Orbit Discovery Appoints Dr Neil Butt as Chief Executive Officer

29 June 2021

Oxford, United Kingdom, June 29, 2021: Orbit Discovery Ltd (“Orbit”), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering candidate peptide therapeutics using high throughput microfluidic platforms, has announced the appointment of Dr Neil Butt as Chief Executive Officer.

With an extensive track record in commercialising proprietary drug discovery platforms, Dr Butt joins Orbit to oversee the Company’s development into a service driven drug discovery company, with a focus on identifying candidate peptides against challenging targets, such as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs).

Prior to joining Orbit, Dr Butt most recently served as on the board and as Chief Business Officer of IONTAS, a privately held company exploiting mammalian display technology in the discovery of novel antibodies with inherent biophysical properties that align with speedy progression through manufacturing. The Company was sold to FairJourney Biologics in 2021 to create a global antibody discovery service company. Before that, as head of business development, he was part of the management team that took Abzena onto The London AIM market. Following this IPO, Abzena acquired two US companies to create the foundations of the current CDMO. Prior to Abzena, Dr Butt was head of business development and part of the executive management team at Antitope, which resulted in the sale of Antitope to Polytherics, with the joint parties then rebranding as Abzena.

“Neil is an accomplished biotech leader across all the areas and competencies that are required to run a successful business. His extensive experience in commercialising platform technologies, as well as his track record in growing and expanding service-based biotech companies, will be critical as we enter a new stage of growth for Orbit Discovery,” said Dr Tom McCarthy, Chairman of Orbit Discovery. “On behalf of the entire Orbit team, I welcome Neil and look forward to his contributions.”

Dr Neil Butt, CEO Orbit Discovery, said: “I believe Orbit Discovery is poised to exploit the challenging area of membrane spanning therapeutic peptides and proteins. The technology platform the team has developed is ideal for functional screening, which is a critical technology gap in optimising the drug discovery process and reducing risk in finding suitable leads for later development. I am looking forward to the challenges ahead and working with a team of talented and dedicated scientists.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Dr Neil Butt, CEO, Orbit Discovery

For further information please contact:

Orbit Discovery Ltd

Neil Butt, CEO

Tel: +(0)1865 749234

Email: neil.butt@orbitdiscovery.com

Zyme Communications

Lorna Cuddon

Tel: +44(0)7811 996 942

Email: lorna.cuddon@zymecommunications.com

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About Orbit

Orbit Discovery Ltd is a functional screening service company focused on the use of novel bead and microfluidic technology platforms to improve the throughput of functional screening, when searching for agonist of antagonists. The Orbit technologies encompass target protein expression and purification, with a focus on GPCRs; affinity screening to identify panels of target binding therapeutic candidates; and functional screening in cell-based assays. The Company’s multi-disciplinary team of world-class researchers and drug developers is working to translate this technology into breakthrough human therapeutics for our Partners and collaborators, these parties encompass large scale pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies. The company is based in the Oxford Science Park and benefits from the expertise and experience of its founders, Professor Graham Ogg (University of Oxford) and Professor Terry Rabbits (the Institute of Cancer Research).

For more information, please visit https://www.orbitdiscovery.com/

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