Philip Haworth, JD, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Haworth was appointed chief executive officer of Silence Therapeutics plc on 5 January 2010 upon the merger with Intradigm, where he had fulfilled the same role since October 2008 after serving as the company’s vice president of business development. He joined to Intradigm in May 2007 having spent the previous 15 years in senior business development roles at several leading biotechnology companies including Genencor International, COR Therapeutics and Affymax/Affymetrix, among others. In these positions, he led the identification and negotiation of numerous collaborative and licensing agreements with a range of global and regional pharmaceutical companies. He most recently served as vice president, business development at Codexis, Inc. He possesses deep deal–making expertise that spans establishing discovery and development partnerships, technology and product in– and out–licensing, mergers and acquisitions, and financing support.
Dr. Haworth earned his J.D. from Stanford University Law School and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Manchester in the U.K. He also received his bachelor’s degree with first class honors in physiology and biochemistry from the University of Southampton in the U.K.

Melvyn Davies
Finance Director & Company Secretary

Melvyn Davies is the Finance Director and Company Secretary of the group. Mr. Davies qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1981 and was a partner with a medium sized firm of London based Chartered Accountants for 5 years until 1994, specializing in the practice's more complex audit and accounting issues. He has 25 years experience advising and assisting both large and small businesses across a wide range of industry sectors. Mr Davies has advised the group since its foundation in 1992 and joined the Board in 1994 to help prepare it for its initial public offering in 1995. Since then he has been instrumental in negotiating licensing and collaboration agreements and securing several rounds of fundraising in the process moving the Group onto the Alternative Investment Market and to a full London Listing before moving the shares back to AIM in 2004. Following the restructuring of the Group in 2005, his main responsibilities are to control and direct the Group's governance, financial and taxation affairs.

Thomas Christély
Chief Operating Officer

Thomas Christély has more than 19 years experience in finance and corporate and business development. His track record includes multiple financing transactions as well as M&A, divestments and strategic restructurings and more than 9 years in cross-border management at board level. Mr. Christély joined Silence Therapeutics AG (Atugen AG) in 2001 as CFO and became COO in 2002 prior to being appointed its CEO in 2006. From 1996 to 2000, he held the position of 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 to 2000. Mr. Christély was managing partner of the investment firm Löschen & Partner, Hamburg/Moscow, from 1992 to 1995. He worked in mergers & acquisitions of Enskilda Corporate Finance, London from 1989 to 1992. Mr. Christély has worked for two international accounting and consultancy firms and for the Commission of the European Union in Brussels. 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.

Dr. Klaus Giese
Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Klaus Giese has over 19 years of relevant experience in both the US and Europe, including the management of more than 20 international collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies and more than 5 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, Emeryville, CA from 1994 to 1998 and was responsible for coordinating and managing part 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. 

Michael Riley, JD, M.Sc.
Vice President of Intellectual Property & Corporate Development

Mr. Riley joined the company in August 2006. In addition to leading the company’s operations (finance, legal, HR & IT), Mr. Riley has responsibility for all of our intellectual property activities. Mr. Riley brings with him over ten years of operational, intellectual property and international business experience. Most recently he held various positions in Europe and the U.S. with Amgen, Abgenix and Celltech Group PLC.
Mr. Riley obtained his JD with distinction from University of North Dakota School of law, and his M Sc from University of North Dakota School of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Dr. John Lucas
General Counsel and Vice President, Intellectual Property

Dr. John Lucas brings over 18 years of legal, intellectual property and research experience to Silence Therapeutics.  Prior to Joining Silence Therapeutics, Dr. Lucas was Vice President of Intellectual Property at Metabasis Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company in La Jolla, California.  At Metabasis he served as the Company’s first in-house counsel and was responsible for a wide range of legal matters including intellectual property, contracts and agreements and corporate compliance.  Prior to Metabasis, Dr. Lucas held the position of Vice President, Intellectual Property at Transform Pharmaceuticals of Lexington Massachusetts, which specialized in small molecule drug form and formulation.  In addition to his other duties at Transform, he was heavily involved in the company’s business strategy which culminated in the acquisition of Transform by Johnson and Johnson.  Dr. Lucas also served as Vice President, World-wide Intellectual Property at Genset of Paris, France and as Patent Examiner with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Dr. Lucas holds a J.D. from George Washington University and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Ohio State University.  He also holds a M.S. in microbiology and a B.Ed. from Ohio University.  In addition, Dr. Lucas’ scientific experience includes a post-doctoral fellowship in cancer research at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.