Speaker and Chair Biographies for 2010
Below are listed the biographies of the speakers and chairs participating inthe 2010 programme. These will be continually updated as we receive new biographies.
Patrick Baddeley, Partner, Manches
Partner, Patrick Baddeley, specialises in all aspects of corporate work, including mergers and acquisitions, refinancing and other transactions, particularly for clients in the life sciences field.
Dr Charlie Bavington, Managing Director, Glycomar
Founder of GlycoMar. He is a biochemist with over 8 years experience in marine biotechnology. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, he completed his Ph.D. at the same university, studying proteoglycan metabolism in cartilage.
This was followed by postdoctoral research at Dunstaffnage marine lab studying invertebrate glycans and cell adhesion. Subsequently he worked for Integrin Advanced Biosystems Ltd, a marine biotechnology and testing company, holding the positions of Operations Manager and Research & Development Manager. His scientific interest is in glycobiology and its role in cell-cell interactions.
Anthony Baxter, Chief Executive Officer, Cyprotex
Dr. Anthony Baxter is the Chief Executive Officer of Cyprotex Discovery Ltd and has over 25 years experience in management and research within the pharmaceutical, biotech chemistry service and instrumentation industries, mainly in the areas of drug discovery, medicinal chemistry and combinatorial chemistry. Before joining Cyprotex, Dr. Baxter successfully held positions as the CSO of Oxford Asymmetry International prior to its merger with Evotec, as founding CEO of Argenta Discovery Ltd and as CEO of deltaDOT. He has also held positions as Research Manager at Ciba UK Central Research Laboratories (1990-1994) where he managed Ciba blue-sky research interests and as Team Leader at Glaxo Group Research (1983-1990). Dr. Baxter has been actively involved in assisting in the scientific success of the development of several marketed drugs and in the discovery of advanced clinical development candidates for Curis, Serono, GSK, Ciba and Argenta.
Marco Boorsma, Senior Analyst, Forbion Capital Partners
Marco holds a master's degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Groningen (NL) and a PhD in Biotechnology from the ETH Zurich (CH). His PhD work focused on the development of bio-manufacturing systems was executed at Cytos Biotechnology (CH), the ETH and the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge (UK). In 2001 Marco took on the position of Lead Scientist with DSM Biologics (NL) working on recombinant manufacturing followed by 3 years as Director of New Business Development where he was responsible for the acquisition of new projects as well as out-licensing of DSM technology. In July 2007 Marco joined the investment team of Forbion Capital Partners.
Ian Brown, Chief Executive Officer, RepRegen Limited
Ian is the CEO of RepRegen Limited. Previously, Ian held senior executive positions with Chromogenix (previously Kabi Pharmacia) in Gothenburg Sweden, Instrumentation Laboratory in Milan Italy, Cordlife, SDP Technology and Avanti Capital. Ian has served as a non executive director on a number of boards and as Chair and deputy Chair. His experience includes M&A transactions, integration, start-ups, divestments and spin-outs, as well as private and public company capital raisings and IPO's. Ian has an MBA and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and is an alumnus of INSEAD in France and MBS in Australia.
Neil Butler, Chief Executive, Vivacta
A mechanical engineer with a career in medical and material science related businesses. Prior to Co-founding Vivacta in 2004 Neil was CEO of Oxford Biosensors from its formation in 99. Prior to this Neil held a number of positions over 13 years within the European and US operations of Rexam’s Coated Films business, where he was responsible for focusing the business on medical and electronic markets. Before Rexam he held Market Development and Product Manager positions with Celanese for 10 years.
Christophe Chassagnole, Chief Operations Officer, Physiomics
Dr Christophe Chassagnole joined Physiomics in May 2004 as Project leader to develop the companies cancer models. Since May 2007 he has served as Chief Operating Officer at Physiomics. He has been involved in Systems Biology projects during the last 15 years, with experience in both academic and industrial environments. He gained his PhD in biochemistry from the Victor Segalen-Bordeaux II University, and then he held a post doctorate position with IBVT at Stuttgart University. Before Joining Physiomics Dr Chassagnole worked in France as a Senior researcher for CRITT Bio-Industries (Toulouse) in the field of metabolic engineering.
Andy Christie, Hewitt New Bridge Street
Andy Christie has over thirty years experience within the HR industry. He has designed and run several in-house "Club Surveys". He now runs Hewitt New Bridge Street's Executive Total Reward Survey collating data from over 250 companies and covering over 4,000 executive roles as well as running a survey on Non-Executive Directors' Fees and a number of specialist surveys providing data for specific sectors including the Biotechnology sector covering total remuneration for all roles from graduate to chief executive.
David Colpman, Senior Vice President Business Development, Shire Pharmaceuticals Group
David Colpman is a senior member of Shire's business development team focused on building the global speciality business through licensing and M&A.
During the last ten years at Shire, David has completed around 10 licensing deals. In addition he has run numerous M&A, product divestment and acquisition projects. Specific achievements include in-licensing the GI product Lialda/Mezavant with sales potential of over $400M, leading the team that bought Transkaryotic Therapies for $1.6BN and in 2007 divesting a business to Almirall for $213M.
David acts as advisor to the Venture Group, Sunstone Capital and was formerly a member of the board of Ace BioSciences.
Prior to joining Shire he led GlaxoWellcome's UK Business Development team and prior to that he was Head of Licensing and Alliances at Novo Nordisk in Denmark. David is a pharmacist by training, he spent part of his early career working in Japan and has a basic command of the Japanese language.
Rod Cook, Partner, Biotech Personnel
Rod also has over thirty years' experience working in a variety of high technology companies. His last company role was as Head of Personnel for British Biotech, which he helped grow from a staff of 90 to over 330. Since the formation of Biotech Personnel, a substantial client base has been established with assignments varying from Board-level remuneration advice to a total interim HR service. He consults for Hewitt New Bridge Street on their UK Biotechnology Industry Remuneration Survey that he initiated in 1996.
Nigel Courtenay-Luck, Co-Founder & CSO, Saturn Biosciences
Nigel Courtenay-Luck is the co-founder and chief scientific officer of Saturn Biosciences. Nigel has worked in cancer research for the last 28 years and was involved in the early pioneering studies, using monoclonal antibody therapy in cancer patients at the Hammersmith Hospital, London. He co-founded Antisoma in 1991, one of the most successful biotech companies in Europe, has a broad knowledge of drug development, having collaborated with oncology centres, worldwide and was CSO at Antisoma, until he left in November 2009. Nigel is also a senior lecturer, in the division of medicine, Imperial college London, and a full professor at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Paul Cuddon, Analyst, KBC Peel Hunt
Paul joined KBC Peel Hunt in 2007 following 8 years experience in the drug discovery industry. While completing a PhD at Cambridge he worked in big pharma with Merck, Sharpe and Dohme and spent three years in biotech with DanioLabs. He brings significant experience in academic and commercial due diligence to the sector.
Paul Davie, Chief Commercial Officer, Inhibox
Paul has a long and successful track record in commercial roles in computer-aided drug discovery. He held support and sales roles at Chemical Design before going on to build and manage the European sales, marketing, support and consulting operations at Oxford Molecular. Paul went on Accelrys to build the Consulting Division and serve as European General Manager, before becoming Chief Operating Officer at InforSense. He founded and was Chief Executive Officer at Secerno, a successful database security company before returning to research informatics with his consulting company, Davinger, through which he advises InhibOx. Paul has an MBA and studied chemistry at Oxford University.
Liam Evans, Chief Executive Officer, Hypha Discovery Ltd
Liam began his career in drug discovery with Xenova Ltd, before undertaking PhD research on developing novel fermentation systems that stimulate the production of bioactive compounds by tropical mushrooms, based on observations in Ecuadorian rainforest , that represent a breakthrough in the biotechnological exploitation of these challenging fungi. After a period in agrochemical discovery with Syngenta, Liam co-founded Hypha Discovery in 2004 to commercialise the technologies developed during his doctoral studies, focusing initially in the area of small molecule pharmaceutical discovery. The company has already established a pre-clinical pipeline of oncology and anti-infective projects, led by the fully synthetic and potent anti-tumour series HD148. Hypha also provides natural product discovery services based on its MycoDiverseTM library of fungal extracts, either directly or via partner screening companies.
Lubor Gaal, Head of Europe, Global Search, Strategic Transactions Group, Myers-Squibb
Lubor is Head of Europe, Global Search, Strategic Transactions Group, Bristol-Myers Squibb. Lubor is responsible for the acquisition and licensing of compounds or drug programmes for all BMS therapeutic areas.
Prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lubor was Head of Business Development for Neuro3d and CBO of Vectron Therapeutics AG. In the US, Lubor was at Berlex Laboratories where he was responsible worldwide for Cardiovascular and CNS Licensing of Schering AG. Before joining Berlex, he worked for Burrill and Company, where he advised companies on business development strategies and execution.
Lubor received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley and his B.Sc. in Neuroscience from the University of Sussex in Brighton, U.K.
Ian Garland, Chief Executive Officer, Vernalis
Ian Garland was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in December 2008. From May 2007 until September 2008, Ian was CEO of Acambis plc. During this period he oversaw a series of important advances culminating in the company's acquisition by Sanofi-Aventis in September 2008 for £280m. From 2004 to 2007, Ian served as CFO of Arrow Therapeutics Ltd., a privately-held company engaged in the discovery and development of new anti-viral agents until its acquisition by AstraZeneca plc for US$150m in February 2007. Prior to this Ian was President and Chief Operating Officer of Celltech Pharmaceuticals Inc., with a turnover of around US$300 million which encompassed the US operations of Celltech Group plc. From 1988 to 1995 Ian worked at KPMG, specialising in the pharmaceutical sector, following qualification as a Chartered Accountant.
James Gubbins, Partner, Morrison & Forester
James Gubbins has more than 18 years of experience in the provision of advice on IPOs and other securities issues, private equity transactions, and mergers and acquisitions. His practice covers a range of industries, with particular experience in the life sciences and technology sectors, and his clients include corporates, private equity funds, and investment banks.
He is described by PLC Which Lawyer 2008 as a "high-profile corporate finance, transactional and joint venture partner with an enviable biotech and pharmaceutical track record."
Allen Hakimi, Managing Director, Technomark Life Sciences
Mr. Allen Hakimi joined Technomark Consulting Service Ltd. in the UK at the beginning of 2006, and led the corporate transition to Technomark Life Sciences and being headquartered in the US.
