Cumulus Neuroscience Appoints Dr Ruth McKernan CBE as Chair

BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cumulus Neuroscience (Cumulus, The Company), a leading global innovator providing real-world clinical trial data and AI-powered insights to accelerate the development of life-changing CNS therapies, announces that Dr Ruth McKernan CBE, a Founder and Director of the company, has been appointed as Chair.

Dr McKernan, neuroscientist, is a Venture Partner at the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), a specialist venture capital fund managed by SV Health Investors, where she has been involved in co-founding DDF companies Loqus23 and AstronauTX. Immediately prior to joining DDF, she spent three years as CEO of the UK Government's Innovation agency, InnovateUK and played a key role in creating the Industrial Strategy Challenge  and supporting Technology centres and SMEs.

Ruth has 25 years of research and development experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including heading up research units in the UK and the US. Ruth's previous roles include Senior Vice President at Pfizer and Head of the Merck Neuroscience Research Centre. She has been a member of the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK and is a trustee at Alzheimer's Research UK. Ruth is an active and enthusiastic entrepreneur who currently chairs the UK BioIndustry Association and adds Cumulus to her other Board roles at Cerevel and AstronauTx.

Ruth's awards and achievements include a CBE in 2013 for services to Business, Innovation and Skills, a Fulbright Scholarship and a Glaxo/ABSW Science Writers' Award. Ruth is the author of more than 120 scientific papers and 15 patents as well as a book for non-scientists, "Billy's Halo".

Cumulus Neuroscience CEO Ronan Cunningham commented: "We are delighted that Ruth has agreed to become Chair of Cumulus Neuroscience. She has played an instrumental role in the founding and early development of the company, helping to bring together the suite of technologies that enable our integrated platform. Her considerable experience and broad knowledge of the field will be invaluable in the further development and clinical application of our technology."

Ruth McKernan, newly appointed Chair added: "The formation of Cumulus Neuroscience, represents a significant opportunity to address some of the current limitations of clinical trials in dementia and other brain disorders. There are many new therapeutics for dementia now in research and clinical studies.  A broad-based fully integrated platform that accurately reports disease progression will accelerate getting those medicines to patients. I look forward to continuing to work with Cumulus – it is an exciting new company with wonderful ambition."

About Cumulus Neuroscience

Cumulus Neuroscience is the next generation integrated physiological and digital biomarker platform for brain health. It provides critical insights and data to clinical trial, to accelerate the development and delivery of central nervous system (CNS) therapies to patients.

Our innovative platform has been designed to greatly improve the robustness of neuroscience clinical trials by allowing better and timely assessment of drug candidates earlier in development, with the aim in time to provide an industry-wide standard for real-world measurement of disease progression and treatment response.

Our platform has been developed to capture large amounts of real-world lab-quality data through time across multiple behavioural and physiological domains by tracking physiology, functions and symptoms in the patient's home. The platform also provides cutting-edge AI-based data analysis allowing it to provide the best and most cost-effective assessment of CNS treatment outcomes.

Cumulus Neuroscience is confident that it can play an important role in assisting its pharma and biotech partners to develop transformational therapies to address multiple important neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases, where treatment options are extremely limited.

The Company is supported by highly experienced specialised investor DDF/SV Health Investors as well as LifeArc and Future Fund together with a world-class Scientific and Technical Advisory Board.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Cumulus Neuroscience
Ronan Cunningham, CEO & Co-Founder
ronan@cumulusneuro.com 
Tel: +44 28 9264 6600

MEDiSTRAVA Consulting
Frazer Hall, Evelyn McCormack, George Underwood
cumulusneuro@medistrava.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 9571