Mogrify has appointed Dr Louise Modis as chief scientific officer, to lead the advancement of the company’s internal programmes to help address high unmet clinical need in ophthalmology, immuno-oncology and other disease areas.

Mogrify is a Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of in vivo reprogramming therapies and transforming the development of ex vivo cell therapies,

Modis is a scientific leader in therapeutic discovery and development, and has experience in the progression of pre-clinical and clinical-stage assets, across various modalities and therapeutic areas.

She has more than 20 years’ experience in pre-clinical and clinical therapeutic research and was previously vice-president of immunology research at GlaxoSmithKline. Before that, she led research teams at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, and Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda).

Mogrify’s chief executive Dr Darrin M Disley said: “We are delighted to welcome Louise to the Mogrify executive team following a global search that considered drug discovery specialists from across Europe and the United States. Louise’s domain expertise, intellectual curiosity and passion for developing novel modalities capable of transforming clinical outcomes for patients suffering with degenerative diseases, make her an ideal fit to lead our internal programs through to first-in-human studies.”

Modis added: “I am very excited to join Mogrify and to be able to deploy its powerful cell reprogramming platform to address the most immediate challenges of developing cost-effective ex vivo cell therapies in immuno-oncology. I am particularly enthused by the company’s development of novel in vivo therapeutic modalities and the opportunity to progress a number of in vivo reprogramming therapies rapidly through development into the clinic.”