Disrupting extrachromosomal DNA to power the next wave of cancer treatments.

Econic Biosciences is pioneering new ways to eradicate cancer by targeting a largely unexplored oncogenic driver.

Extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) is a little-known but widespread driver of oncogenic DNA amplification, which contributes to cancer’s evolution in unprecedented ways. It is found across most cancer types and its presence is associated with poor clinical outcomes. Econic Biosciences is building on novel mechanistic insights to develop specific approaches to therapeutically target ecDNA with the goal of improving treatment for individuals with cancer.

A cancer-specific feature that drives oncogenesis.

ecDNA is a type of circular DNA that is present in the nucleus, but apart from the chromosomes. These DNA rings can replicate, segregate and undergo transcription in ways that are distinct from normal chromosomes. Recent work by Econic Biosciences founders and others determined that ecDNA is a mediator of oncogenic gene amplification and a potent driver of tumor evolution and heterogeneity, ultimately leading to treatment-resistant cancers with poor clinical outcomes. Targeting ecDNA creates an opportunity to develop new cancer-specific therapies.

A new way to treat cancer.

ecDNA is one of the most prevalent causes of oncogene amplification, and therapies targeting ecDNA have the potential to impact one third of all cancer patients, across diagnoses. By identifying key molecular pathways that drive ecDNA genesis, replication, segregation or maintenance we can target the root cause of this oncogenic dysregulation. Our world-class scientific founders are at the cutting edge of ecDNA biology, from basic mechanistic insights to clinical oncology and therapeutic target discovery, making breakthrough discoveries that are pushing the field forward.

is uniquely positioned to identify specific ecDNA pathways and develop innovative treatments in leading-edge cancer biology.

We have proven computational and analytical tools for identifying and validating novel therapeutic targets. We have access to premier clinical resources, a team with significant expertise of turning science into medicine and a scientific focus with a clear path to the clinic.

Rodger Novak, M.D.
Executive Chairman

  • Rodger is a serial entrepreneur, long-time pharmaceutical and biotechnology senior executive with more than 20 years of experience. In 2013 he co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics, led the team that IPO’d the company in 2016 and served CRISPR as CEO until December 2017.

    Before CRISPR Therapeutics, Rodger was Global Head Infectious Diseases at Sanofi, based in Paris, France. His responsibilities included discovery, research and development and late-stage clinical development of anti-infectives, including diseases of the developing world. In early 2006, Rodger co-founded Nabriva Therapeutics, an antibacterial development company in Vienna, Austria, where he acted as COO. Nabriva was a spin-out from Sandoz/Novartis, where Rodger worked as Vice-Head of the Antibiotic Research Institute.

    In addition to CRISPR Therapeutics, Rodger serves as Executive Chair on the boards of Xap Therapeutics, Matterhorn Biosciences and AIRNA. He is a co-founder and board member of ERS Genomics. Rodger received his M.D. from the Philipps University, Marburg, Germany and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University, the Skirball Institute and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In 2001, he was appointed as tenured Professor for Microbiology at the Vienna Biocenter, Austria. 

    Rodger was responsible for financing and business development deals worth several billion dollars, among them the landmark deals for CRISPR Therapeutics with Bayer and Vertex. He has authored numerous scientific papers and patents. For his work Rodger has received several scientific awards and honors for his contributions to the biotech industry, including being named as one of the “Top 100 Innovators in the World” by the MIT Technology Review in 2017.

Ralph Lindemann, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer

  • Ralph joined Econic from Merck Healthcare R&D where he held several positions with increasing responsibility, most recently Global Head Translational & Biomarker Research Oncology and Immunooncology. He was also the Merck project lead for extrachromosomal DNA.

    Ralph has over 15 years of global leadership experience in oncology drug discovery and development. He led Merck’s Cancer Metabolism program with a portfolio of preclinical small molecule programs and drove a first-in-class program to IND stage as project leader. During his tenure as Head, Strategy & Alliances, Ralph developed the concept and acquired €34m funding for Europe’s leading public-private consortium on immune oncology profiling, with over 2000 patients profiled to date. He started his industry career as Laboratory Head, Target Validation within Oncology R&D.

