
Peptone is a first-in-class pre-clinical biophysics venture focusing on the discovery of novel therapeutics against intrinsically disordered protein targets. The company, backed by F-Prime and Bessemer Venture Partners, has appointed Andrew Allen, MD/PhD as Board Chair.
Andrew is a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded as CEO Gritstone bio, a now public company whose focus is on the development of next-generation vaccines for cancer and infectious disease. Allen previously co-founded Clovis Oncology and served as its CMO until 2015, driving the development of Rucaparib, a PARP inhibitor. Prior to that, Allen was CMO at Pharmion Corporation, developing Vidaza, the first approved DNA methylation inhibitor, until its acquisition by Celgene in 2008. Earlier in his career, Allen worked at Chiron, Abbott, and McKinsey & Company.
Allen served on the Board of Directors of Sierra Oncology from 2017 until its acquisition by GSK in 2022 and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Revitope Oncology, TCR2 Therapeutics (Nasdaq: TCRR), and Verge Genomics. Other previous Board of Directors appointments include Epizyme and Cell Design Labs (acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2017).Andrew Allen qualified in medicine at Oxford University and received a Ph.D. in immunology from the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine in London.
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