Chris Torrance

Dr Chris Torrance is a cancer researcher and entrepreneur. In 2007 he founded Horizon Discovery to translate advances in human genome editing into a range of research tools and services to accelerate the discovery of new and improved ‘Personalized Medicines’. By 2014 Dr Torrance and his colleagues had built Horizon into the fastest growing Biotech company in the UK. In the same year, the company listed on the London Stock Exchange with over 100 commercial and scientific staff and significant deal-flow with the pharmaceutical Industry, for which Horizon received the Queens Award for International Trade.

Frustrated by the unmet need for many diseases and the Pharma industry’s focus on easy targets, rather than the right targets, Dr Torrance founded PhoreMost Ltd in 2014 and served as CEO until taking on the role of Chair in March 2022. PhoreMost is a company dedicated to first-in-class targets and focuses on drugging “Undruggable” targets using a new technology called “SITESEEKER®” that systematically identifies cryptic drug sites throughout the human proteome and ties them to useful therapeutic functions.

Dr Torrance has a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Technology from Sheffield Polytechnic; a PhD in Biochemistry from East Carolina University (U.S.A) and completed Post-Doctoral training in the laboratory of Professor Bert Vogelstein at the Johns Hopkins University (U.S.A).