PharmaTelevision - Thiakis’ origins, Bloom and acquisition by Wyeth

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Video title: Thiakis’ origins, Bloom and acquisition by Wyeth

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In This Episode:

Summary
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Dr Fintan Walton talks with Dr John Burt, former CEO of Thiakis, about:

• the company’s origins and specific technology
• the work of Professor Steve Bloom at Imperial College
• obesity treatment
• how the company came to be acquired by Wyeth, and the involvement of Credit Suisse
• John Burt’s plans for the future

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The company's origins and specific technology

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to Pharmaventures Business Review here at the BIA leadership summit in Hertfordshire UK. On this show I have John Burt who is the former CEO of a company called Thiakis based in London. Welcome to the show.

John Burt:

Thank you, Fintan.

Fintan Walton:

I say former CEO because Thiakis is now recently just recently bought by Wyeth [DOI: 10.3833/pdr.v2009i1.89] back in December. Could you tell us first of all before we get to the particular deal, the origins of Thiakis, where it came from, its origins and its specific technology?

John Burt:

Certainly, yes Thiakis was built really on the intellectual property on the work of Steve Bloom at Imperial college. Steve has been working in the field of gut hormones regulation of appetite for several decades and so its building of his work at Imperial college that we founded the company 00.01.12 back in 2004 with the support of Imperial innovations and we took the company forward from 2004 raising finance through to the deal that you just mentioned.

Fintan Walton:

So how important was Imperial innovations to the birth of Thiakis?

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John Burt

ex-CEO

John Burt was at the time of recording working as an Independent Consultant at Ashendun Limited. He was the CEO and co-founder of Thiakis which had a successful acquisition by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals . His previous experience include working as Head of Medical & Life Sciences at Imperial Innovations and Director, Genetics & Discovery Deal Structuring, GSK, Director, Strategy & Business Development (Predictive Medicine) at GlaxoSmithKline. His prior stints include Financial Planning Manager at Vanguard Medica (Vernalis) and associate at Coopers & Lybrand. He has a degree in BA Natural sciences from University of Cambridge.

Thiakis

Thiakis focused on the development of novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment of obesity and other metabolic diseases. It was founded in 2004 by Professor Steve Bloom and Dr John Burt to focus on the development of peptide hormones that regulate appetite, based on the research of Professor Bloom's group at Imperial College London. Thiakis was acquired by Wyeth in December 2008.