Our name "NuCana" is derived from "New Cancer Agents" and "Nucleotide Analogs." It represents our goal of inventing, developing and commercializing truly novel, transformational medicines.

2025

Registered Direct Offering raises $11.7 million

NUC-7738 enters Phase 2 NuTide:701 expansion study in patients with cutaneous melanoma

2024

NUC-7738 + pembrolizumab demonstrates encouraging anti-cancer activity in patients who were resistant or refractory to prior PD-1 inhibitor therapy

2023

NUC-3373 shows promising efficacy signals in second-line colorectal cancer patients

NUC-7738 potentiates pembrolizumab in patients who have failed previous treatment with PD-1 inhibitors

2022

NUC-3373 shown to be more effective at inhibiting TS activity than 5-FU

2021

NUC-3373 achieves encouraging efficacy signals in colorectal cancer

NUC-7738 demonstrates anti-cancer activity in advanced solid tumors

2020

NUC-3373 shows potential to induce an immune response against cancer cells

Follow-on offering raises $80 million

2019

NUC-3373 demonstrates favorable PK profile in patients with cancer

NUC-7738 enters the Phase 1 NuTide:701 clinical study in patients with advanced solid tumors

2018

NUC-3373 enters the Phase 1b/2 NuTide:302 clinical study for the treatment of patients with advanced colorectal cancer

CEO Hugh Griffith honored with ‘Outstanding Contribution Award’ from Scottish Life Sciences

NuCana wins Scottish Life Sciences ‘Investment of the Year’

2017

Nasdaq IPO raises $114 million

2016

NUC-3373 enters the Phase 1 NuTide:301 clinical study in patients with advanced solid tumors

2014

Series B financing ($57 million) to fund expansion of clinical studies of ProTides

2011

Series A financing ($11 million) to accelerate ProTides into clinical development

2008

NuCana’s operations commence to drive ‘A New Era in Oncology’

Executive Team

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Hugh Griffith

Founder, CEO & Board Member

Hugh is founder and Chief Executive Officer of NuCana with over 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He co-founded MedAnnex, Thirty Holdings, and EdixoMed, and served as a non-executive director at MedAnnex from 2010 to 2024, and at Thirty Holdings Ltd and Edixomed Ltd from 2009 to 2023, until Edixomed was acquired by Convatec Group. As former Chief Operating Officer of Bioenvision Inc., Hugh led the company’s operations from start-up to a global, fully integrated, Nasdaq listed biopharmaceutical company from 2002 until 2007, when it was acquired by Genzyme, now Sanofi. Before that, he held several senior commercial positions at Quantanova Ltd in 2002, Abbott Laboratories (now AbbVie Inc.) from 1995 to 2001 and Warner-Lambert Company (now Pfizer Inc.) from 1992 to 1995.
Hugh is a named inventor on over 398 patents and over 300 pending patent applications. He received an MBA from Cardiff Business School and a BSc Honours in Biology from the University of Stirling. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association. He received a lifetime achievement award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Life Sciences’ by the Scottish Government.

Jeffery Bloss

Jeffrey Bloss

Chief Medical Officer

Jeffrey Bloss, M.D. brings over 20 years of leadership experience in oncology at multiple biopharmaceutical companies including Astellas, GlaxoSmithKline, Xencor, Onyx, Genentech and Eli Lilly. During his career Dr. Bloss has been a key member of the teams responsible for the development, approval and commercialization of more than ten successful oncology drugs, including Gemzar®, Tarceva®, Sorafenib®, Tykerb® and Xtandi®. Immediately prior to joining NuCana, Dr. Bloss served as Chief Medical Officer of Tarveda Therapeutics, a venture-backed clinical-stage oncology company. Prior to Tarveda, Dr. Bloss was Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs at Aegerion.
Before his work within industry, Dr. Bloss held a series of roles of increasing responsibility at the University of Missouri, Ellis Fischel Cancer Center and in the United States Air Force Medical Corps. Dr. Bloss completed his Residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center and his Fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of California, Irvine. He received his M.D. from Thomas Jefferson University Medical College and B.S. from Juniata College.

