About Us

About Us

TeloNostiX is a Cardiff University in vitro diagnostics company founded in 2017. TeloNostiX was born out of a long-term clinical/laboratory collaboration between the three founders. Together they were able to demonstrate the critical role that telomeres play in the development and progression of cancer and in defining individual patient responses to anti-cancer therapies. Most recently, the company has shown the impact of telomere length in determining the 'fitness' and 'stamina' of cell-based therapies directed against cancer cells. 

In 2018, Dr Joe Birkett joined TeloNostiX as CEO and under his leadership the company has secured a number of important commercial collaborations with both big pharma and smaller biotechs. At its core, TeloNostiX is a science-focused, data-driven company and continues to strategically expand its patent portfolio with the aim of extending the reach of our unique telomere technologies into the pre-clinical and clinical arenas to inform and enhance product development and bring precision to medical decision-making.
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Joe Birkett

Joe Birkett serves as Chief Executive Officer at TeloNostiX. He brings a wealth of experience in oncology research and development, having spent 16 years across various roles working in large to mid-size pharmaceutical companies as well as smaller biotech and start-up companies.

His experience is predominantly in haematology with notable achievements as a key member of the Roche early phase oncology group that developed the anti-CD20 antibody obinutuzumab that led to several FDA/EU approvals. 

In addition, he has worked on the development of several Btk inhibitors with close involvement of the recently approved Btki acalabrutinib for CLL and MCL. 

He also has experience in the solid tumour setting working on the PARP inhibitor olaparib (approved for ovarian cancer) and Iressa (lung cancer) as well as more recently involvement in the area of TCR immune cell therapy along with other cellular therapies (CAR-T, TILs).

He has broad phase 1-3 clinical trial experience accompanied by experience in business development activities including licensing. Joe holds a PhD in molecular genetics from Kings College London/UCL.
Chris Fegan (Chief Medical Officer) is professor in haematology and Director of Research and Development at the School of Medicine, Cardiff University. 

He is an experienced physician with a long-standing interest in haematological malignancies and stem cell transplantation. In more recent years he has focused on chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) where his interests straddle basic science to patient survivorship and clinical outcomes. 

His contributions to CLL include being the first person to identify the 11q deletion as the second commonest genetic abnormality in CLL and its association with a worse clinical outcome. 

He also has a long-standing interest in drug development from the bench to the patient and has undertaken over 30 clinical trials including international first in human studies where he has often been the lead recruiter. 

He has been a regular expert advisor to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and an active patient advocate contributing widely to the world patient literature including booklets, internet contributions, guest lectures, workshops and guidelines.

Chris Fegan

Chris Pepper

Chris Pepper (Chief Scientific Officer) is professor of Cancer Research at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. 

He trained as a medicinal chemist at the Welsh School of Pharmacy and obtained a PhD in 1993 based on his work on the design, synthesis and evaluation of aromatase inhibitors. Following his father’s diagnosis with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), Chris changed track and for more than two decades his research has focused on CLL and other B-cell malignancies. 

Chris’ research addresses the full spectrum of basic, translational and clinical questions including the mechanisms that underpin the development of disease progression and drug resistance, elucidation and validation of prognostic and predictive biomarkers and the development of novel therapeutic agents. Chris has published over 120 primary research papers and has built an international reputation in his field. 
Duncan Baird (Chief Technology Officer) is professor of Cancer and Genetics at Cardiff University where he leads the Translational Genetic and Genomic Medicine theme. 

He has a long-standing interest in telomere biology with a focus on the mechanistic basis of telomere erosion, instability and fusion, with the goal of understanding how this impacts the evolution of the cancer genome and tumour progression. 

He developed single-molecule approaches to determine telomere length and characterise telomere fusion events, including Single Telomere Length Analysis (STELA) and its adaption for high-throughput (HT-STELA). 

Working with professors Fegan and Pepper, the clinical application of these technologies has led to the development of high-resolution prognostic and predictive markers in several tumour types, including chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, multiple myeloma, myelodysplasia and breast cancer. The technologies also have applications for informing patient selection and product development of cellular therapeutics.

Duncan Baird

Kevin Norris

Kevin Norris serves as the Research Director and Quality Manager at TeloNostiX. 

His research career to date has been focused on telomere biology and for the past 5 years specialised in cancer biomarker field with particular emphasis on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL), multiple myeloma, breast cancer and glioblastoma multiforme. 

He, along with Professor Baird was responsible for the development of High-Throughput Single Telomere Length Analysis (HT-STELA), a technology with the potential to inform cancer prognosis and response to treatment in a front-line clinical setting, as well as providing information on other telomere disorders and cellular therapeutic product development. 

Kevin holds a PhD in telomere biology and a BSc in genetics from Cardiff University.

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