Allen has a diverse background, having spent his entire career in various arenas of drug and business development. Prior to joining Technomark, Allen was heavily involved in entrepreneurial activities, as early as filing patents and the funding of preclinical studies which resulted in successful licensing deals with small and medium pharma, to participating in the spinning out and business development tasks of start-up biotechs from American universities, of which an example is Cognosci Inc.
Allen's other appointments have been with a biotechnology company called Nobex Corporation in business development and project management, during which time the Company executed deals with Elan, BMS, Pharmacia (now Prfizer), and GSK, and beforehand he was with academic institutions such as the Duke Clinical Research Institute and the University of Michigan Medical Center in clinical trial management. Allen attended the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) at which he obtained his degree in Microbiology; he currently lives outside of London while maintaining his residence in Durham, North Carolina.
Tim Haines, Partner, Abingworth
Tim Haines has more than 25 years of international management experience in the life sciences industry. Before joining Abingworth in 2005 he was Chief Executive of the Abingworth portfolio company, Astex Therapeutics. Tim was with Astex for more than five years and was instrumental in establishing it as one of the leading UK biotechnology companies. Previously, Tim was Chief Executive of two divisions of the publicly-listed medical technology company, Datascope Corp. Prior to Datascope, he held a number of other senior management positions in the US and Europe, including CEO of Thackray Inc (sold to Depuy) and General Manager Baxter UK. Current and past board positions include Astex Therapeutics, Fovea (sold to sanofi-aventis), HBI, IMI, PowderMed (sold to Pfizer), Stanmore Implants and XCounter (AIM). Tim has a BSc from Exeter University and an MBA from INSEAD. At Abingworth, he identifies and creates new businesses and provides support for portfolio companies.
Deborah Harland, Partner, SR One
Deborah joined SR One in 2005 and leads SR One's investment activities in Europe. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Onyvax, Protaffin and Syntaxin and is an observer on the board of 7TM Pharma. Prior to SR One, Deborah was part of GSK's Worldwide Business Development team where she evaluated opportunities in the CNS and GI therapeutic areas. Debbie holds a BSc. (Hons.) in Pharmacology from the University of Bath, a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of London, and an MBA from Henley Management College.
Richard Honey, Director, EVT Capital Partners
Since joining EVT Capital in 2001, Richard has led and completed numerous venture debt transactions. Richard joined EVT from Cavendish Corporate Finance. Prior to his involvement in mergers and acquisitions and venture capital transactions at Cavendish, Richard was a risk analyst at Credit Suisse Financial Products. He trained as an accountant with Deloitte & Touche in South Africa and California where he concentrated on work for financial institutions and funds. Richard is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town
Graham Hughes, National Contact Point for Health, Beta Technology
Graham Hughes, from Beta Technology, is the UK National Contact Point for Health, the nominated representative in the UK providing free and impartial advice and support on the European Framework Programme to SMEs in the Health and Biotech sectors. Graham has been in the role for nine months and has already presented to and advised a wide range of UK companies. Prior to this, Graham had a long career in Clinical Biochemistry then the Medical Device industry, latterly at Abbott Diabetes Care where he held roles in R&D Manufacturing and QA.
Michael Hunter, Director of Drug Discovery, Oxagen Ltd
Dr Mick Hunter joined Oxagen as Research Director in 2001 and was involved in the change in strategy of Oxagen from a genetics platform based company into its current drug discovery and development focus. He participated in a $60M series B financing of Oxagen in 2005 and a recent $28M series C financing in 2009. He is currently Director of Discovery and Development Projects with responsibility for the department of drug discovery which focuses on inflammation. He is Development Project Director on the CRTH2 program with responsibility for preclinical, ADME, CMC, project management and quality functions.
Mick manages outsourced functions needed for prosecution of drug programmes up to proof of concept in human studies. He has managed the CRTH2 program from inception through to Phase IIb clinical studies.
Prior to joining Oxagen, he held positions at G. D, Searle Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and at British Biotech Pharmaceuticals (now Vernalis PLC). He has managed teams of, biologists, chemists and biotechnologists involved in drug discovery and development projects, prosecuting targets to identify IND candidates and managing them through early clinical development in areas of respiratory, infection, cardiovascular and oncology. He has been involved in the discovery of several novel class investigational drugs and biologics and managed their entry into man (Phase I and Phase II clinical trials) He is familiar with regulatory environments and has managed biological pilot plants for GMP manufacture.
Dr Hunter received his BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Leeds and a PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Nottingham.
Eva Jack, Managing Director, MedImmune Ventures
Eva Jack recently joined MedImmune Ventures from MedImmune Business Development. She joined the company in 2004 and was in charge of initiating in-licensing and research collaborations with universities, medical research institutions and governments. In addition, she was responsible for some out-licensing of intellectual property portfolio to companies and other interested third parties. Prior to joining MedImmune in 2004, Jack held a variety of positions at Intel Corporation during her 13 years with the company. In her last position at Intel, she worked for Intel Capital, the company's venture fund, and was responsible for investments and research collaborations in biotechnology and health care. Jack began her career with Intel in Washington, DC as a lobbyist covering health care, immigration, labor law, and education and training issues. Jack holds a bachelors degree from the University of Virginia and a masters degree in health sciences from the Johns Hopkins University. Eva Jack is a board observer of LigoCyte, Inc.
Chris Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Glysure
(Biography to follow shortly)
Richard Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Contrast Molecular Diagnostics
Richard brings to Oxford Contrast a significant breadth of pharmaceutical and management experience. His career began in 1990 at Glaxo where he rapidly progressed, gaining broad commercial experience in roles in sales, marketing, finance, business analytics, sales management, country, commercial and general management.
He was responsible for a block of 15 countries as commercial director of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and general manager Ukraine, achieving the highest growth of any operating division globally within the Glaxo group. He has been involved in a number of blockbuster product launches; Serevent (1990), Flixotide (1992), Losec (1994), Seretide (1995) and more recently Lipitor (2006).
Richard has experience of new pharmaceutical start-ups at country level and was responsible for the integration of GlaxoWellcome and Smithkline Beecham within CEE. During his time at Pfizer he was responsible for the Lipitor National Defence Programme (UK Board report), an initiative to protect annual sales exceeding £450m.
Richard has experience of IPO, having taken Brightside through a successful AIM flotation, and the start-up of regulated entities within the financial services sector (TransSend Payments Ltd).
Simon Jones BSc ACA, Chief Financial Officer, Glide Pharma
Following a degree in physics, Simon joined Ernst and Young where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. Simon held a number of senior posts with Unipart. He joined Oxonica in 2000 as CFO and was involved with several fundraising rounds and the commercial development of the company including negotiating IP in-licensing and out-licensing agreements and the first major sales contract for the lead product to market. Up until the time that he left Oxonica, Simon saw the company grow from six to 30 employees.
Dr Barry Kenny, Chief Business Officer, HEPTARES Therapeutics
Barry has over 24 years' research and management experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. He was previously Vice President, Drug Discovery at Takeda Cambridge with overall responsibility for IND discovery. Prior to this, he was Commercial Director at Paradigm Therapeutics where he was responsible for several company-transforming deals, including the broad CNS collaboration with Takeda in 2005. He was also instrumental in the subsequent acquisition of Paradigm by Takeda in 2007.
Barry co-founded Cambridge Drug Discovery (CDD) in 1997, and was Director of Business Development for Biofocus following its merger with CDD in 2001, establishing a wide range of international deals and collaborations. Before this, he was at Pfizer Central Research and was responsible for the successful discovery and progression of several drug candidates into clinical development. He also spent eight years at Syntex Research Scotland, where he completed his PhD and post-doctoral studies.
Simon Kerry, Chief Executive Officer, Karus Therapeutics
Simon is a business professional with over fifteen years experience in creating and developing innovative life-science businesses. Before joining Karus as the company's first CEO, he was Director of Business Development at Ablynx NV (Ghent, Belgium), where he was responsible for securing a number of research, development and licensing agreements with major pharmaceutical companies and played an important role in the company's development from early-stage to one of Europe's most promising antibody companies.
Prior to Ablynx, Simon was co-founder and Vice President of Business Development at Isogenica Ltd (Cambridge, UK), a spin-out of Active Biotech AB (Lund, Sweden), where he was Director of Business Development. Simon has held other key commercial appointments at Actinova Ltd and Actigen Ltd (both Cambridge, UK), at the Centre for Applied Microbiology (Salisbury, UK) and within the Jasmin group of companies. Simon has a PhD in the use of microbial enzymes in organic chemistry and has secured an executive MBA from the highly-regarded Loughborough University Business School.
Jim Kinnier Wilson, Head of Life Sciences, Manches LLP
He is a biochemist with an MSc in Biochemical Engineering and has specialised in intellectual property, advising many life sciences clients since qualifying in 1987.
Dominique Kleyn, Chief Exeuctive Officer, London Genetics
Dominique joined London Genetics from Imperial College London, one of London Genetics' founding institutions. At Imperial College she was involved in new venture development and management, technology transfer, fund raising and collaborations. The latter include research arrangements with companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co, Johnson & Johnson and Syngenta. In addition, she was a non-executive founder director of Acrobot, Equinox Pharma, GMEC, London Genetics, MicroTestMatrices, Nova Thera (acquired by Medcell) and Protexeon (acquired by Air Products). Dominique has worked on device and diagnostic development at companies such as Unilever, in business development at the Wellcome Foundation, and in consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She has a BSc in Microbiology, an MBA (2006) from Imperial College London and is a Chartered Licensing Professional.
David Knowles, President & CSO, CellCentric Ltd
David worked for over 20 years in major pharmaceutical companies both in Europe and the US and established an international reputation in anti-infectives R&D. In 1999, he joined the UK biotech sector, simultaneously taking on various executive, non-exec and advisory roles in an attempt to learn rapidly about the business environment. As CSO of RiboTargets plc, he successfully transformed the scientific basis of the company from one based on the discovery of anti-infective molecules targeting discreet RNA structural motifs into one predominantly focused on the discovery and development of anti-cancer agents. RiboTargets went public through a reverse merger with British Biotech and he subsequently became Director of R & D for the combined organization. Prior to his departure, oversaw the merger of British Biotech with Vernalis. David was then appointed CSO and R&D Director of Piramed Ltd, based in Slough. Piramed signed a lucrative pre-clinical deal with Genentech in November 2005 and was subsequently acquired by Roche in May 2008. David left Roche at the end of November 2008 and is currently President and CSO of CellCentric Ltd and a non-executive director of Procarta Ltd.
