OHC Advisory Council Convenes to Advance Partnerships

December 12, 2025

Oxford, 8 December 2025 — The Oxford–Harrington Rare Disease Centre (OHC) convened its Advisory Council members in Oxford for a series of meetings focused on its partnerships in accelerating treatments for rare diseases. 

David Cameron, Chair of the Advisory Council, reviewed the year’s progress, which included the announcement of the second annual cohort of ten Scholars, and other developments towards the OHC mission to deliver new treatments and cures for the approximately 500 million people affected by rare diseases worldwide. Six new donor-funded projects have been initiated in Friedreich’s Ataxia, highlighting the importance of philanthropy in the OHC model for drug development.

Highlights included a Scholar spotlight from Professor Angela Russell of the University of Oxford, whose team is advancing small-molecule candidates to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A keynote from Dr Rich Scott of Genomics England showed how genomic science is accelerating rare-disease discovery and informing new routes to therapeutic development.

Professor Matthew Wood, Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the OHC, and Professor Matt Anderson, Co-director, outlined how recent conference and panel engagements have raised OHC’s profile among academic, industry and policy leaders. 

Council members were hosted at Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) as co-investment partners in our therapeutics Accelerator, and met with the University of Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, for a tour of the recently opened Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in Oxford. 

The discussions included a forward-looking review of plans and opportunities for 2026 as OHC continues to advance 40 new medicines into clinical trials by 2034.