Sitryx Therapeutics Strengthens Leadership Team With Appointment of Ravi M. Rao as Chief Medical Officer

OXFORD, England, April 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sitryx Therapeutics Ltd (the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company pioneering the field of immunometabolism, today announced the appointment of Dr. Ravi M. Rao as its Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Rao is a rheumatologist and pharmaceutical physician with over fifteen years of leadership experience in both large and mid-sized pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with a wide range of therapeutic area expertise including immunology, metabolic medicine, and rare diseases.

"We are delighted to appoint Ravi to this new role of Chief Medical Officer at Sitryx. He has led programs across specialties in all stages of development - including through registration and launch - and his experience at GlaxoSmithKline and Roche adds important medical expertise to our team," said Neil Weir, Chief Executive Officer of Sitryx. "Ravi will help us drive our immunometabolism programs into the clinic and build a valuable pipeline of small molecules against high-value targets for diseases with high unmet medical need."

Dr. Rao joins Sitryx from Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, where he served as Head of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer leading the development of several medicines in rare diseases across immunology and haematology. Prior to that, he was Chief Medical Officer of Aeglea Biotherapeutics, a company specialising in rare metabolic diseases. Previously, he held several senior positions in R&D at GlaxoSmithKline working in immunology and specialty medicines and was a Group Medical Director at Roche working in immunology development. Ravi was an academic physician-scientist at Imperial College (London) and is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, London and an Honorary Member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine. He received his MB. BChir from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in vascular biology from Imperial College, completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He is also an independent board director of DBV Technologies. Ravi will be combining his role at Sitryx with a role at Oxford Biomedica.

"I am very excited to join Sitryx at a time when the company is beginning to demonstrate the potential of its immunometabolism product engine and is preparing to transition to a clinical-stage company," added Dr. Rao. "Sitryx is well-positioned to exploit the intersection of the immune system function and metabolism to pioneer this field.  I look forward to creating meaningful, disease-modifying therapies through this approach to improve the lives of patients with autoimmune diseases and cancer."  

About Immunometabolism

Immunometabolism is a fast-emerging area of investigation into the role of metabolic pathways in immune cell function. Changes to these pathways have been shown to be pivotal in the development of a number of severe diseases, including a range of autoimmune conditions and cancer. Correcting immune cell function and/or inhibiting tumor cell growth through immunometabolic therapies have the potential to be key, complementary and highly differentiated approaches to treating disease. 

About Sitryx Therapeutics

Sitryx is a global biopharmaceutical company pioneering the field of immunometabolism. The company's proprietary platform and Product Engine are built on a deep understanding of the intersection of inflammatory signaling and metabolism. Sitryx is advancing a pipeline of disease-modifying therapies towards the clinic, on its own and with its strategic partner, Eli Lilly and Company, for a wide range of autoimmune disorders. In 2018, Sitryx raised $30 million Series A funding from an international syndicate of specialist investors including SV Health Investors, Sofinnova Partners, Longwood Fund and GSK. In 2020, Sitryx formed a global licensing and research collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company. Lilly also became an investor in the Company. Sitryx is headquartered in Oxford, UK with offices in the United States.

For more information, please visit www.sitryx.com and engage with us on LinkedIn.

Contact: 
Amy Conrad 
Juniper Point 
[email protected] 
858-366-3243

SOURCE Sitryx Therapeutics