David is a past Member of Council of the American Society for Microbiology and on the editorial board of Current Opinions in Microbiology. He continues to serve on various biotech Scientific Advisory Boards.
Dr Roland Kozlowski, Chairman, OxEpi
Roland Kozlowski is a bioentrepreneur who has worked in the industry since the mid 90s with a reputation for creative solutions. Roland is CEO (and founder) of Lectus Therapeutics Ltd. Previously he was CEO of Sense Proteomic Ltd and prior to that worked with Oxford Molecular, notably on a key deal he negotiated with Astellas (then Yamanouchi). He has executed many transactions ranging from company sale, purchase, financing and in- and out-licensing. His research background is in pharmacology and, after a PhD at Cambridge, he ran research groups at Oxford and Bristol Universities where he is a Visiting Industrial Professor.
Roland has published extensively and is an inventor on granted patents. He is an non-executive director of London Genetics and has served on the BIA board and participates activity in policy formulation for UK biotech.
Alexander Krantz, Founder, President and CEO, Advanced Proteome Therapeutics Inc
Allen began his career as a professor in the Faculty of Chemistry at Stony Brook University and also held an appointment in the Department of Pharmacological Sciences in the Medical School. He helped establish Syntex Research Canada and served, first as Director, and then VP of Research, as well as a Syntex Distinguished Scientist, focusing on enzymes as drug targets. He then assumed the Executive Vice Presidency at RedCell, Inc. (the forerunner of ConjuChem, (TSX: CJC)), as well as Directeur Scientifique of the French subsidiary, and transformed the company's program, centering on specific human serum albumin conjugates as covalent carriers of drugs. He is also a Founder of Pharmena North America Inc., now Cortria Corporation. Following short stints as EVP of the Research Foundation/Director of Patents and Licensing at the University of South Florida, and then as Assistant Vice-Chancellor at UC Berkeley for University/Industry Liaison, Allen established operations in Boston for Advanced Proteome Therapeutics Inc.
Alan Lamont, Director (Science & Technology Alliances), AstraZeneca
Dr. Lamont currently serves as the Director and Head of the Science and Technology Alliances group at AstraZeneca, based at the company's site in Alderley Park. His group is responsible for identifying, evaluating and securing new enabling technologies and platforms to support AZ's discovery and development portfolio. Prior to joining AZ in 2006, he was VP Business Development at Acambis plc (Cambridge, UK), and before that, worked for a number of companies in both the UK (Catalyst Biomedica, Peptide Therapeutics and Roche) and the US (Cytel Corp, San Diego, U.S.A.).
Dr Melanie Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Syntaxin
Dr Lee was formerly President of New Medicines and Executive Vice President R&D with UCB, having served as R&D Director at Celltech before its merger with UCB. Dr Lee brings a wealth of drug research and development experience to Syntaxin, through her early academic career at Cancer Research UK (as ICRF), a decade in research with GlaxoSmithKline and her later leadership of biopharmaceutical R&D at Celltech and UCB. Dr Lee currently Chairs Cancer Research Technology, an early drug R&D and technology licensing company of CRUK.
Steven Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Summit Corporation plc
Dr Lee joined Summit plc as CEO in September 2004. Prior to this, he held a number of senior commercial and business development roles with major UK biotechnology companies including British Biotech plc, PA Consulting Group, Chiroscience Group plc and Datamonitor plc.
From 2001 until 2004, Dr Lee was Executive Director of Life Sciences at the commercialisation specialists IP2IPO Ltd (now IP Group plc). He has also acted as a consultant on product strategy to major pharmaceutical companies including Zeneca, Glaxo Wellcome, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson. Dr Lee holds a PhD in parasite epidemiology from Kings College London.
Eddy Littler, Chief Executive Officer, Domainex
Eddy joined Domainex in 2007. His experience spans large pharmaceutical companies including Wellcome and GlaxoWellcome where was the Head of Antiviral Research. Before joining Domainex he worked as Senior Director at Medivir UK including Head of Lead Identification and of the UK site. Eddy started his career in academia with several years research in Leeds, Canada and Manchester.
Graham Lock, Fry Heath & Spence
Graham is a UK and European Patent Attorney specialising in cases in the fields of chemistry, pharmacology, microbiology, genetic engineering, medical devices, biochemistry, dairy technology, nutrition, food engineering and simple mechanical engineering. Graham has substantial experience of licence negotiations, drafting and prosecuting patents and trade mark applications and filing and defending oppositions before the European Patent Office.
Colin Love, SVP of Development, BioVex
After twenty years developing and launching biotechnology products, Colin joined BioVex as Development Director. BioVex is now a ten year old private biotech company that is developing a new class of treatments for cancer, based on Herpes Simplex virus. The Company is headquartered in Boston with laboratories in Oxford and University College London. Colin is responsible for the product development functions at BioVex where three products have been progressed from discovery through to phase III clinical trials. Previously he was Director of Manufacturing Development at Celltech Chiroscience working on the development of both biologicals and NCE's. He has worked in product development for Medeva, Ares Serono and Amersham International. He has experience in the development and approval of both diagnostic and biopharmaceutical products. Colin was Director of Project Management when Hepacare TM, a third generation recombinant Hepatitis B vaccine, gained EMEA approval. He completed his PhD at the University of Glasgow on the influence of steroid hormones on breast cancer.
Anker Lundemose, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategic Planning, OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Anker Lundemose is currently Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategic Planning at OSI and Managing Director of OSI Investment Holding GmbH. He was appointed Executive VP, OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and President, (OSI) Prosidion, in March 2005 having been the CEO of Prosidion Limited since the Company became operational in February 2003.
Dr. Lundemose is co-founder of several companies including Prosidion Limited and Symphogen A/S. He has broad and extensive experience within Medical Sciences and business obtained from his positions held in both academia and the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Previous positions include Chief Executive Officer at Pantheco A/S from December 1998 to August 2002; Associate Director, Business Development, Novo Nordisk from October 1997 to November 1998; Manager, Business Development, Novo Nordisk from January 1996 to September 1997 and Head of Diabetes Biology, Novo Nordisk from June 1994 to December 1995. He received an MD in 1988 from University of Aarhus, Denmark and continued at University of Aarhus to 1992 as a Post Doctoral Fellow. During this period, in 1992, he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Fellowship at University of Birmingham, England. A Ph.D. degree (Molecular Microbiology) was obtained in 1990 and a Doctor of Science (Dr.Med) degree in 1994, both from University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Dr. Lundemose holds a Diploma in "Management of Drug and Device Development" from Scandinavian International Management Institute and is a member of the Board of Directors of Prosidion Limited, OSI Pharmaceuticals (UK) Limited, OSI Investment Management and OSI Investment Holdings.
Ken Macleod, Partner, Paul Capital
Ken Macleod, Ph.D. joined Paul Capital in 2004 and is responsible for sourcing, evaluating and negotiating European and Asian investment opportunities for Paul Capital Healthcare. Dr. Macleod brings a strong operational background in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, holding senior management positions over a 15-year career at Serono, Abbott Laboratories and Beecham Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Dr. Macleod was a Venture Partner at Schroder Ventures Life Sciences where he was responsible for deal sourcing, evaluation and negotiation of pharmaceutical investment opportunities. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of York, UK and his B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Manchester, UK.
Kaasim Mahmood, Principal, Advent Ventures
Kaasim joined Advent in June 2005 after spending four years at Cutfield Freeman & Co, a London based corporate finance boutique, where he worked on a wide variety of transactions including financings, mergers and acquisitions.
Kaasim is qualified as a medical doctor and has an MB BS from the Royal Free & University College Medical School, London.
Gary Manchee, Global Head of Business Development, Pharmidex
Gary is Global Head of Business development at Pharmidex having joined the company in December 2008.
Gary has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 30 years, starting as a bench scientist and progressing to Director of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics in Psychiatry, Respiratory & inflammatory, and Immuno-inflammatory disease areas within Drug Discovery at GSK.
Gary has been involved in the development of several key medicines including Ventolin, Zantac and Serevent and has progressed 35 new compounds into early and late stage development. He has also led cross-discipline research and development teams within cardiovascular and psychiatric disease areas.
Gary gained his PhD in 1995 studying species differences in drug metabolism and went on to collaborate with the University of Dundee to crystallise a major human phenolsulphotransferase enzyme. Gary is the co-author on 26 published papers.
John March, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Scientific Officer, BigDNA
I am the founder and Chief Executive of BigDNA Ltd, a vaccines development company (both platform & products) utilising a patented technology using bacteriophages (viruses of bacteria) as DNA vaccine delivery vehicles. I bring perhaps a slightly unconventional approach to biotech commercialisation (the company is named after my car number plate!), and I have been involved in all stages of the research and commercial development to date, morphing from scientist to businessman. BigDNA is fully funded for the next 3 years and has grown to 14 employees. We are targeting a major pharma trade sale within 3 years, by which time we expect to have completed phase I/II trials of our lead product.
Graeme Martin, President & CEO, Takeda Research Investment
Dr. Martin is President and CEO of TRI with day-to-day responsibility for operations. He brings more than 28 years of pharmaceutical R&D experience, primarily in multinational Pharmas (Wellcome; Glaxo Wellcome: Hoffman La Roche). He was responsible for the discovery and preclinical development of Zomig®, marketed worldwide for the acute treatment of migraine. More recently, Dr. Martin served as Chief Technical Officer at Telik Inc. with responsibility for technology and business development before establishing a Bay Area biopharmaceutical consulting operation, Discovery-Insight. Dr. Martin received his Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacology from the University of Bath, and his doctorate from University College, London, UK.
Linda McCausland, Head of Physical Sciences, Almac
Linda leads the group responsible for contract research, technology transfer and consultancy activities in the area of solid state chemistry and crystallisation process development, supporting the development of APIs from invention to launch.
Linda acts as an adviser to clients on solid state issues (e.g. form selection, form control, scale-up, interpretation of experimental data and intellectual property) in the manufacture of drug substance and drug product and has worked in this area for over 16 years. Linda is the inventor on several patents and has published numerous research papers in this area.