David Harrison

David Harrison

Head of Translational Medicine

David is a medically trained, clinical pathologist with extensive research, management and clinical experience that spans industry, academia and the clinic. As the head of NuCana’s preclinical and translational research programme, David’s research bridges from key biological differentiators of ProTides over traditional nucleoside analogs to programs focused on biomarkers and cell fate decisions following injury.
David is also Professor of Pathology at the University of St Andrews, and holds a visiting professorship at the University of Edinburgh and is adjunct professor at University of Florida. He chairs the UK Government Advisory Committee on Carcinogenicity, and was Director of iCAIRD, (Industrial Centre for AI Research in Digital Diagnostics), one of five UK Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Centres of Excellence. He has published over 300 papers and reviews in peer reviewed journals.

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Ian Webster

Interim Chief Financial Officer

Ian has over 20 years of experience in finance, including over 10 years in senior positions within the biopharmaceutical sector. His finance experience spans financial management, listed company reporting, audit, tax, M&A, and financial planning and analysis. Prior to joining NuCana in 2019, he served as Group Financial Controller at Kyowa Kirin International plc, a specialty pharmaceutical company from 2013 to 2019. He was a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a global accounting firm, from 2002 to 2013 working in both the audit and transaction services practices in the UK and Canada. He is a chartered accountant (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland) and received a BSc (Hons) in Accounting and Finance from the University of Warwick.

Senior Team

Theresa Bruce
Senior VP: Clinical Operations

Theresa has over 25 years of experience in clinical research where she has lead teams responsible for all aspects of clinical planning and delivery across oncology, haematology, and endocrinology therapeutic areas. She has held executive positions in both clinical research organisations and biotechnology companies, including VP Clinical Operations at Chiltern and VP Oncology at Veristat. Prior to joining NuCana, Theresa worked as an independent consultant to US biotech companies where she was responsible for expanding clinical trial portfolios outside of North America. Theresa originally trained as a nurse and received an MBA from Glasgow Caledonian University where she focused in Executive Leadership and Strategic Management.

Stuart Grant
Senior VP: Regulatory Affairs

Stuart has 15 years of biotech/CRO experience across regulatory affairs, clinical operations and medical writing. Prior to joining NuCana, Stuart held a number of positions at CROs/consultancies, including Director of Regulatory/Study Start-Up at inVentiv Health Clinical, Director of Regulatory at ClinTec, Clinical Regulatory Consultant at Kendle and a Medical Writer at Complete Medical Communications. His regulatory experience spans clinical development planning, scientific advice procedures, protocol development, clinical trial applications, IND submissions, marketing authorisation planning and orphan drug applications. At NuCana, Stuart oversees all regulatory activities and has led several IND submissions for Acelarin and NUC-3373, in addition to two orphan drug designations for Acelarin (from FDA and EMA). Stuart received a PhD in Physiology & Pharmacology and a BSc (Hons) in Immunology & Pharmacology from the University of Strathclyde.

Michelle Myers
VP: Medical and Scientific Affairs

Michelle has 10 years of experience in the biotechnology industry in addition to an array of scientific and collaborative experiences spanning the UK, US and Australia. Prior to joining NuCana, Michelle was a Medical Scientific Liaison with Roche, specializing in cancer immunotherapy and breast cancer. As VP of Medical Scientific Affairs, Michelle applies her strong academic background together with her extensive therapeutic area knowledge to advance the clinical development of NuCana’s pipeline. Michelle has over 20 peer-reviewed publications and continues to maintain strong academic and industry collaborations. Michelle received a PhD in reproductive biology from the University of Edinburgh and first-class BSc (Hons) from Monash University in Melbourne Australia.

Board of Directors

Andrew Kay
Andrew Kay

Executive Chairman

Has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2020.
Andrew brings more than 30 years of experience in building and leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of NeRRe Therapeutics and WalkSafe Chaperhome Limited. He also recently held the same role for Blueberry Therapeutics, for KaNDy Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that was acquired by Bayer for a deal value of up to $875 million in 2020, and for Wilson Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company acquired by Alexion Pharmaceuticals for $855 million in 2018. Prior to that, Andrew served as the President and Chief Executive Officer for Algeta. During Andrew’s leadership, Algeta’s lead product, Xofigo, was approved by the FDA and EMA for the treatment of bone metastases in castration-resistant prostate cancer patients, followed by a strong commercial launch. In February 2014, Algeta was acquired by Bayer AG for $2.9 billion. Prior to Algeta, Andrew was the Global Head of Marketing and Sales and a Member of the Healthcare Committee and Pharmaceutical Executive Committee at Novartis, and held several other senior commercial positions in Europe and the US having worked at AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Sandoz and Boots.

