– Dr. Terence Kelly named interim CEO and Prof. Damian O’Connell named Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, joins Board of Directors
– Appointment of US-based CEO completes the recent build out of BluMaiden’s executive team in preparation for commercialization, supported by COO Dr. Damien Keogh and CFO Kenneth Ling
– BluMaiden’s differentiated AI drug discovery approach bridges the gap with natural substances and has already yielded three inflammatory disease targets that are being advanced to pre-clinical models
SINGAPORE, Feb. 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — BluMaiden Biosciences (“BluMaiden”), an AI drug discovery company pioneering a proprietary reverse translation approach that enables target and natural product bases drug candidate selection, announced the appointment of Dr. Terence Kelly as interim Chief Executive Officer and Professor Damian O’Connell as Chair of the Science Advisory Board and member of the Board of Directors. Dr. Damien Keogh, founder of BluMaiden, will assume the role of Chief Operations Officer, focused on driving the company’s scientific, technical, business development, and corporate functions.
“As BluMaiden enters the exciting phase of scaling operations in the US, advancing its first targets to pre-clinical models, and expanding commercial partnerships to accelerate the development of more effective therapeutics, we are pleased to welcome Terry and Damian in their new roles. Their breadth of experience in global drug discovery, clinical development leadership, and commercial strategy will bring important insights to the team,” commented Michael Tillman, Chairman of BluMaiden. “Following the recent appointment of Kenneth Lim as CFO and Damien spearheading operations, BluMaiden now has a full executive team in place to drive growth and execute on its commercial strategy.”
“Damien and the team have rapidly established BluMaiden at the forefront of innovative AI drug discovery, integrating advanced technology and scientific rigor to identify safer, biocompatible small molecule drug candidates from within the human body. I am looking forward to leading the team to scale commercial partnerships that deliver a transformative approach to drug discovery,” said Dr. Kelly. “My experience has taught me the difficulties faced in developing new treatments to address challenging therapeutic areas and I’m impressed by the progress that BluMaiden is already making in the fields of inflammatory disease and oncology.”
Professor O’Connell added, “As Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board and Board Member, I am excited to contribute my knowledge and experience to support BluMaiden’s growth. The intersection of AI and drug discovery holds incredible potential and BluMaiden’s differentiated approach is generating some fascinating insights into how human-derived natural product data can yield disease mechanism insights leading to the discovery of next-generation small molecule therapeutics.”
Dr. Kelly brings 35 years of drug discovery and development experience. He previously led Boehringer Ingelheim’s US medicinal chemistry department and was chief executive officer of CoMentis and Perception Neuroscience, US-based clinical-stage biotech companies focused on neurodegeneration and psychiatric disease. Dr. Kelly joined the Board of BluMaiden as a non-executive director in 2021. Throughout his career, he has led teams in medicinal chemistry, high throughput screening, computational chemistry, structural biology, and combinatorial chemistry. Dr. Kelly is based in the US and will support the company to build commercial and scientific teams there.
Professor O’Connell has over 25 years’ experience in pharma leadership, including roles as SVP and Global Head of Clinical Sciences at Bayer Pharma AG, as well as senior positions at Pfizer, Parke Davis, and Elan Pharmaceuticals. He is currently CEO of the Experimental Drug Development Centre, Singapore’s national platform for drug discovery and development, and holds additional positions including Adjunct Professor at the University College Cork, Ireland. Prof. O’Connell will join the Board of BluMaiden as a non-executive director.
BluMaiden Biosciences harnesses naturally occurring human-derived small molecules to develop superior therapeutics. The company’s advanced computational platform explores previously untapped chemical space within the human body, identifying safer, biocompatible small molecule drug candidates. By overcoming the limitations of synthetic chemistry that often lead to revenue loss, high clinical development costs, and trial failures, BluMaiden enables its pharma partners to bring better drugs to market faster. Integrating advanced AI-guided computational chemistry with genetics and disease mechanism insights from human clinical trial data, BluMaiden is at the forefront of next-generation small molecule therapeutics, driving innovation to transform patient outcomes. Using its proprietary approach, BluMaiden has identified three inflammatory disease targets that it is advancing to pre-clinical models.
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About BluMaiden Biosciences
BluMaiden Biosciences is a Singapore-headquartered biotech firm that is operational in the USA and Europe. It is a data-driven innovator producing actionable clinical insights to enhance clinical trial decision-making, commercialized through its Pharma Service. The company also identifies licensable small molecule drugs through its flagship platform MAIDENTM, that couples computational biology with computational chemistry to mine human clinical data for novel therapeutics. BluMaiden Biosciences has established strategic partnerships with AWS (certified Qualified Software Partner) and a growing network of healthcare and life science companies in the US and Europe. For more information please visit BluMaiden.com