Jim McDonald, Finance Director, Oxford Nanopore Technologies
Jim McDonald is Finance Director at Oxford Nanopore Technologies. With both a legal and financial reporting background, Jim has over 30 years of professional experience across a wide range of businesses with a working knowledge of the financial reporting requirements and general business and tax regulatory frameworks in the US, UK and throughout the European Community. Jim began his career as a lawyer working for a Denver law firm representing banks and other financial institutions where he had a specific interest in commercial litigation and negotiating complex legal arrangements. He then spent nine years in the US with Arthur Andersen, before transferring to London and leading accounting, business advisory and tax services to a portfolio of international high technology and bio-medical clients. There he managed a broad range of projects that included purchase investigations, London Stock Exchange flotations, private placements, management buy-outs, corporate reorganisations, profit improvement and productivity exercises. More recently, Jim was Finance Director of MediSense UK Limited providing financial management support as the company went from being venture capitalist funded to being listed on the NASDAQ exchange and ultimately being acquired by Abbott Laboratories, a multi-national pharmaceutical and medical diagnostics company.
Michael McLean, Chief Executive Officer, Pro-Cure Therapeutics
Mick became CEO of Pro-Cure Therapeutics, a company developing novel treatments against cancer stem cells, in May 2009. He has a track record of leading organisations from start-up through growth and change, and previously lived for two years in Paris, France, where he was CEO of two cancer vaccine start-ups and joined Link Technologies (Scotland) as Chairman in April 2007. Before moving to Paris at the end of 2005 he was based in Boston as President of Avecia's DNA Medicines business, which he led from its inception in the mid-1990's to being the leading manufacturer of cGMP oligonucleotide therapeutics.
Chris Meade, Global Head Respiratory, Therapeutic alliances and Strategic partnerships, Boehringer Ingelheim
Chris has been working for Boehringer Ingelheim for 23 years, before that for Eli Lilly, His career has centred on immunology, respiratory diseases and inhaler technology. Having been involved in almost all stages of the research and development process for respiratory products, he has for the last 6 years enjoyed seeking out other people and helping them make successful partnerships with Boehringer Ingelheim, a company with around 40,000 employees and a strong commitment to the respiratory field. His most recent deals were the managed buy-out of the California company Actimis, and a license and research collaboration deal with a Japanese start-up, Evec.
Dr Andrew Mearns Spragg, CEO & Founder, Aquapharm® Biodiscovery Ltd.
Dr Spragg gained a first class honours degree in microbiology and PhD in marine biotechnology from Heriot-Watt University. Dr Spragg developed the company whilst holding a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship in biotechnology.
Aquapharm is a leading marine biotechnology company pioneering the discovery, isolation and development of novel bio-chemicals isolated from the biological diversity of marine microbes. The company is developing these natural products as new anti-infectives as well as further high value products for use in other commercial sectors such as natural cosmetic ingredients, nutraceuticals and industrial applications.
Since founding the business, Dr Spragg has successfully raised over £10M in equity finance. D Spragg is the recipient of the 2007 Gannochy Innovation Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for achievements in biotechnology & innovation. In 2008, Dr Spragg's entrepreneurial achievements were recognised through winning the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year 2008 in Health Care for Scotland.
Dr Phillip Monk, Chief Scientific Officer, Synairgen
Dr Phillip Monk was appointed to the Board as Chief Scientific Officer in September 2009. Phillip joined Synairgen in October 2006 as Head of Bioscience Development. Phillip was previously Director of the Respiratory and Inflammation Biology group at Cambridge Antibody Technology (‘CAT') and led the scientific development of CAT-354, an anti-IL-13 antibody being developed for the treatment of severe asthma. Prior to joining CAT, he worked at Bayer AG within the respiratory disease therapeutic area, focusing on the development of novel therapies for asthma, COPD and cystic fibrosis.
Ian Nicholson, Chief Executive Officer, Chromatherapeutics
Ian Nicholson joined Chroma in September 2004. Prior to joining Chroma, he was Senior Vice President of Business Development for Celltech, responsible for all global licensing activities, and additionally held the position of Acting CEO, Oxford GlycoSciences following its acquisition by Celltech. Prior to this he was Commercial Director at Oxford Asymmetry and has held a variety of senior commercial positions with Lonza and Amersham. He holds a BSc (Hons) degree from University College, London and an MBA from Boston University.
Ian Paling, Executive Chairman and CEO, CellCo Tec
Ian's background is in orthopaedics. From 1994 to 2007, Ian was the CEO of Corin Group PLC which, under his leadership grew to a highly regarded publicly quoted orthopaedic company with a world leading position in hip resurfacing.Prior to joining Corin, Ian, who has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in metallurgy, worked for ten years in senior management roles for several OEM suppliers of orthopaedic devices. He is currently Non Executive Chairman of Inion Limited, a UK-listed orthopaedics company, a Non Executive Director of Metalrax PLC, and a Non Executive Director of Sphere Medical Holding PLC
Rob Pinnock, Director Scientific Liaison, Merck Sharp & Dohme
Rob's remit since joining Merck's licensing team in Sept 2007 is to identify partnering opportunities in the UK, Irish Republic & South Africa.
Rob has worked in neuroscience and cardiovascular disease therapeutic areas in Pharma, Biotech and academia over the last thirty years. These organizations include Pfizer, Parke Davis, the Medical Research Council & the University of Cambridge. Following a successful career in basic research & drug development in which collaborations became increasingly important, Rob has moved into the licensing and external scientific affairs group of Merck & Co in 2007.
Les Russell, Chief Executive Officer, OrganOx Limited
Les co-founded OrganOx and secured initial funding in 2008. Previously, he was Managing Director of Chromogenex plc, an AIM-listed company manufacturing light devices for non-ablative surgical and cosmetic use. In a 2-year period, sales were increased from £2.4m to £4.5m and a loss of £150K reversed into a profit of £376K.
From 1995-2000, Les was Marketing Director for the Biotech Division of Baxter Export Corporation. Sales were increased from from $25m to $62m, based around of a strategy of new product introduction for both the biopharmaceutical and blood transfusion divisions.
Les has also been CEO of Gendel Limited, a company developing novel technologies for cancer therapy where he secured funding and planned and managed a 20 patient clinical trial for evaluation of CEFUS therapy in the treatment of basal cell carcinomas. Earlier, as Business Development Director at Cambridge Life Sciences plc, he was instrumental in the sale first to Medeva and then to Byk-Gulden GmbH and was also pivotal in the development of the Ciba-Corning Diagnostics 600 series of blood analysers.
Jan Rutherford, Partner, SEP
Jan joined SEP's investment team in London in January 2004, having previously spent three years at Dresdner Kleinwort Capital. Her nine years of experience in healthcare venture capital investment spans drug discovery and development, medical technology, healthcare IT and healthcare services, mainly in Europe. Prior to moving into venture capital, Jan spent 8 years in clinical development and business development, working for Merck, Novartis and Quintiles, predominantly in the field of oncology. SEP is currently investing from its £160m mixed technology SEP III fund and typically invests between £1m and £10m in funding rounds of up to £30m.
Anand Sambasivan, Partner, Darwin Strategic Limited
Anand Sambasivan is a Partner at Darwin Strategic Limited, recentlyfounded to provide underfunded listed companies with Equity Credit Facilties. Darwin Strategic is majority held by The Evolution Group, a leading small cap Investment Bank in the UK. Previously, Anand spent seven years as an Investment Banker at Credit Suisse and Banc of America Securities in New York and London. Focused primarily on the Financial Institutions sector, Anand's transaction experience includes IPO, other security issues, private equity transactions and mergers and acquisitions.
Graziano Seghezzi, Partner, Sofinnova Partners
Graziano Seghezzi brings nearly a decade of European venture capital investment experience to Sofinnova Partners, where he has been a partner focused on life sciences investment since joining the firm in 2006.
Graziano has been instrumental in targeting, investing in, and nurturing the growth of a number of Sofinnova Partners' portfolio companies, including: Creabilis Therapeutics (Italy), a specialty dermatology company developing products in multiple clinical areas such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis; Crescendo Biologics (UK), a seed-stage company targeting the application of highly innovative antibody fragment technologies to the development of new therapeutics; GlycoVaxyn (Switzerland), a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of novel vaccines; and Omthera (USA), specialized in cardiovascular disorders with a best-in-class
omega-3 drug. Graziano is a board member of each company.
Prior to joining Sofinnova Partners' Paris-based team, Graziano was principal at Index Ventures in Geneva, Switzerland, where he invested in biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals companies. Before this, he worked for Sofinnova Partners, identifying new investment opportunities in Italian pharmaceutical and medical device companies out of Milan, Italy. Graziano began his career as a biomedical researcher at New York University's School of Medicine, where he gained five years of hands-on experience studying the molecular mechanism of angiogenesis in oncology and cardiovascular diseases.
Graziano has a degree in genetics and microbiology from the University of Pavia (Italy) and an MBA from the RSM, Erasmus University (Netherlands).
Chris Shelley, Partner, Manches
Chris Shelley is a Partner specialising in IP law, advising on patents, copyright and database rights, trade marks and designs, and also in EC and UK competition law.
Nick Skaer, Chief Executive Officer, Orthox
Nick Skaer, CEO, Orthox Ltd. Nick founded Orthox Ltd. in 2008, securing £1.6 million seed funding from the Wellcome Trust, to commercialise regenerative cartilage and bone repair devices using a revolutionary silk biomaterial, Spidrex®. A bioscience graduate of Oxford and Strasbourg Universities, Nick developed Spidrex® with Oxford Biomaterials Ltd., the company of which he was CEO for the four years prior to founding Orthox. During this period, he raised over £3.5 million in private equity finance and public grants to fund the Spidrex® development programme, and was founding Director of two other equity financed Oxford Biomaterials spin out ventures, Neurotex Ltd. and Suturox Ltd.
Tim Sparey, Head of Business Development, Proximagen
Tim joined Proximagen in November 2009 as Head of BD to focus on the Company's commitment to deliver novel drugs and innovative new treatments for neurodegenerative disease and other CNS disorders, bringing new hope to patients and value to shareholders. His responsibilities include devising and executing the in- and out-licensing strategy.
Prior to joining Proximagen, Tim worked at Merck Serono in Commercial BD and prior to that spent 13 years with Merck & Co in the CNS drug discovery and Worldwide Licensing & External Research teams.
Sue Staunton, Business Services Partner, James Coweper
Sue Staunton is a business services partner. She also has a particular interest in working with technology businesses and their owners and, as such, heads our our technology team.
Sue works with clients on the development and implementation of their corporate strategies. She also has a great deal of experience in working with businesses in financial crisis to establish strategies to assist them to move forward successfully.
James Steel, Director of Corporate Finance, KBC Peel Hunt
James Steel is a director of corporate finance at KBC Peel Hunt, a leading middle market financial advisory and broking firm. Prior to joining KBC Peel Hunt in 2009 James was a senior investment banker within Piper Jaffray's European healthcare group and has considerable experience in advising both public and private companies on a wide range of corporate matters including financings and mergers and acquisitions.
