16 March 2023 - - US-based biopharmaceutical company Ajax Therapeutics, Inc has appointed Alan Collis, PhD, as senior vice president and Head of Preclinical Development, the company said.

Dr. Collis brings over 25 years of drug development experience to Ajax with previous preclinical development roles at Novartis, Forma Therapeutics and Nimbus Therapeutics.

At Nimbus, he managed the preclinical development of the company's drug discovery program targeting tyrosine kinase 2, a member of the JAK kinase family.

Dr. Collis joins Ajax from Syngene International where he served as vice president of Integrated Drug Discovery and led a portfolio of 20 drug discovery programs.

Prior to Syngene, he served as senior vice president of Preclinical Development at Nimbus Therapeutics where led the preclinical and IND activities for the company's TYK2 and HPK-1 inhibitor programs.

Previously, Dr. Collis was Executive director, DMPK and Safety for Forma Therapeutics where he supported the company's IDH1 and BET inhibitor programs.

He has also worked in various director level positions at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Sanofi-Aventis and Rhone Poulenc Rorer. Dr. Collis received a PhD in chemistry from the University of Manchester, UK.

Ajax Therapeutics, Inc. is pursuing uniquely selective approaches to develop novel next generation JAK2 therapies for myeloproliferative neoplasms, including Myelofibrosis.

By combining the deep cancer and structural biology insights of our founding scientists with the industry's most advanced computational drug discovery and protein structure platforms from our founding partner, Schrödinger, Inc., the company aims to discover and develop more precisely designed therapies to address the significant unmet needs for patients with MPNs.