Board Changes

5 January 2015

Silence Therapeutics plc

Board changes

Silence Therapeutics plc, AIM: SLN ('Silence' or 'the Company'), announces that Simon Sturge and Alastair Riddell will exchange roles. As from the 5th January 2015 Alastair Riddell will take on the role of Non-executive Chairman of the Board and Chair the Nominations Committee. Simon Sturge will remain a Non Executive Director and Chair the Remuneration Committee.Simon Sturge became Non-executive Chairman in November 2013. In March 2014 he was appointed to a senior executive role with Merck KgaA based in Switzerland heading their Biosimilars activity, which has necessarily reduced his availability in UK. 

Alastair Riddell said, "We are grateful that Simon remains committed to continue to support the company in a role less demanding of his time. I am delighted to be given the opportunity to work more closely with Ali Mortazavi and his new senior team in helping the company generate value from its RNA based therapeutic platform."

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About Silence Therapeutics

Silence Therapeutics is a leading RNA therapeutics company. It has developed proprietary modifications to improve the robustness of RNA sequences together with advanced liposomal chemistries to enhance the delivery of its therapeutics.

Dr Alastair Riddell

Dr Riddell has significant experience at Board level in life sciences and drug discovery and development companies. He is currently Chairman of Definigen and has served as Chairman of both Surface Therapeutics and Procure Therapeutics. Non-executive directorships have included Sareum and CXR Biosciences. As CEO of Pharmagene, Alastair completed a successful IPO on the UK main list, as CEO of Paradigm Therapeutics he completed a successful trade sale to Takeda and as CEO of Stem Cell Sciences a trade sale to Stem Cells Inc (NASDAQ). A board member of the BioIndustry Association for ten years, Alastair began his professional career as a medical doctor and Army officer with experience in a variety of hospital specialties and in general practice. He then moved into industry, directing all phases of clinical trials, before moving to sales, marketing and general management in international pharmaceutical, life science and biotechnology companies, including Celltech, Centocor and Amersham International.

Simon Sturge

Mr Sturge has over 32 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. He worked for Celltech for nine years, serving on the Group Board for the latter part of this time. He also founded and was CEO for ten years of a biotech company that he founded and later listed on the FTSE and NASDAQ exchanges as Vernalis plc. Most recently he was Corporate Senior Vice President of Biotechnology for one of the world's top 15 pharmaceutical companies. Simon has significant experience in strategy development, deal making and financing. This experience covers both small molecules and proteins and in recent years he has built significant experience in the area of biosimilars. Since March 2014, he has been heading the biosimilars unit at Merck KGaA. Simon is routinely asked to speak at conferences including attendance at the World Economic Forum as an invited entrepreneur in 2005.