Mark Sweetinburgh, Patent Attorney, Fry Heath & Spence
Mark is a UK and European Patent Attorney with extensive experience of drafting and prosecuting patent applications in the biotechnological, pharmaceutical and mechanical fields. Mark has particular expertise in relation to cases concerning biotechnology, stem cells, genetic marker technology, microbiology, enzymology, nutrition and plant breeding.
Douglas Thomson, Chief Executive Officer, Ixo Limited
Douglas has over 15 years experience in the biotech sector and is CEO of start-up Ixo Ltd. Douglas has senior executive and board level expertise in a number of biotech companies including Microscience Limited, SingVax Ltd and Aquapharm Biodiscovery with extensive experience in leading companies and commercialization of NBEs and NCEs. He has participated in the raising of significant equity and grant financing. Douglas originally trained and worked as an analytical chemist.
Rebecca Todd, Investment Manager, Oxford Capital Partners
Rebecca joined Oxford Capital Partners in 2007 and is responsible for investments in life sciences and healthcare. She is a Director on the Boards of Sirigen, Veryan and Microbial Solutions and an Observer to the Boards of Oxford BioTherapeutics and Exosect. Prior to becoming a venture capital investor, Rebecca was a marketing consultant, with a wide portfolio of clients, initially major pharmaceutical companies and latterly early-stage biotechnology companies. Rebecca has an MBA from the Saïd Business School, Oxford University, where she specialised in technology innovation and entrepreneurship, a PhD in Genetics from Nottingham University and graduated with first class honours in Biology from the University of York. Rebecca is also a member of the Investment Panel for the Mobius Life Sciences Fund. When the British climate allows, Rebecca is a keen rock climber.
Mark Tucker, Chief Executive Officer, g-Nostics
Mark co-founded g-Nostics Ltd in July 2004 around a genotyping technology to develop an enabling platform for clinicians and pharmacists to personalise medical prescribing.
During 2006/7 NicoTest® piloted in NHS pharmacies demonstrating statistically significant Clinical Utility. The Company has secured an exclusive strategic collaboration with GE Healthcare and a strong US distribution partner that reaches 90% of all US physicians.
Mark has five patents granted, or pending, to his name and has been involved with the smoking cessation sector since 1986. He helped commercialise and license the earliest transdermal product launches in this sector to a well known global brand.
Ena Vieira, Commercial Manager, SRG
With 10 years' recruitment and account management experience, Ena joined SRG in 2006 and has worked in a variety of roles since then, covering regional management responsibility for the South East, followed by a business development role covering four regions of the UK to the sector-focused commercial management role she has today.
In addition to having a successful history of working on recruitment projects for regional, national and managed service accounts in the UK, Ena has an established presence within the biotech sector with an in-depth understanding of the technical requirements of this marketplace.
Ian Wainwright, Principal, Corporate Broking, Piper Jaffray
Ian joins Piper Jaffray from Canaccord Adams, where he was a managing director, specialising in life sciences sales since November 2007. During his time at Canaccord Adams Ian has been instrumental in building the life sciences franchise. In both 2008 and 2009, Ian was ranked 4th in the Biotechnology Specialist Sales Extel Survey.
Prior to joining Canaccord Adams, Ian was in specialist biotech, medtech and pharma sales at Société Générale. Ian, who started his career at Ernst & Young, also worked in research for Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and as an analyst for Man Securities.
Ian has a degree in Natural Sciences from King's College, Cambridge.
Colby Walker, Life science insurance underwriter, CHUBB
Colby Walker, a life science insurance underwriter with CHUBB will present an underwriters view supported by FOCUS Insurance, the Oxford based speciality insurance broker for Life and Bioscience businesses who have designed and created this special scheme in conjunction with CHUBB.
Matthew Walls, Chief Executive Officer, Epistem
Matthew joined Epistem as Chief Executive Officer in February 2007 to lead the Company through the admission process to the LSE: AIM. Epistem has grown rapidly over the past few years since its admission. Matthew is an experienced CEO previously with Oxford BioSignals Limited where he led the strategic 'diagnostic' collaboration with Rolls Royce Plc and Covance Inc and completed the fundraising and repositioning of the medical diagnostic business to the United States. Matthew spent the early part of his career with ICI plc progressing through the executive development programme and several senior management positions. Matthew headed up the corporate financial and commercial development of plant biotechnology at AstraZeneca plc prior to its merger with Novartis to form Syngenta plc. Matthew has led the growth and development of several technology and biotechnology companies as CEO including Internexus Limited and Zylepsis Limited. Matthew holds a non-executive role at Riyada Oxford Investments Limited and is a chartered accountant and a member of CIMA.
Fintan Walton PhD, CEO and Founder of PharmaVentures
Dr Walton is the Founder and CEO of PharmaVentures. After completing his doctoral research on the genetics of cell proliferation at the University of Michigan (US) and Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Dr Walton gained broad commercial experience in biotechnology in management positions at Bass and Celltech plc (1982-1992).
Although Dr Walton's main focus is his role as Chief Executive Officer of PharmaVentures, he is available for some consultancy assignments.
Sally Waterman, Chief Operating Officer, PolyTherics
Sally Waterman joined PolyTherics in October 2009. Her previous roles include Director of Research & Development at Protherics (now part of BTG) and KS Biomedix (acquired by Xenova), VP of Non-clinical Development at Vernalis and Director of Scientific Operations at Pharmakopius (since acquired by PRA). In each of these roles she has built the infrastructure and processes to support virtual R&D and align it with business objectives. She has been involved in numerous corporate transactions and has managed the due diligence process pre-deal and the integration process post-completion. Her early career was spent in regulatory affairs in several big pharma and she has retained oversight of this function throughout her career.
Peter Wighton-Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Immunotec
Dr.Wrighton-Smith started Oxford Immunotec after having spent 5 years at PowderJect Pharmaceuticals PLC, now part of Chiron Corporation. During his time there, he saw PowderJect grow to a global vaccines business with over 1,000 employees and immediately prior to founding Oxford Immunotec, he was Special Projects Director at PowderJect. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of PowderJect Diagnostics Ltd, a subsidiary of PowderJect, developing cellular immune based diagnostics. He has also held scientific & project management roles at major companies in both the healthcare and engineering fields, including posts in Switzerland and California. Peter has a Masters in Engineering, Economics & Management and a DPhil in Medical Engineering both from Oxford University.
Speaker and Chair Biographies for 2009
Charlie Alexander
Andrea Alunni
Dr Mark Ashton
Chris Atterwill
Patrick Baddeley
Adam Barak
Dr John Beadle
Dr Richard Broadhead
Carlton Brown
John Burt
Kate Burt
Dr Christophe Chassagnole
David Colpman
Rod Cook
Jane Dancer
Paul Davies
John Dawson
James Dipple
Paul Drohan
Nick Dunster
Dr. Wolfgang Ebenbeck
Martin Edwards
Dr Mike Evans
Sam Fazeli
Professor Peter Friend
Denis Geffroy
Dr Regina Hodits
Dr J Nick Housby
Wills Hughes-Wilson
Dr Jackie Hunter
Simon Jones
Chris Jones
Dr Andrew Kelly
Simon Kiddle
Jim Kinnear Wilson
Dr David Knowles
Nicholas La Thangue
Andrew Lane
David Laskow-Pooley
Eddy Littler
Dr Anker Lundemose
Graeme Martin
Keith Martin
Dr Tony Maschio
Dr Melanie McCullagh
Bryan Morton
David Mott
Paul Murphy
Alasdair Naylor
Linda Naylor
Ian J. Nicholson
James Noble
James Noble
Dr Nigel Parkinson
Hadyn Parry
Rob Pinnock
Esteban Pombo-Villar
Ken Powell
Keith Powell
Robin Quirk
Dr Jon Rees
Allison Robbins
Bruce Savage
David Scales
Dr Richard Seabrook
Nigel Sheail
Nick Skaer
Dr. Candi Soames
Sue Staunton
Charles Swingland
Rebecca Tollervey
Chris Ullman
Fintan Walton
Mike Ward
Dr. Tom Weaver
Dr Malcolm Weirs
Dr. Kathleen Williams
Mike Wort
Professor Malcolm Young
Senior Business Development Manager, Shire Pharmaceuticals Group Limited
Charlie joined Shire in April 2007 with responsibilities including both in-licensing and out-licensing. His experience spans biotech, large pharma and consultancy. Immediately prior to joining Shire he worked as a consultant in providing strategic and commercial services to biotechs and mid-cap pharma. Before this his initial business development experience was with Xenova, a Slough-based biotech. Amongst other things he was responsible for seeking territorial deals for Xenovaís oncology portfolio and ultimately closed a deal for Xenovaís lead compound. He started his career at GSK spending a significant part of his time there working in New Product Development/Strategy.
Seed Investment Manager, Isis Innovation Ltd
Andrea joined Isis in August 2008 as Seed Investment Manager to help the University raise finance for progressing technology spin-outs. An electronics engineer by background, Andrea gained an MSc in Strasbourg (France-1994) in the field of Technology Transfer and an MBA in Rome (Italy-1995) focussing on finance. His professional experience spans 15 years in financing technology, from corporate finance in Telecom Italia, investment banking at Nomura and private equity at CDC Capital Partners. Andrea is the author of two books in the field of competitive acquisitions in the technology sector, published in Italy in 2006 and 2007.
Executive Vice President, Business Development, Evotec AG
Dr Mark Ashton joined Evotec in 1995. He has been Executive Vice President, Business Development since 2005 and is responsible for global commercial and marketing activities, discussing outsourcing needs with the worldís leading Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies. Prior to this he was President, Discovery Services, responsible for the Discovery division of Evotec: a division of over 250 chemists and biologists involved in projects ranging from high throughput screening, parallel synthesis and medicinal chemistry.
Dr Ashton has worked within the outsourcing industry for the past 14 years and is the author and co-author of various peer reviewed scientific publications and patents.
Scientific and Business Advisor to Capsant Technologies Ltd
Chris qualified as a pharmacist and gained his PhD at London University and having held MRC Fellowships at the Institute of Neurology & Oxford University, was appointed GSK Professor of Toxicology at the University of Hertfordshire where he pioneered Brain and Liver Spheroids as animal alternative drug screens. This technology was the forerunner of Capsantís human OrganDotTM technology.