    For 10+ years, Ralph was an advisor for the Merck Venture team and supported diligence, R&D strategy, fundraising and inception of (pre-)clinical-stage investment opportunities and biotech companies in the Oncology space. He was Chief Scientific Officer on-assignment at Inthera Biosciences during this time.

    Ralph has an academic track record in transcriptional regulation, chromatin therapeutics, apoptosis and mouse models of cancer and is an author on numerous peer-reviewed publications. Ralph holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tuebingen, Germany.

Pete Johnson, D.Phil.
Head of Medicinal Chemistry

Steven Whittaker, Ph.D.
Head of Biology

Alastair Hamilton, D.Phil.
Head of Business Operations & Strategy

Thinking outside the chromosome.

Treating cancer by targeting ecDNA.

  • Anton is a Professor for Functional Cancer Genomics at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany. He received an M.D. in neuroscience from the RWTH Aachen prior to starting his clinical residency in pediatrics. His research interests focus on genome remodeling in cancer and his ERC grant-funded research group currently investigates the role of ecDNA in cancer. In addition, he serves as head of preclinical cancer research for the Pediatric Oncology Department at the Charité and runs a research group at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) of the Max Delbrück Center (MDC). He is part of an international research team (eDyNAmiC) that recently received the CRUK/NIH Cancer Grand Challenge grant to study ecDNA and he was recently honored with the Berliner Wissenschaftspreis (Kategorie Nachwuchs) for his contributions to the field of ecDNA in cancer.

  • Richard is the Director of Computational Epigenetics and serves as Associate Director of the Center for Epigenetics Research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He received his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. in computational genomics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. His research explores how cellular plasticity is encoded within the genomes and epigenomes of tumor cells and how this plasticity is exploited during oncogenesis. With complementary expertise, Richard has worked closely with Anton Henssen over the past eight years to define how genomic aberrations drive pediatric cancers. In utilizing tumor profiling and functional genomics to define ecDNA-specific features, Richard is focused on discovering patterns that divulge new avenues for targeted therapies.

  • Rodger is a serial entrepreneur, long-time pharmaceutical and biotechnology senior executive with more than 20 years of experience. In 2013 he co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics, led the team that IPO’d the company in 2016 and served CRISPR as CEO until December 2017.

    Before CRISPR Therapeutics, Rodger was Global Head Infectious Diseases at Sanofi, based in Paris, France. His responsibilities included discovery, research and development and late-stage clinical development of anti-infectives, including diseases of the developing world. In early 2006, Rodger co-founded Nabriva Therapeutics, an antibacterial development company in Vienna, Austria, where he acted as COO. Nabriva was a spin-out from Sandoz/Novartis, where Rodger worked as Vice-Head of the Antibiotic Research Institute.

    In addition to CRISPR Therapeutics, Rodger serves as Executive Chair on the boards of Xap Therapeutics, Matterhorn Biosciences and AIRNA. He is a co-founder and board member of ERS Genomics. Rodger received his M.D. from the Philipps University, Marburg, Germany and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University, the Skirball Institute and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In 2001, he was appointed as tenured Professor for Microbiology at the Vienna Biocenter, Austria. 

    Rodger was responsible for financing and business development deals worth several billion dollars, among them the landmark deals for CRISPR Therapeutics with Bayer and Vertex. He has authored numerous scientific papers and patents. For his work Rodger has received several scientific awards and honors for his contributions to the biotech industry, including being named as one of the “Top 100 Innovators in the World” by the MIT Technology Review in 2017.

  • Shaun has spent the past 25 years working with emerging healthcare companies as an entrepreneur, investor and advisor. Shaun co-founded and is an Executive Director of Xap Therapeutics, a company developing an iPSC-derived delivery platform for a broad spectrum of therapeutic payloads, including genetic medicines. He also co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics, two of the leading companies commercializing the breakthrough CRISPR/Cas9 technology. At CRISPR Therapeutics he served as Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer leading it through its company creation phase and early financings. He was the CEO of ERS Genomics, leading the company through its startup phase and negotiating the company’s initial licensing deals. Shaun previously served as a Partner and one of the founding team members of Nomura Phase4 Ventures, a London-based venture capital group investing in emerging healthcare companies in North America and Europe. He received an M.Sc. in cell biology & immunology from the University of British Columbia and is a CFA® charterholder.

