Artios Pharma Expands US Leadership Team with the Appointment of Abid Ansari as Chief Financial Officer

CAMBRIDGE, England and NEW YORK, Jan. 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Artios Pharma Limited ("Artios"), a leading DNA Damage Response (DDR) company developing a broad pipeline of precision medicines for the treatment of cancer, announces the appointment of Abid Ansari as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Abid will lead the company's financial, investor relations, and public relations operations, where he brings a variety of US financial experience to Artios, including a background with global public companies in corporate finance, business development, licensing, and investor relations. He joins Tania Dimitrova, Chief Business Officer, in the company's US subsidiary established since 2019.

Abid has 18 years of finance experience in life science businesses. Prior to joining Artios Pharma, he most recently served as CFO of Precision BioSciences (NASDAQ: DTIL), a next generation genome editing company.  There he helped the company raise over $300M in capital, including a $146M IPO and $110M Series B. Abid also worked at GlaxoSmithKline for five years in deal finance and portfolio management roles and at MedImmune LLC in commercial and capital finance roles.

Abid Ansari holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and a Master of Business Administration, both from Purdue University.  He is also a CPA. 

Andrew Muncey, Artios' UK-based CFO since 2016 becomes Chief Operating Officer (COO), where he will be responsible for the legal, company secretarial, HR, IT, facilities and operational functions of the company, including guiding the company in its transition from a preclinical company to a fully-fledged clinical DDR company. Andrew has over 20 years of management experience in biotechnology and a background in investment banking, capital markets and corporate finance.

Niall Martin, Chief Executive Officer of Artios, said: "I am delighted to welcome Abid to Artios at this exciting time for the company, as we look to accelerate progress in our pipeline and move our first candidate into clinical development. Abid is a key addition to our Executive Management team and strengthens our presence in the US. He will play an instrumental role in guiding Artios through its future financing stages. I also would like to thank Andrew for his excellent work over the last five years as CFO and look forward to working with him in his new position as COO."

Abid Ansari, Chief Financial Officer of Artios, said: "Artios is a world leader in the field of DNA damage response. This is an especially exciting time to join as the company makes the transition to an early-stage clinical oncology company. I am excited about working with Niall and the team to bring Artios' transformational science to patients as precision oncology medicines."

About Artios Pharma Limited

Artios is a leading DNA Damage Response (DDR) company focused on developing first-in-class treatments for cancer.  The Company is led by an experienced leadership team with world class scientific capabilities and proven expertise in DDR drug discovery, including the identification and development of the PARP inhibitor olaparib.  It has a unique partnership with Cancer Research UK (CRUK), and collaborations with leading DNA repair researchers worldwide, such as The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) and The Francis Crick Institute, London. Artios is building a pipeline of next-generation DDR programmes to target hard to treat cancers which will move into Phase 1 clinical studies in 2021. These include ATR inhibitor ART0380 for treating DDR defective tumours and the first-in-class Pol theta inhibitor ART4215 for mono therapy and combination treatments. In December 2020, Artios entered into a global three-year strategic research collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany to identify and develop precision oncology medicines targeting nucleases.  Artios is backed by blue chip investors including: AbbVie Ventures, Andera Partners, Arix Bioscience plc, IP Group plc, Life Science Partners (LSP), M Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund (NVF), Pfizer Ventures and SV Health Investors. Artios is based at the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge, UK, with an office in New York City, USA. For more information: www.artiospharma.com