Coulter Partners places Chief Scientific Officer at Slingshot Therapeutics
London, UK – 19 November 2025 – Coulter Partners, the global expert building leadership teams for Health, Science and Technology innovation businesses, successfully completed a search assignment for Slingshot Therapeutics Limited (“Slingshot”) and is pleased to announce the placement of Dr John Isaac as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). Slingshot’s founding CSO Richard Wooster will now transition to a non-executive role as Scientific Advisor and Board member.
Slingshot Therapeutics, the Syncona Accelerator, is a platform built to identify, de-risk and advance therapeutic programs from the work of leading academic researchers.
As CSO, Dr Isaac will be responsible for the Company’s scientific strategy, overseeing progress across the pipeline, and the delivery of valuable therapeutic assets. He will also lead the critical process of identification, technical assessment and selection of early-stage drug discovery programs and assets to add to the Slingshot pipeline.
Dr John Isaac is an internationally recognised neuroscientist and drug discovery expert with over 30 years of experience. A proven scientific leader, he most recently served as Chief Scientific Officer of AviadoBio, guiding strategy and discovery operations. His background includes significant roles in external innovation and asset evaluation at Johnson & Johnson Innovation and early career leadership at Wellcome and Eli Lilly & Co.
Edward Hodgkin, Executive Chair of Slingshot, said:
We see a valuable opportunity to translate academic innovation into drug candidates that are ready for clinical development. The combination of Slingshot’s industry-experienced drug development team with Syncona’s investment expertise is creating a powerful platform for the acceleration of academic research. John will play an invaluable role in this, and we are delighted to welcome him to the team.
John Isaac, Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Slingshot Therapeutics
John brings more than 30 years of experience as an academic and in drug discovery across a range of therapeutic indications and modalities. John is an internationally recognised neuroscientist, most recently serving as CSO of AviadoBio, a clinical-stage biotech where he was responsible for the scientific strategy and pipeline, and led the research and discovery organisation. Prior to that he was Head of Neuroscience, External Innovation, EMEA at Johnson & Johnson Innovation. In this role, he led search and evaluation of neuroscience assets across EMEA from Discovery through to Phase II development, as well as related business development activities. John’s previous roles include Head of Neuroscience at Wellcome and Head of Neurophysiology at Eli Lilly & Co.
John received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and pharmacology, and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Southampton, UK, and has held academic faculty positions in the UK andthe USA.
