• Former Oxford Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation and former Head of Biology at GSK to lead company’s R&D
• Longstanding Scientific Advisory Board Chair steps into an expanded leadership role to accelerate the company’s advanced-stage pipeline and translational strategy for the NAi platform.
BOSTON, April 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — BPGbio, a leading biology-first, AI-powered clinical-stage biopharma company, today announced the appointment of Chas Bountra, Ph.D., as Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer. Dr. Bountra has served as Chair of BPGbio’s Scientific Advisory Board since 2017 and now assumes this expanded leadership role to advance the company’s scientific strategy and its portfolio of mitochondrial-targeted therapeutics. His familiarity with BPGbio’s causal AI platform NAi will drive near-term translation across second-generation oncology and rare disease assets.
Dr. Bountra brings decades of leadership experience in translational science, drug discovery, and global academic–industry collaboration. He previously served as Pro-Vice Chancellor for Innovation at the University of Oxford and as Head of Impact and Innovation in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, where he was Professor of Translational Medicine. As Director of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), he helped establish one of the world’s most influential public-private partnerships for open science and target validation, accelerating therapeutic discovery across multiple disease areas.
“I am keen to harness the talent, the unique resources and platforms, and some truly novel scientific insights and therapeutic approaches, to accelerate new treatments for patients living with rare diseases, neurodegeneration or life threatening cancers,” said Dr. Bountra, “I believe, the company’s lead asset BPM31510 is going to transform the lives of many tens of millions of patients. My goal is to help fast track it through late-stage development in many rare and common diseases.”
Before joining Oxford in 2008, Dr. Bountra served as Vice President and Head of Biology at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), where he contributed to the identification of more than 40 clinical candidates across gastrointestinal, inflammatory, and neuropsychiatric diseases. More than 20 of these programs advanced into patient studies, several achieving proof-of-concept data and progressing to late-stage development. He also played a key role in the development of the first approved treatment for irritable bowel syndrome, Alosetron, and in demonstrating the anti-emetic potential of neurokinin NK1 antagonists in preclinical and clinical studies.
“Chas has been a trusted partner to BPGbio; as Chair of our SAB, he has helped shape the direction of our platform and pipeline,” said Niven R. Narain, Ph.D., President and CEO of BPGbio. “As we continue advancing programs like BPM31510 and expanding the reach of our causal AI platform across oncology, rare diseases, and neurology, his transition into the role of CSO strengthens our translational engine and supports the next phase IND and NDA pathways.”
BPGbio’s lead program, BPM31510, is advancing toward a Phase 3 clinical trial for Primary CoQ10 Deficiency (PCQD), alongside ongoing mid to late-stage clinical programs in oncology, including Phase 2b in Glioblastoma (GBM), and a broader pipeline emerging from the company’s causal AI-driven discovery platform. The NAi® platform integrates large-scale biobank and patient-derived multiomics data with Bayesian causal inference to uncover actionable biology and guide therapeutic development with greater precision.
About BPGbio, Inc.
BPGbio is a biology-first AI-powered biopharma company focused on mitochondrial biology and protein homeostasis. Headquartered in greater Boston, the company leverages its NAi Interrogative Biology® platform and one of the world’s largest clinically annotated biobanks to develop a deep pipeline in oncology, rare diseases, and neurology.
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