Anticancer Bioscience (ACB), pioneers in synthetic lethal approaches to precision oncology, announced the appointment of Dr. Hong Liu as VP of Clinical Development. A physician-scientist, he will be based in Chengdu and San Francisco.

ACB is commercializing inventions made in the J. Michael Bishop Institute of Cancer Research. ACB currently employs some 50 staff across its sites in China, India, UK and USA, and is expanding as it moves its discovery programs towards clinical development. The company aims to move at least one of its five programs into clinical development in the USA in 2022.

ACB’s Founder, President and CEO, Dun Yang, PhD, said, “We continue our development towards being a clinical stage company. As a highly experienced R&D leader in the field of oncology drug development, Dr. Liu will be a great addition to our world-class team as we progress our pipeline of assets, focused on synthetic lethality approaches. His appointment supports our ongoing mission to grow ACB into a leading international precision oncology company.”

Dr. Liu commented on his appointment, “I welcome the opportunity of taking cancer drug candidates from IND-filing, and into the clinic. I am excited to be joining the ambitious team at ACB that is pioneering synthetic lethal approaches to cancer treatment and look forward to using my experience in oncology drug development to advance ACB’s unique pipeline of MYC-synthetic lethal drugs.”

Having raised CNY131m (approximately USD21m) in seed finance to fund its discovery research, ACB is currently pursuing a Series A financing to progress at least one of its MYC-SL compounds into clinical trials.