Later positions included Director of Drug Safety at Roche UK. Chris served on the Home APC up to 2007. He has run Prognus Ltd since 2003, acting as Scientific Advisor to Capsant Ltd since it was founded.
Corporate Finance Partner, Manches LLP
An Oxford Graduate, Patrick joined Manches in 1984 and became a partner in 1987. A member of the Corporate Group, Patrick is involved in mergers and acquisitions, refinancing and other corporate transactions, particularly for clients in the life sciences field. He also advises on employee Share Schemes and is a member of the Share Schemes Lawyers Group. Patrick was a founder member of OBN Advisory Board, and is one of OBNís longest standing supporters.
Vice President of Boston Healthcare Associates (UK Office)
After an early career involving sales, marketing and pricing in the automotive industry with Vauxhall and General Motors Europe, Adam joined GlaxoWellcomeís International Pricing & Reimbursement division in 1996. In 1997 Adam became Head of European Pricing, managing the regional function and developing international pricing strategies for 4 of the 7 GW therapy areas, including European pricing strategies for CNS (including developing the European pricing strategy for epilepsy, depression and smoking cessation products), urology, metabolic, CNS, cardiovascular, oncology and anaesthesiology drugs.
Adam is a Chartered Marketer and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. In 2003 he has had articles on pharmaceutical pricing published in the International Journal of Medical Marketing and the Journal of Generic Medicines and has presented at international pharmaceutical conferences on pharmaceutical pricing strategies. Adam and BHA offer healthcare pricing and reimbursement training to the industry as well as other parties such as health ministers and distributors.
Chairman, Hybrid Systems Ltd
A successful biotech entrepreneur. Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of PowderMed, a DNA vaccine company sold to Pfizer in 2006. John has previously held roles at PowderJect, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline where he was VP of Global Medical Operations. He has expertise in the development of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for infectious diseases and oncology therapeutics.
Technical Sales Manager, Oxford Expression Technologies
Richard joined Oxford Expression Technologies in October 2008 as Technical Sales Manager. His experience spans both the academic and commercial spheres of science. Richard brings significant global, sales and marketing experience to the company, having previous experience in the field with Invitrogen and Flowgen. He also has extensive relevant technical experience acquired through laboratory research in the fields of proteomics and protein expression.
Chief Executive Officer, Immune Targeting Systems Limited
Carlton is a vet and holds an MBA from London Business School and has background in strategic marketing (SmithKline Beecham), corporate & business development (Cortecs Plc) & global healthcare investment banking (Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein). He was formerly Commercial Director & COO of a French vaccine company. He co founded ITS (2004) and successfully raised the Companyís Seed and £5.0m Series-A funding rounds. He strategically directed the innovation and development of the vaccine platforms from inception to permit the targeting of mutating viruses. Carlton is particularly interested in developing products capable of addressing key market needs with a specific focus on market disruption.
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Thiakis
John Burt founded Thiakis in mid-2004 with Professor Steve Bloom (Imperial College London). Having raised £10 million in 2006 from a syndicate of investors led by Novo A/S, Advent Venture Partners and Imperial Innovations, Thiakis was acquired by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals for £100 million in December 2008. Prior to founding Thiakis, John was Head of Medical and Life Sciences at Imperial Innovations, the technology transfer office of Imperial College London, where he was instrumental in securing a number of significant licensing and collaborative research agreements. He also served as Imperial Innovationsí appointee director on the board of Sterix, leading up to its acquisition by Ispen in 2004.
Previously John had held business/corporate development and strategy positions with Glaxo Wellcome/GlaxoSmithKline and was responsible for R&D finance at Vanguard Medica (Vernalis), having qualified as a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants whilst working in the management consultancy practice of Coopers & Lybrand. He has a first degree in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) from the University of Cambridge and a D.Phil (Molecular Biology) from the University of Oxford.
Director, Commercial Alliances and Transactions, Worldwide Business Development, GlaxoSmithKline
Kate has a wealth of experience from working in GSKís business development and venture capital groups for the past seven years and has negotiated many of GSKís recent deals including the Strategic Alliances with Theravance, Epix, Cellzome, Dynavax and Regulus as well as a host of late stage licensing opportunities. Kate worked as a business consultant previously at GSK and Arthur Anderson and holds qualifications as both a molecular biologist and a Chartered Accountant.
Chief Operating Officer, Physiomics plc
Dr Christophe Chassagnole joined Physiomics in May 2004 as project leader to develop the cancer models of the company and since May 2007 he has served as Chief Operating Officer of Physiomics. He has been involved in Systems Biology projects during the last 15 years, with experience in both academic and industrial environments. He gained his PhD in biochemistry from Victor Segalen-Bordeaux II University, and then he held a post doctorate position with IBVT at Stuttgart University. Before Joining Physiomics Dr Chassagnole worked in France as a senior researcher for CRITT Bio-Industries (Toulouse) for 3 years in the field of metabolic engineering.
Senior Vice President, Business Development, Shire Pharmaceuticals Group Limited
David Colpman is a senior member of Shireís business development team with responsibility for building the global business through licensing and M&A. In the last nine years at Shire, David has completed around 10 licensing deals. In addition he has run numerous M&A, product divestment and acquisition projects. Specific achievements include in-licensing the GI product Lialda/Mezavant with sales potential of over $400M, leading the team that bought Transkaryotic Therapies for $1.6BN and in 2007 divesting a business to Almirall for $213M. In 2008 he won Shireís CSO award.
Prior to joining Shire he led GlaxoWellcomeís UK Business Development efforts and prior to that he was Head of Licensing and Alliances at Novo Nordisk in Denmark. David is a pharmacist by training; he spent part of his early career working in Japan and has a basic command of the Japanese language.
Partner, Biotech Personnel
Rod has over 30 years HR experience working in a variety of high technology companies. His last company role was as Head of Personnel for British Biotech, where he helped to grow a private company from 90 employees to over 330 in the FTSE 100.
Since the formation of Biotech Personnel a substantial client base of over 50 life science employers has been established. Assignments vary from Board level remuneration advice to a total interim HR service.
Vice President of Business Development, Cellzome
Since joining Cellzome at the beginning of 2008, she was involved in negotiating a major strategic alliance with GSK and extending and expanding Cellzomeís existing collaboration with Johnson and Johnson. Prior to joining Cellzome, Jane was at MedImmune Ltd (formerly Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT)) where she was responsible for negotiating in- and out-licensing agreements in relation to technology and products. She was also part of the team that negotiated the strategic alliance with AstraZeneca. Jane has a science background with a PhD from Cambridge in plant biochemistry and over ten years experience of research and project management in the agchem industry. She also has an MBA from Cambridge.
Chief Executive Officer, Cytox Group
Paul is an experienced business development specialist who has worked in the Biotechnolgy/Pharma/Healthcare sectors for over 30 years. He began his career in sales with Napp Laboratories and then moved to the Homecare sector with Caremark. In addition, he has worked for Amarin Pharmaceuticals, Roche Diagnostics, LCG Bioscience (CRO) and Pharmagene (now owned by Asterand). The latter of these specialised in providing pharmaceutical drug development teams with access to human tissue in a pre-clinical Phase Zero offering. He joined Cytox in a consultancy role in 2008 and will become a permanent member of the management team in 2009.
Chief Executive Officer, Oxford BioMedica
John Dawson joined Oxford BioMedicaís Board as non-executive director. In August 2008 and was later appointed CEO in October 2008. From 1996 to 2007 he held senior management positions in the European operations of Cephalon Inc., including from 2005, a management board position as CFO and Head of Business Development Europe.
In his time at Cephalon he led the many deals that built the European business to over 1,000 people, taking the business from having no sales in 1998 to a turnover of several hundred million US dollars. In 2005 he led the US$360 million acquisition of Zeneus by Cephalon.
Director, MEPC
James Dipple is Director of MEPC Ltd, Managing Director of Milton Park and of Leavesden Park and is also Head of Development and Construction. He also heads up the activities at Callaghan Square, Cardiff. From 2004-2008, James was Development Director of Easter Group and before that, Director of Hines UK Ltd. James has actually returned to MEPC having previously been Managing Director of Milton Park and Head of Development from 1997-2002, when he was largely credited with taking Milton Park into the modern era in which it sits today. Prior to that, James was a Partner with Strutt & Parker where his principle clients were Arlington and British Aerospace. Outside work his interests include rugby, skiing and the arts.
Vice President and General Manager, Genzyme UK and Ireland
Paul Drohan joined Genzyme Corporation, in July of 1996. He is currently the General Manager & Vice-President of Genzyme UK & Ireland. In this position, Mr. Drohan is responsible for companyís financial success in UK & Ireland through his management of Sales & Marketing, Finance, Operations, Medical & Regulatory Affairs, Public & Government Affairs and Legal Affairs. Paul has been in this current role since April 1. 2005. Prior to assuming responsibility for the Genzyme UK & Ireland, Paul was the General Manager & Vice President of Genzyme Canada. Working to establish Genzyme in his native land, he worked with patients, healthcare professionals and government to provide access to Genzymeís novel therapeutics. These activities culminated in working to establish a new approach for access of ultra-orphan diseases with, and within, both the provincial and federal governmentsí healthcare responsibilities. Paul is a Director of Genzyme Therapeutics Ltd and is a member of the UKSC (UK Steering Committee) and the EMC (European Management Committee).
Prior to joining Genzyme Canada, Mr. Drohan held the position of Group Product Manager at Pharmacia & Upjohn. In 10 years at Upjohn, Mr. Drohan moved through sales & marketing function beginning in sales, specialty sales, medical sciences liaison, product management, product director and finally group product manager. He served as a consultant to the College of Family Physicians of Canada and worked with the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons to implement the MOCOMP (Maintenance of Competency Programme) with Canadian specialists. During his tenure in the pharmaceutical / biotechnology industry he has successfully led the launch of 7 products into the Canadian and UK/Ireland markets. He has led the negotiation and execution of two successful co-marketing agreements. His increasing level of responsibility has provided him with the insight into managing an overall operation and he was an architect of the resent DoH-NCG agreement for NCG sustainability. A critical requirement to success in any healthcare system is the responsibility for companies and their personnel to work with Government in the establishing a positive and progressive relationship that is beneficial to patients. Paul is married and a father of 4 girls. An active cyclist, tennis player and downhill skier provide challenges outside of his on-going career.
Senior Business Analyst, The Wellcome Trust
Nick joined the Trust in 2005 and is responsible for contract negotiations, due diligence and IP issues. He monitors existing investments in drug discovery, vaccine trials, medical devices and platform technologies, and holds two Board Observer positions. He obtained a first degree in biochemistry from the University of Bristol, a PhD from Cambridge and has six years' experience in the biotech industry with focus on cancer, immunology and anti-infective preclinical drug discovery.
