EDINBURGH-headquartered Cumulus Oncology, Europe’s first oncology drug discovery accelerator, has appointed Munich-based Dr Diane Seimetz and UK Pharma industry specialist Dr Sally Waterman as a Non-executive Directors on its board, while former NXD Nicola Broughton moves to an executive role as Chief Business Officer.
Cumulus CEO and co-founder Clare Wareing said: “We have stepped up our international activity and oncology asset discovery process markedly over the last twelve months, and Diane, Sally and Nicola’s appointments significantly strengthen both our advisory and executive teams. Diane is an entrepreneur, and a leading drug development and regulatory expert, a perfect mix for the experience we need on the board alongside Sally, who brings over 30 years’ of experience in R&D, operations and corporate development from senior executive roles in small biotech companies. Nicola has been invaluable as an adviser, then NXD over the last year, and we are excited to have her as our first chief business officer.”
As former Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at the Fresenius Group Dr Diane Seimetz led an international team that developed a number of first-in-class and award-winning biopharmaceutical products. As co-founder and former CEO of Biopharma Excellence she supported numerous companies to progress their biopharmaceutical assets from lead selection to the clinical trial stage or to approval. She performed due diligence on biopharma transactions with an upper triple digit million value. In 2020 Biopharma Excellence was acquired by the PharmaLex Group, where she continues to provide strategy consulting to clients. Furthermore, Dr Diane Seimetz is a board member at Helmholtz Validation Fund and Aglaia Oncology Funds. She is a visiting lecturer at Goethe University Frankfurt.
Dr Sally Waterman was until recently the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Medherant, clinical-stage pharmaceutical company with a novel drug delivery technology. Prior to this she was Senior VP Corporate Development at Abzena (formerly PolyTherics), a company offering antibody drug conjugate (ADC) and other services, where she was involved over 8 years in multiple funding rounds, an IPO and several M&A transactions. Between 2014 and 2018 she was a NXD of UK life sciences association OBN and its chair from 2016-2018.
Dr Nicola Broughton, a former Investment Director at Mercia Asset Management, is co-founder of Oskare Capital, and is an experienced life sciences investor, executive and non-executive director with strong expertise in identifying and supporting university spin-outs. Broughton, who joined Cumulus’s advisory board in 2020 before her appointment as an NXD in 2021, also chairs genetic sequencing specialist Wobble Genomics, a spin-out from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute.
Edinburgh-headquartered Cumulus was founded in 2017 to create spin-out companies around novel anti-cancer therapies that are fast-tracked through development and target cancers that don’t respond well to existing treatments.
Cumulus secured a £1.7 million investment round led by Eos Advisory last July and in September 2020 founded its first spin-out, Modulus Oncology, alongside the University of Sheffield.
In May, Clare Doris, former Chief Operating Officer at University of Edinburgh spin-out Aquila BioMedical, also joined Cumulus as COO.
