2012 WISE Women of Outstanding Achievement for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and received the Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize 2015, awarded by the UK Royal Society of Chemistry's Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector, in recognition of her contribution to GPCR drug discovery. She received a BSc in biochemistry from Bath University and a PhD in neuroscience from Cambridge University.

A photograph of Dr Marshall is available by contacting mark.swallow@citigatedr.co.uk.

About the Academy of Medical Sciences 

The Academy of Medical Sciences is the independent body in the UK representing the diversity of medical science. Our mission is to promote medical science and its translation into benefits for society. The Academy's elected Fellows are the United Kingdom's leading medical scientists from hospitals, academia, industry and the public service. We work with them to promote excellence, influence policy to improve health and wealth, nurture the next generation of medical researchers, link academia, industry and the NHS, seize international opportunities and encourage dialogue about the medical sciences. http://www.acmedsci.ac.uk

This year, Fellows were chosen from 356 candidates. The seven Sectional Committees met in March to consider potential Fellows for 2016 entry to the Academy. Three nominators from within the Fellowship must back each candidate. The Academy Registrar, Professor Moira Whyte, Professor of Respiratory Medicine, University of Sheffield, oversees the election. 106 candidates were shortlisted for peer review. The election brings the number of Fellows to 1207.

About Heptares Therapeutics 

Heptares is a clinical-stage company creating transformative medicines targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a superfamily of 375 receptors linked to a wide range of human diseases. Heptares' proprietary StaR® technology and structure-based drug design (SBDD) capabilities enable us to engineer and develop drugs for highly validated, yet historically undruggable or challenging GPCRs. Using this approach, we are building an exciting pipeline of new medicines (small molecules and biologics) with the potential to transform the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, cancer immune-oncology, migraine, addiction, metabolic disease and other indications. We have partnerships for our novel candidates and technologies with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Allergan, AstraZeneca, Kymab, MedImmune, MorphoSys, Pfizer and Teva.

Heptares is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation. For more information, please visit http://www.heptares.com and http://www.sosei.com.

HEPTARES is a registered trademark in the EU, Switzerland, US and Japan;  

StaR^® is a registered trademark in the EU and Japan.

About Sosei 

Sosei is a biopharmaceutical company originating from Japan but with global presence. Sosei's primary business model is based on identifying novel and/or differentiated product assets or technology platforms and, through supporting these in preclinical and clinical development and establishing commercial partnerships, advancing new medicines to patients worldwide. For more information about Sosei, please visit http://www.sosei.com

SOURCE Heptares Therapeutics