Head of Fluorine Team, Saltigo
Dr. Wolfgang Ebenbeck joined Saltigo GmbH, a globally operating custom manufacturer and a wholly owned subsidiary of Lanxess AG, in 2004. He was appointed as Head of Saltigoís Fluorine Team, a dedicated custom research service provider in the field of organofluorine chemistry, which supports the activities of life science customers from drug discovery to preclinical programs providing versatile fluorinated building blocks and scalable fluorination methods.
Prior to the formation of Saltigo GmbH, Dr. Wolfgang Ebenbeck was Research Manager in the Fluorine Group at Bayer AG, Central Research Department. This group played a pivotal role in the development of numerous fluoro-containing pharmaceutical and agrochemicals products at Bayer. Before joining Bayer in 2001, Dr. Wolfgang Ebenbeck received his PhD at the University of Regensburg and undertook Post Doctoral Research at the Research School of Chemistry in Canberra/Australia.
Senior Partner, Novo Ventures
Dr Martin Edwards is Senior Partner in Novo A/S where he has worked since 2003. Martin represents Novo on the Boards of Funxional Therapeutics Ltd, Logical Therapeutics Inc, Serentis Ltd, Symphogen A/S, and Vantia Ltd. Prior to this Dr Edwards was CSO of ReNeuron Ltd taking the company public in 2000. Martin has spend most of his career in drug development and was SVP and world wide head of Novo Nordisk drug development between 1993 and 1998, SVP of Medical Affairs for Novo Nordisk in Princeton, and SVP and CMO for Zymogenetics Inc. Martin originally trained in medicine at Manchester and worked in the NHS for 5 years before joining the pharmaceutical industry. He is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners and Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine. He also holds an MBA from Warwick University.
Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Gene Technology
Dr Mike Evans joined Oxford Gene Technology in March 2005. Prior to this he spent 16 years at GE Healthcare, formerly Amersham plc. Dr Evans most recently held the position of Executive Vice President, Marketing and Strategy, Amersham Discovery Systems Division, and was previously Executive Vice President of the Bioassays Business. In 2000 Dr Evans joined Ascot Fine Chemicals as Managing Director, responsible for two businesses within the Ascot plc group and was a member of Ascot's Executive Committee. Dr Evans holds a BA, MA and DPhil from the University of Oxford.
Head of European Equity Research, Piper Jaffray Ltd
Sam Fazeli is a managing director, head of European research, and senior research analyst focused on European biopharmaceutical stocks. Fazeli joined Piper Jaffray in 2005. Fazeli and his team cover 20 UK and Continental European stocks. Fazeli has 13 years' experience in the biopharmaceutical sector. Previously, he was at Nomura where he was part of a team that was ranked No. 1 in the U.K. in the September 2004 Institutional Investor Survey of U.K. Small Cap Fund Managers. In 2008, Fazeli was ranked 3rd in the Extel Biotech Survey of UK institutions. Fazeli has a PhD in Pharmacology and seven years' post-doctoral experience.
Director of the Oxford Transplant Centre and Professor of Transplantation in the Nuffield Department of Surgery at Oxford University, Vice President of the British Transplantation Society, Oxford Transplant Centre and Clinical Trial Service Unit
Professor Friend was trained at the University of Cambridge and St Thomas' Hospital and carried out his postgraduate training in surgery mainly in Cambridge. After a secondment as Visiting Assistant Professor at the Indiana University medical Centre, he returned to Cambridge as Lecturer in Surgery (Honorary Consultant). He took up his present post as professor of Transplantation in Oxford in 1999. He is also Director of the Oxford Transplant Centre and Programme Director for specialist training in general surgery for the Deanery.
Senior Business Manager, Almac Sciences Ltd
Denis completed his academic qualification in organic chemistry at Sussex University, UK (1989-1993). He then moved directly into a business development role. Over the years, Denis has developed strong knowledge in early clinical development projects including API synthesis, radiolabelling, polymorph screening, formulation development and drug product manufacture. Denis has held a range technico-commercial roles, working for Chiroscience/ChiroTech from 1997-2000, then Synetix Chiral Technologies, part of ICI (2000-2004) and since 2004 in his current role at Almac.
Partner, Atlas Venture
Regina Hodits is a Partner in the life sciences group. She joined Atlas Venture in 2004 and focuses on investments across Europe. She began her career in venture capital in 2000 with Apax Partners in Munich, where she was responsible for life science investments and closely involved with Apaxí investments in Genmab, Silence Therapeutics, Astex and Wilex. Prior to Apax Partners, she was an industry specialist for pharmaceutical and biotech companies at McKinsey & Company focusing on building new businesses, spin-offs and mergers in the sector.
Regina serves on the boards of Atlas companies Fibrex, f-star, and Jenavalve, where she was a founding investor. In addition, she sits on the boards of portfolio companies Egalet and NovaMed and is a board observer on Nitec. Regina was on the board of Atlas investment U3 Pharma which was acquired by Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd. in 2008.
Regina holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, a Master of Science from the Technical University in Vienna, Austria and she did her post-doctoral research at MRC in Cambridge, UK. She has been the recipient of a number of scientific awards and research grants, and has published in several journals, including Nature Biotech and JBC.
Chief Scientific Officer, Novolytics
Nick was the founding CSO of Novolytics and has been responsible for all aspects of the business with current responsibility for operations and business development. In this time he has created successful linkages for Novolytics which are currently being progressed in preparing for clinical trials. Nick has raised over £1.0 million of funding for Novolytics in both grants and equity finance. Prior to Novolytics Nick gained commercial management experience at Oxagen Limited (UK) which was followed by a business development role in the technology transfer office of the University of Warwick where he was involved with assessment of ideas for commercialisation and set up several small biotech companies including Novolytics. Nick has also worked at the University of Manchester Incubator Company as a business consultant and formed and headed up the business development capabilities at Warwick HRI, a department of the University of Warwick.
Senior Director, Health Policy Europe, Genzyme (US)
Wills Hughes-Wilson is Senior Director, Health Policy Europe at Genzyme, working on Genzymeís policy development in the European Union. She is Chair of the Advanced Therapies Working Group at EuropaBio, the European Association of Bioindustries and member of the EBE, the European Biopharmaceutical Enterprises group, a specialised group representing the interests of biopharmaceutical companies operating in Europe. The working groups bring together companies active in the sector, to develop consensus-based contribution to the European law-making procedure in the field of Advanced Therapies.
Prior to joining Genzyme, Wills was Executive Manager at EBE, and previously at the European Federation of Animal Health, representing veterinary medicine R&D companies. Wills graduated in Law & Politics from the University of Durham in the UK and is a member of both the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the Society of European Affairs Practitioners (SEAP).
Senior Vice President, Science Environment Development, GlaxoSmithKline
Dr Jackie Hunter has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years. Most recently, as head of the Neurology Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery at GlaxoSmithKline, she led the discovery and development of new therapeutics for neurological and gastrointestinal disorders. This resulted in potential new treatments for multiple sclerosis, Alzheimerís disease and GI disorders.
In 2008 she became the Senior Vice President & Head of Science Environment Development with a remit to develop a more open and transparent global R&D architecture. This includes new ways of working with academia and other publically funded bodies. She is a member of the Innovative Medicines Initiative and Board.
Chief Financial Officer, Glide Pharma
Following a degree in physics, Simon joined Ernst and Young where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He joined Glide Pharma in early 2005 and together with Glide Pharmaís CSO, Simon is focussed on fundraising and corporate development, he also supports the companyís in-licensing and out-licensing activities as well as managing the day-to-day financial and infrastructural operations. Simon was previously CFO at Oxonica, the AIM-listed nanomaterials company, between 2000 and 2005, and has also served on the Board of industrial biotechnology company, Green Biologics.
Chief Executive Officer, Glysure
Mr. Jones has over 19 years of experience in the medical device and diagnostic industry. He joins Glysure from Tensys Medical, where he was CEO from 2005 through 2008; taking over a turnaround venture backed company and leading development of the first clinically-acceptable, continuous, non-invasive blood pressure monitor. Prior to joining Tensys, Mr. Jones spent 9 years with Nellcor Inc, a division of Tyco International Ltd, most recently as VP of Marketing responsible for the pulse oximetry and critical care businesses. He spent six years in sales and marketing management positions at BioGenex Laboratories. Mr. Jones is a graduate of Yale University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry.
Chief Scientific Officer, Biotecnol
Andrew Kelly was one of the two founders of Biotecnol back in 1997, together with Pedro Pissarra. Since then he has been active in developing the company from a consultancy to a biopharmaceutical company providing product development services for clients, including clinical trial products; for the development of the companyís antibody pipeline, and also for developing the companyís platform technologies.
In addition to directing all scientific activities within Biotecnol, he is also responsible for the management of the IP portfolio, a significant part of the companyís ongoing business development and has lectured at the University of Newcastle on "Business for the Bioscientist.î
Partner, Mewburn Ellis LLP
Simon joined Mewburn Ellis LLP in 1991 and joined the partnership in 1997. Simon handles patent work in chemical, biotechnology, pharmaceutical and nanotechnology fields, in particular protein engineering, peptide therapeutics, enzymes, microarrays, microfluidic devices, nanoparticles and proteomics.
Partner, Manches LLP
Jim graduated in biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen, and progressed to an MSc in biochemical engineering from the University of Birmingham before converting to law. He was articled at the niche intellectual property firm, Bristows Cooke & Carpmael. He spent 5 years with City law firm McKenna & Co, before joining NabarroNathanson in October 1993. He joined Manches from Nabarros in May 2003, as a Partner in the Technology & Media Department in the Thames Valley office.
Jim has specialised in intellectual property since admisssion in 1987, conducting disputes relating to patents, copyrights, trade marks, confidential information and designs.
With his technical background he has also advised a number of science and engineering based clients on the protection and exploitation of their IP rights through R&D agreements, licensing, sales and acquisitions, especially for clients in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agri-bio, medical device and veterinary medicines sector. His clients range from academics and university technology transfer offices, through growing companies to those listed on the London and New York stock exchanges.
