About Us

THOMAS CHRISTÉLY
Chief Executive Officer

Thomas Christély brings more than 20 years experience in corporate and business development and finance. He was instrumental in the merger of Silence Therapeutics AG (formerly Atugen AG) with Silence Therapeutics plc (formerly SR Pharma plc) and admission to the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. His track record includes concluding major collaborations with AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Dainippon Sumitomo and other pharma and biotech companies, multiple financing transactions as well as M&A, divestments and strategic restructurings. He has more than 19 years of management experience at board level thereof 14 years cross-border. Mr. Christély joined Atugen AG in 2001 as Chief Financial Officer and became Chief Operating Officer in 2002 before being appointed its Chief Executive Officer in 2006. Prior to joining Silence, he was Senior VP and CFO at OXO Chemie AG, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, and founded its subsidiary OXO Chemie Inc. in San Francisco, where he stayed from 1997 until 2000. Mr. Christély was managing partner of the investment firm Löschen & Partner, Hamburg/Moscow, from 1992 to 1995 and worked in mergers & acquisitions at Enskilda Corporate Finance, London, from 1989 to 1992. After his studies in Hamburg and Geneva, he received degrees in Business Administration (equivalent to MBA) and Law from the University of Hamburg and was admitted as attorney-at-law. Thomas Christély is currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Müller-Spreer AG, Hamburg, and CEO of Silence Therapeutics AG.

KLAUS GIESE, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Giese has over 19 years of relevant experience in both the U.S. and Europe, including the management of more than 20 international collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies and more than five years in cross-border management as CSO.  Dr. Giese joined Silence Therapeutics AG in 1999, where he continues his position as CSO. Prior to Silence Therapeutics, Dr. Giese was group leader at Chiron Corporation from 1994 to 1998 and was responsible for coordinating and managing a portion of Chiron's obesity and oncology program. His efforts in this program included the development of several different gene expression profiling approaches and the development of a novel high-throughput screening assay to identify inhibitors of HIV-1 transcription. Prior to joining Chiron, Dr. Giese acted as research scientist and postdoctoral fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Francisco, as well as at the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. Dr. Giese studied biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin, where he also received his Ph.D. 

MAX HERRMANN
Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary

Mr. Herrmann possesses more than 20 years of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry experience having held key management positions with leading development stage companies, as well as several investment banks.  In these roles, he has been involved in raising more than $300M for biotechnology companies in the United States and Europe.  Most recently Mr. Herrmann served as CFO of Intercytex Group plc, a publicly traded company focused on the emerging area of regenerative medicine.  Before joining Intercytex, he spent over ten years as a sell-side equity analyst, most recently as managing director and head of European pharmaceutical and biotechnology research at ING.  He has also held the position of financial controller for US-based Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc and currently serves on the boards of Regenerative Medicine Assets Limited.

Mr. Herrmann qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen in 1993. He holds a degree in microbiology from the University of Kent.

DR. JÖRG KAUFMANN
Vice President of Research

Dr. Kaufmann possesses more than 14 years of biotechnology industry experience in both the United States and Europe. Since joining Silence in 2000, he has served as both senior and associate director, technologies at the Company’s Berlin location. Prior to joining Silence, Dr. Kaufmann was a senior scientist at Chiron Corporation, where he was responsible for leading one of the company’s molecular biology research groups focused on breast cancer. From 1996-1997 he served as a group leader at the Institute of Tumour Biology (IMT) in Marburg, Germany. Dr. Kaufmann was a postdoctoral fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Los Angeles and received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the Philipps University Marburg.

TONY SEDGWICK
Chief Business Officer

Tony Sedgwick is an experienced biotechnology and pharmaceutical entrepreneur with extensive experience in small and large company transactions and will assume responsibility for the broadening of Silence's partnerships. He was most recently Chief Executive Officer of the UK biotech company Novacta and Chairman of the Norwegian biotech company Plastid AS. Previously Tony was Chief Executive Officer of the UK biotech company Daniolabs Ltd. and the UK biotech company Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd., both companies being successfully exited by trade sale. Tony has been an executive and non-executive of a large number of life science companies in the UK and continental Europe. Between 1986 and 2002 Tony worked for Roche in several senior management roles, latterly as Global Head of Clinical Operations and UK Development Director.

GEORG BUCHNER
Vice President of Business Development

Georg brings a wealth of experience in business development having completed multiple licensing deals in his career.  He was formerly VP of Corporate & Business Development at Novacta Biosystems Ltd. Prior to joining Novacta, Georg was Business Development Director at Haptogen Ltd and was instrumental in the sale of the business to Wyeth (now part of Pfizer) in 2007. Georg gained a PhD in Molecular Genetics from King’s College London and an MBA from The University of Cambridge’s Judge Institute of Management.