Professor Susan Fletcher is Senior Principal Research Fellow at Murdoch University and in 2020 was appointed Chief Scientific Officer (fractional position) at ASX-listed biotech PYC Therapeutics. Alongside her collaborator Professor Steve Wilton, she pioneered ‘molecular drugs’ to treat inherited disease by altering the gene message to overcome disease-causing mutations. In 2016, 2019 and 2021, the drugs ExonDys51, Vyondys53 and Amondys45 (respectively) from their laboratory became the first and only drugs to have altered the natural history of the fatal inherited muscle disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

As lead investigator, Professor Fletcher is working with PYC Therapeutics to take VP-001 through clinical development to treat retinitis pigmentosa 11.