  • Rodger is a serial entrepreneur, long-time pharmaceutical and biotechnology senior executive with more than 20 years of experience. In 2013 he co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics, led the team that IPO’d the company in 2016 and served CRISPR as CEO until December 2017.

    Before CRISPR Therapeutics, Rodger was Global Head Infectious Diseases at Sanofi, based in Paris, France. His responsibilities included discovery, research and development and late-stage clinical development of anti-infectives, including diseases of the developing world. In early 2006, Rodger co-founded Nabriva Therapeutics, an antibacterial development company in Vienna, Austria, where he acted as COO. Nabriva was a spin-out from Sandoz/Novartis, where Rodger worked as Vice-Head of the Antibiotic Research Institute.

    In addition to CRISPR Therapeutics, Rodger serves as Executive Chair on the boards of Xap Therapeutics, Matterhorn Biosciences and AIRNA. He is a co-founder and board member of ERS Genomics. Rodger received his M.D. from the Philipps University, Marburg, Germany and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University, the Skirball Institute and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In 2001, he was appointed as tenured Professor for Microbiology at the Vienna Biocenter, Austria.

    Rodger was responsible for financing and business development deals worth several billion dollars, among them the landmark deals for CRISPR Therapeutics with Bayer and Vertex. He has authored numerous scientific papers and patents. For his work Rodger has received several scientific awards and honors for his contributions to the biotech industry, including being named as one of the “Top 100 Innovators in the World” by the MIT Technology Review in 2017.

  • Shaun has spent the past 25 years working with emerging healthcare companies as an entrepreneur, investor and advisor. Shaun co-founded and is an Executive Director of Xap Therapeutics, a company developing an iPSC-derived delivery platform for a broad spectrum of therapeutic payloads, including genetic medicines. He also co-founded CRISPR Therapeutics and ERS Genomics, two of the leading companies commercializing the breakthrough CRISPR/Cas9 technology. At CRISPR Therapeutics he served as Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer leading it through its company creation phase and early financings. He was the CEO of ERS Genomics, leading the company through its startup phase and negotiating the company’s initial licensing deals. Shaun previously served as a Partner and one of the founding team members of Nomura Phase4 Ventures, a London-based venture capital group investing in emerging healthcare companies in North America and Europe. He received an M.Sc. in cell biology & immunology from the University of British Columbia and is a CFA® charterholder.

  • Mahesh joined SROne as a Senior Associate in 2024. Previously, he was VP Business Operations at Xap Therapeutics and Head of Clinical Development at Orchard Therapeutics, where he also served as cross functional program leader for a number of gene therapy development programs. He has also held roles at GSK in early clinical development and medical affairs. He is a board-certified equivalent pharmaceutical physician and previously specialised in diagnostic and interventional radiology.

    Mahesh is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and Member of the Royal College of Physicians. He received his medical degree from University College London and M.A. in Medical Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

  • Iqbal is a seasoned pharmaceutical executive with a proven track record in product and portfolio strategy, lifecycle management, late stage development, product launches, global commercialization, affiliate operating leadership, global business development and M&A.

    Iqbal recently co-led the rare blood disorders portfolio strategy team at Hoffmann La- Roche where he established the strategy, identified therapeutic focus areas and enabled collaboration across the discovery, development and commercialization teams. Iqbal was also the global Lifecycle Leader for Hemlibra (emicizumab). Under his leadership in the 4 years since launch, Hemlibra was approved in over 100 countries and has become one of the largest absolute and relative growth drivers in the Roche portfolio with over USD 3 billion in revenue in 2021.

    Iqbal has significant experience in partnering, having worked on many licensing and acquisitions during his tenure at Roche. He also has operational and commercial experience in multiple territories including the US, Europe and emerging markets.

    Iqbal holds a BSc in Biotechnology from University College London and a MBA from Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

Careers

At Econic Biosciences, we are working together with one focus in mind – targeting the most powerful cause of oncogene amplification. We are looking to hire across all levels at our new headquarters in London. Join our team to help shape the future of ecDNA therapeutics.

Contact Us

Waterfront Building, Manbré Wharf
Hammersmith, London W6 9RU
United Kingdom

info@econicbio.com

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