Simon Bushell is an accomplished medicinal chemist and chemical biologist who brings nearly two decades of drug discovery experience to Entact. Throughout his career, Simon has led molecular discovery to enable target identification and validation, new therapeutic modalities, lead finding initiatives, and candidate optimization across multiple therapeutic areas. His passion is the use of chemistry to understand biology, and vice versa, with the goal of bringing forth new medicines. Simon has extensive scientific and strategic leadership experience in both biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies through previous roles at Odyssey Therapeutics, Merck, and Novartis. He’s a long-standing advocate for mentorship programs to cultivate a work environment which encourages curiosity and innovation through openness and humility. Simon grew up in the UK and earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) before moving to the US to complete postdoctoral training at Boston College, in Chestnut Hill, MA. Outside of work, Simon’s a weekend warrior cyclist and swim taxi driver for his three active boys, and he "treats" them to his love of learning through podcasts (anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Adam Grant) or Audible as they drive around!
Rochester Cathedral near his childhood home in England
Tower Bridge London UK
The original Walter Baker chocolate factory in his hometown of Milton, MA
St. Paul's Cathedral London UK
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02/07/2023 News
Entact Bio’s CEO is leading the company out of stealth and into a new age of protein enhancement
Guiding a young, groundbreaking company to maturity calls for a leader who can strike the right balance between oversight and support. Victoria Richon is hoping to provide just that as the new CEO of Entact Bio, a preclinical biotech that came out of stealth in December...
01/06/2023 News
Entact Bio: Victoria Richon, CEO
The language of drug development is often militaristic. Medicinal chemists build arsenals of small molecules—looking for inhibitors or “warheads” that can hit “targets” and “combat” disease. Block, eliminate, disrupt, halt. For decades, drug makers have sought “magic bullets” that can precisely destroy ...
12/07/2022 News
Entact Bio launches with $81 million to enhance protein function
When proteins within the body get tagged with a molecule called ubiquitin, they are essentially marked for destruction. But they can be saved; a deubiquitinase enzyme can remove the ubiquitin, keeping the protein intact. That, at least in part, is what Entact Bio aims to do...