Hugh Griffith
Hugh Griffith

Executive Director

Has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2008.
Hugh is founder and Chief Executive Officer of NuCana with over 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He co-founded MedAnnex, Thirty Holdings, and EdixoMed, and served as a non-executive director at MedAnnex from 2010 to 2024, and at Thirty Holdings Ltd and Edixomed Ltd from 2009 to 2023, until Edixomed was acquired by Convatec Group. As former Chief Operating Officer of Bioenvision Inc., Hugh led the company’s operations from start-up to a global, fully integrated, Nasdaq listed biopharmaceutical company from 2002 until 2007, when it was acquired by Genzyme, now Sanofi. Before that, he held several senior commercial positions at Quantanova Ltd in 2002, Abbott Laboratories (now AbbVie Inc.) from 1995 to 2001 and Warner-Lambert Company (now Pfizer Inc.) from 1992 to 1995.
Hugh is a named inventor on over 398 patents and over 300 pending patent applications. He received an MBA from Cardiff Business School and a BSc Honours in Biology from the University of Stirling. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association. He received a lifetime achievement award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Life Sciences’ by the Scottish Government.

Martin Mellish
Martin Mellish

Non Executive Director

Has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2009.
Since 1994, Martin has served as the Founding Director and Chairman of Aspen Advisory Services Ltd., a London-based private investment advisory office overseeing private and publicly traded investments in North America, Europe and Asia.
Martin is non-executive director and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Spectral AI (NASDAQ: MDAI) a medical AI company, and serves as non-executive director of Kensington Green (Management) Limited, a real estate management company, Levitronix Technologies Inc., a technology company, Alturki Holding, an industrial investment and development holding company, and Saudi Readymix Concrete Company. Pro bono he serves on the International Advisory Council of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
From 1992 to 1994, Martin pursued studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1984 to 1992, he was controller and subsequently Chief Financial Officer of Alturki Holding. Prior to that, Mr. Mellish trained at Price Waterhouse Coopers.
He was awarded an MSc from the Master of Health Care Delivery Science at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and Tuck School of Business, an SM (Management) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MSc (Accounting) from Northeastern University.
He also serves as Chair of NuCana’s Audit Committee.

Cyrille Leperlier
Cyrille Leperlier

Non Executive Director

Has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2018.
Cyrille brings to NuCana over 40 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Most recently, Cyrille served as Chief Executive Officer of Divlal SAS from 2020 to 2022. Previously, he served as Vice President of Medical Assessment for Sanofi’s Corporate Business Development and M&A Group, where, among other transactions, he was deeply involved in Sanofi’s acquisition of Genzyme. Prior to this role, Cyrille served as Medical Director in Japan for Sanofi.
Before joining Sanofi, Cyrille was Medical Director and Global Head of Clinical Development at Rhone Poulenc Rorer and previously worked for Takeda in a variety of operational and medical affairs roles. Cyrille received an M.D. from the University of Paris, Saint-Antoine School of Medicine and an MSc in Human Biology (major in physiology) from the Medical University of Paris.
He is a recognised expert in oncology drug development, strategic portfolio prioritisation, and business development, with extensive leadership experience at a number of global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Elliott Levy
Elliott Levy

Non Executive Director

Has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2021.
Elliott has served as a Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group since May 2021 and as a Venture Partner at 5AM Ventures since April 2022.
Previously, Elliott was Senior Vice President of Research & Development, Strategy and Operations at Amgen where he was responsible for managing and executing Amgen’s R&D strategy and drug development process. Elliott also spent 17 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where he was Senior Vice President and Head of Specialty Development and held a range of senior positions in BMS’s research and development group. Prior to joining BMS, Elliott was a member of the Renal Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he was an investigator in federally-sponsored outcomes research and industry-sponsored clinical trials. Elliott serves as a director for Omega Therapeutics, Editas Medicines (NASDAQ: EDIT) and Kinaset Therapeutics. He also served as CEO of Intrepid Alliance, a non-profit whose objective is to facilitate the development of small molecule therapeutics for future pandemic agents and as Board Chair of TransCelerate BioPharma, a non-profit focused on improving and accelerating the development of new therapeutics.
Elliott has 24 years’ experience in the clinical development and regulatory approval of investigational medicines in the biopharmaceutical industry. He received his M.D. from the Yale School of Medicine, where he was Chief Medical Resident focusing on internal medicine and nephrology and completed fellowship training in clinical research through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program.