OMass Therapeutics has announced the expansion of its senior leadership team with the appointments of Dr Ali Jazayeri as chief scientific officer; Dr Giles Brown as VP, medicinal chemistry; and Dr Hsin Loke as VP, head of finance and strategy.

These appointments come shortly after the completion of a £14 million Series A financing from Syncona and Oxford Sciences Innovation. OMass is a biotechnology company using structural mass spectrometry to discover novel medicines.

Dr Ali Jazayeri was previously chief technology officer of Heptares Therapeutics. He has a BSc in Genetics from University of Manchester and obtained his PhD in molecular biology with Prof Steve Jackson at the Gurdon Institute from University of Cambridge.

Dr Giles Brown also joins OMass from Heptares Therapeutics where he held the position as head of medicinal chemistry. He joined the company in 2010 to help develop their structural biology platform as a new approach to structure-based drug design and lead identification for GPCRs and was promoted to director of chemistry in 2015 and head of medicinal chemistry in early 2018.

Dr Hsin Loke joined OMass from GSK where she spent 16 years in a variety of leadership roles, most recently leading finance, strategy and operations for the company’s Rare Diseases Unit, which developed and commercialised a portfolio of innovative medicines, including gene therapies. Hsin qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC, and completed her BA (Hons) in Biological Sciences and D.Phil. in genetics and immunology at Oxford University.