Cyclacel Appoints Professor Karol Sikora To Cancer Scientific Advisory Board

World expert on the development of novel anti-cancer drugs

DUNDEE, UK, 27 January 2003 - Cyclacel Limited, the UK-based biopharmaceutical company, announced today the appointment of Professor Karol Sikora to its Oncology Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).

Professor Sikora MA, MB, PhD, FRCR, FRCP, FFPM is presently a Senior Consultant to AstraZeneca Oncology. He is also Special Adviser to HCA Healthcare, which is creating the largest UK cancer network outside the National Health Service in HCA’s six major London private hospitals including the Harley Street Cancer Centre. He is Visiting Professor of Cancer Medicine and honorary Consultant Oncologist at Imperial College School of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London.

Professor Sikora studied medical science and biochemistry at Cambridge, where he obtained a double first. After clinical training he became a house physician at The Middlesex Hospital and registrar in oncology at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He then became a research student at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge working with Sydney Brenner. He obtained his PhD and then spent a year as a clinical fellow at Stanford University, California before returning to direct the Ludwig Institute in Cambridge. He has been Clinical Director for Cancer Services at Hammersmith for 12 years and established a major cancer research laboratory there funded by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He became Deputy Director (Clinical Research) of the ICRF. From 1997 to 1999 he was Chief of the WHO (World Health Organisation) Cancer Programme based in Lyon, France and from 1999 to 2001 Vice President, Global Clinical Research (Oncology) at Pharmacia Corporation.

He has published over 300 papers and written or edited 17 books including Treatment of Cancer - the standard British postgraduate textbook now in its 4th edition. He is on the editorial board of several journals and is the founding editor of Gene Therapy and Cancer Strategy. He is a former member of the UK Health Department’s Expert Advisory Group on Cancer (the Calman-Hine Committee), the Committee on Safety of Medicines and remains an adviser to the WHO Cancer Programme.

Professor Sir David Lane, Cyclacel’s Chief Scientific Officer and Chair, Oncology SAB, said: “Professor Sikora has a worldwide reputation as a thought leader in the area of new drug therapeutics for treating cancer. In our era traditional models of drug development are not particularly insightful. Professor Sikora has been advocating novel approaches to test modern mechanism-based agents, like Cyclacel’s drug candidates, in the clinic using exciting new technologies such as biomarkers. His extensive academic and industrial experience will be extremely valuable to us as we continue to make progress with our lead drugs in the clinic.”

In addition to Professor Lane and Dr Robert Jackson Executive Director, Research & Development, Cyclacel’s Oncology SAB consists of the following members: Professor Kenneth Harrap, Professor Stanley Kaye, Professor Michel Marty MD, Professor Enrico Mihich MD.