CN Bio appoints Dr. Tomasz Kostrzewski as Chief Scientific Officer

Cambridge, UK, 30^th August 2023: CN Bio, a leading Organ-on-a-Chip (OOC) company that designs and manufactures single-and multi-organ microphysiological systems (MPS), today announced the appointment of Dr. Tomasz Kostrzewski as Chief Scientific Officer. Previously Vice President of Science and Technology, Dr. Kostrzewski’s promotion creates a new position in CN Bio’s leadership team, marking another key milestone in the Company’s development as the fourth leadership-level appointment within the past year.

Dr. Kostrzewski has more than 15 years of experience in molecular and cellular biology research. Joining CN Bio in 2015, he was promoted to Director of Biology in 2018 with responsibility for biological assay development and collaborative research projects with academia, pharma, and regulators. In 2021, he was again promoted to Vice President of Science and Technology, assuming responsibility for all technical activities, including new product, technology, and assay development, as well as contract research services. Dr. Kostrzewski has managed multiple grant-funded research projects at CN Bio and is currently the project lead for its long-standing collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Building on the success of the five-year project, the FDA has expanded the scope of the research twice, most recently in January 2023¹, and published the first co-publication, peer-reviewed article between an MPS provider and a regulator², with further publications anticipated. Dr. Kostrzewski has published more than twelve peer-reviewed scientific articles in the last five years and submitted several patent applications.

Prior to joining CN Bio, Dr. Kostrzewski worked at Imperial College London in the Department of Life Sciences studying immune cell development and stem cell differentiation, as well as at GlaxoSmithKline working in biopharmaceutical drug discovery and development. He holds three degrees from the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London in Cell and Molecular Biology.

As Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Kostrzewski will focus on the strategic initiatives for CN Bio’s technical activities, working closely with key industry stakeholders in pharma, biotech and at regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, to inform and validate the ongoing development of its OOC technology. Harnessing this combined expertise, he will be responsible for ensuring the Company’s portfolio of bioengineered solutions incorporates the latest technological advances and remains appropriate for use across the drug development workflow, enabling users to uniquely mimic key aspects of human biology and understand the mechanistic behaviour of novel drug candidates.

Dr. Tomasz Kostrzewski, Chief Scientific Officer, CN Bio, commented: “Having joined the CN Bio team over eight years ago, I’ve had the great opportunity to be at the cutting-edge of this rapidly-evolving industry and witness research and legislations evolve as the potential of Organ-on-a-Chip technology is realised. As the next stage in my career, it is a privilege to be promoted from within to support the Company as CSO. Our reputation is a testament to the team we have built and its extensive background in bioengineering and drug discovery, and I very much look forward to progressing all the opportunities we have in the pipeline to advance the future of drug development.”

Dr. Paul Brooks, CEO, CN Bio, said: “Tom is an asset to our team, his technical expertise paired with his insight and connections within the industry have been invaluable to CN Bio’s development and solidifying our reputation as leading providers of advanced Organ-on-a-Chip solutions. It has been a pivotal year for the Company’s growth, particularly to build and strengthen our senior leadership team – with Tom as our first CSO we are in a strong position to drive our commercial strategy forward, providing the deep expertise to better understand human physiology, disease and the effectiveness of new drugs.”

1.       Press release: The FDA further expands collaboration with CN Bio to evaluate the PhysioMimix Multi-organ microphysiological system (17^th January, 2023) https://cn-bio.com/the-fda-further-expands-collaboration-with-cn-bio-to-evaluate-the-physiomimix-multi-organ-microphysiological-system/    
2.       Rubiano, A., Indapurkar, A., et al., 2021. Characterizing the reproducibility in using a liver microphysiological system for assaying drug toxicity, metabolism, and accumulation. Clinical and Translational Science, 14(3), pp.1049-1061.

ENDS

About CN Bio https://cn-bio.com/

CN Bio is a leading organ-on-a-chip (OOC) company that offers a portfolio of products and services to optimise the accuracy and efficiency of bringing new medicines to market; providing significant savings in cost and time to drug discovery and development pipelines. With more than a decade of research and development experience in multi-organ microphysiology, CN Bio aims to transform the way human-relevant pre-clinical data is generated through the development of the most complete model of the human “Body-on-a-Chip” in the laboratory.

The Company’s range of lab-benchtop PhysioMimix™ microphysiological systems (MPS) enable researchers to model human biology in the lab through rapid and predictive 3D human tissue-based studies that harness microfluidic technology to provide nutrients and mimic blood flow. The technology bridges the gap between traditional cell culture and human studies, advancing towards the simulation of human biological conditions to support the accelerated and more efficient development of new therapeutics, whilst reducing the dependence on animal model usage.

CN Bio’s MPS support researchers that require reliable, data-rich, in vitro studies, to uncover novel mechanistic insights into a broad range of biological processes across healthy and diseased cell-types, in addition to identifying novel therapeutic targets and investigating drug efficacy, pharmacokinetics and potential toxicity.

The Company’s next-generation OOC assays span a range of organ types, including lung, liver and gut. Single organs can be linked together into multi-organ systems to simulate processes such as drug absorption and metabolism, or to understand interactions between organs, such as inflammation.

Harnessing these assays, its portfolio of MPS, 3D validated cells, compatible consumable plates and research services have been developed to address drug development bottlenecks across a range of therapeutic areas, including metabolic and infectious diseases, oncology, and inflammation.

CN Bio’s headquarters and laboratories are based in Cambridge, UK, with an international network of distributors.

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