President and Chief Scientific Officer, CellCentric. Ex-Chief Scientific Officer and Development Director, Piramed Ltd
David worked for over 20 years in major pharmaceutical companies both in Europe and the US and established an international reputation in anti-infectives R&D. In 1999, he joined the UK biotech sector, simultaneously taking on various executive, non-exec and advisory roles in an attempt to learn rapidly about the business environment. As CSO of RiboTargets plc, he successfully transformed the scientific basis of the company from one based on the discovery of anti-infective molecules targeting discreet RNA structural motifs into one predominantly focused on the discovery and development of anti-cancer agents. Following the merger of RiboTargets and British Biotech, he became Director of R & D for the combined organization and then, prior to his departure, oversaw the merger of British Biotech with Vernalis. David was subsequently appointed CSO and R&D Director of Piramed Ltd, based in Slough. Piramed signed a lucrative pre-clinical deal with Genentech in November 2005 and was subsequently acquired by Roche in May 2008. David left Roche at the end of November 2008 and is currently President CSO of CellCentric Ltd and a non-executive director of Procarta Ltd.
David is a past Member of Council of the American Society for Microbiology and on the editorial board of Current Opinions in Microbiology. He continues to serve on various biotech Scientific Advisory Boards.
Founding Director, Celleron Therapeutics
Nicholas has over 20 years of experience in biotechnology and healthcare. He founded Prolifix in 1995, a successful spin-out from the UK Medical Research Council, focussed on cancer drug discovery and was CSO until its merger with the Scandinavian oncology company TopoTarget. He acted as Chief Business Development Officer in TopoTarget, and was responsible for completing a number of significant deals with both large and mid size companies. Nick has extensive scientific, commercial and financing experience derived from the biotechnology sector. He is Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Oxford, and was previously Cathcart Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Glasgow. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a Member of EMBO. He has authored over 150 publications, is an inventor on an extensive number of granted patents, and has consulted extensively in the biotechnology sector. He is a Founding Director of Celleron Therapeutics, focussed on developing targeted cancer medicines.
Managing Director, MorphoSys UK
Andrew gained a PhD relating to antibody immunotherapy from the University of Southampton in 1989, when the current applications of antibody based therapeutics could only be imagined. After a spell in a regional diagnostic laboratory with the NHS he joined Serotec in 1994 to set up their internal QC systems. Since then he has progressed within the company to take responsibility for manufacturing and new product development. Following the acquisition of Serotec by MorphoSys in 2006 Andrew has been responsible for Scientific Affairs within the AbD Division, and was appointed Managing Director of MorphoSys UK in June 2008.
Managing Director, PharmaFor Ltd
David, a pharmacist by profession, founded Pharmafor ltd, a company providing specialist assistance to small and emerging enterprises in the life science sector. Having successfully been responsible and involved in several spin-outs and start-ups he now has focused this knowledge and experience into assisting multiple start-ups and growth companies. Prior to this he has held a number of director, executive officer and general management posts in both small and major multinational companies including GSK, Abbott, Amersham plc, Life Technologies, OSI, Bilcare and Surface Therapeutics. These have spanned the full range of activities ranging from discovery, through manufacturing to sale of pharmaceutical products, diagnostics and devices. He is a non executive director of Venturefest Ltd, a member of the advisory board of OBN and an independent Governor of Oxford Brookes University. He is heavily involved with ensuring academic inventions are progressed to commercialisation through rapid innovation.
Chief Executive Officer, Domainex
Eddy joined Domainex in May 2007. Since joining Domainex he has led the company through a finance round and restructured the company to a site at Cambridge. His experience covers large pharma including Wellcome and GlaxoWellcome and biotechs including Medivir. Immediately before joining Domainex he worked as a consultant providing strategic guidance and experience in anti infectives to a variety of pharma and biotechs. Before this he was Head of the UK site and Director of Lead Discovery for Medivir. Amongst other things he was a key player in Medivirís outlicensing activities, including deals with J&J (Tibotec), Roche, Boerhinger and GSK. After a period of time in academic research he began his industrial career at the Wellcome Research labs eventually becoming Head of Gene Targets with projects in virology and gene therapy of cancer. Post acquisition he joined GW as Head of Antiviral Research. Eddy is a member of the MRC Infection and Immunity Board and Translational Research Group.
Executive Vice President, OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. and President, Prosidion
Anker Lundemose is a biotech entrepreneur and has co-founded several companies including Symphogen, Santaris Pharma and Prosidion. He has an extensive background spanning academia, large pharma as well as biotech and has held positions within R&D, Business Development as well as Executive Management. Anker has been Executive Vice President and President (Prosidion) of OSI Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:OSIP) since April 2005 when OSI successfully acquired Prosidion Limited of which Anker was then CEO. Today Prosidion constitutes the UK subsidiary of OSI Pharmaceuticals and undertakes all of OSIís type 2 diabetes & obesity R&D activities. Prosidion currently has several programs in clinical development including the glucokinase activator PSN010 which is partnered with Eli Lilly. Prosidion further capitalizes on a portfolio of medical use patents covering the diabetes target DP-IV and the income from several non-exclusive licenses contributes to the profitability of OSI. Prosidion employs approximately 100 people in Oxford covering all aspects of R&D from early discovery to Phase II/III clinical trials. Anker Lundemose has previously held positions at Novo Nordisk and has served as member of the Board of Directors for Symphogen and for Display Biotech Systems which was acquired by Neurosearch in 2001. Currently he is a Director of Prosidion Limited & OSI Pharmaceuticals UK Limited and further sits on the Advisory Board to Oxfordshire Bioscience Network.
President & Chief Exceutive Officer, Takeda Research Investment Inc.
Dr. Martin is President and CEO of TRI with day-to-day responsibility for operations. He brings more than 28 years of pharmaceutical R&D experience, primarily in multinational Pharmas (Wellcome; Glaxo Wellcome: Hoffman La Roche). He was responsible for the discovery and preclinical development of Zomig®, marketed worldwide for the acute treatment of migraine. More recently, Dr. Martin served as Chief Technical Officer at Telik Inc. with responsibility for technology and business development before establishing a Bay Area biopharmaceutical consulting operation, Discovery-Insight. Dr. Martin received his Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacology from the University of Bath, and his doctorate from University College, London, UK.
Chief Executive Officer, Apitope
Keith is a director and entrepreneur with a successful 30 year career in R&D, corporate & business development and biotech start-up with both executive and non-executive Board, management and leadership roles in England, Belgium, USA & Japan. Keith has raised more than Euro 15 million for biotechs and developed products from bench to market and completed high value licensing deals. Experienced in venture investment, he began his career as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in Mental Health at University of Nottingham Medical School and received a NATO Exchange Fellowship to Princeton University.
Partner, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge Innovations LLP
Dr. Tony Maschio has extensive experience in biotechnology patenting and specialises in advising companies in strategy and value generation using Intellectual Property Rights. He has acted before the European Patent Office representing many clients in complex Opposition and Appeal proceedings. His success has been individually recognised in the Legal 500, which provides independent advice to clients seeking the best attorneys for their work. He has also been individually recognised by Chambers & Partners who have been publishing their world-famous guides to the legal profession since 1990 and said "Tony Maschio is renowned for his biotech work". Tony specializes in immunology and biotechnology, including RNAi technology.
Business Development Director, Biotica
Melanie McCullagh joined Biotica as Business Development Director in April 2008. She was previously at Antisoma (London, UK), an LSE listed cancer drug development company. There she was instrumental in the 2007 licensing of ASA404 to Novartis in a deal worth $890m, and was also responsible for bringing new investigational cancer drugs into the company through in-licensing and collaborations. Prior to Antisoma, Melanie led the Strategy Analysis group in Datamonitor Healthcare (London, UK), providing insight to leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients into areas such as forecasting, licensing, M&A and portfolio management
President and Chief Scientific Officer, EUSA Pharma Inc
Bryan Morton is the Founder, President and Chief Executive of EUSA Pharma Inc, a rapidly growing transatlantic specialty pharmaceutical company focused on oncology, pain control and critical care. Prior to founding EUSA in 2006, Bryan was the CEO of Zeneus Pharma, which he founded following the $120m acquisition of Elanís European business. Zeneus was subsequently acquired by Cephalon in late 2005 for $360m after two highly successful years of rapid growth and profitable trading.
Bryanís entrepreneurial success is built on 30 years of commercial, business development and general management experience in the pharmaceutical industry, spent largely with Merck & Co Inc. and Bristol Myers Squibb. He has extensive international experience, particularly in the US and Europe, having held senior positions, including at Board and SVP level, in America, the UK, Belgium and Australia.
In addition to his role leading EUSA Pharma, Bryan is a Non-executive Director of the stem cell company ReNeuron, a Director of the medical device business Aircraft Medical Ltd and sits on the Global Advisory Board at Pilgrim Software Inc, which is focused on the life sciences sector. Bryan holds an MBA from Durham University in the UK, a BSc in Pharmacology from Aberdeen University in Scotland and is a graduate of the INSEAD European Management Programme.
Co-Founder and Investment Director, Oxford Capital Partners
David Mott is the co-founder and Investment Director of Oxford Capital Partners and has been investing in emerging technology companies since 1999. His investment experience covers a range of sectors, from new media to renewable energy and from medical devices to novel materials. The Oxford Capital Partners healthcare is focused on investments in medical devices, medical instruments, drug discovery, personalized medicine and pandemics. The portfolio includes companies such as Glide Pharma, OrthoMimetics, Oxford BioTherapeutics, Oxitec, Scancell, Sirigen, Sphere Medical and Veryan Medical. In 2006, he was named Young Venture Capital Personality of the Year at the Investor Allstars Venture Capital Awards and has been cited as one of the rising stars of the UKís venture capital industry.
Chief Technical Officer, Eykona Technologies
Paul joined Eykona earlier this year, after more than 20 years with multinational wound care companies KCI and Smith and Nephew. The teamís vision is to make Eykona the gold standard in wound assessment, and Paulís experience in major geographical markets, in business and strategic planning, in new product development, launches and growth, and in key opinion leader relationships will contribute to realising our goal
Head of Research, Solace Pharmaceuticals
Alasdair joined Solace Pharmaceuticals in October 2007 as Head of Research. In this role he is responsible for moving preclinical projects through key milestones. Prior to Solace, Alasdair was at Pfizer for 18 years, most recently as Research Head of the Genitourinary therapeutic area. A Neuroscientist by training, he gained a BSc in Pharmacology from Aberdeen University and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Calgary.
Head of Technology Transfer Group, Isis Innovation
Before moving to Isis in July 2002, Linda was based at the University of York where she was manager of Bioincubator York Ltd and was responsible for the commercialisation of Bioscience research either through company start-up or licensing. Linda was also part of the White Rose Biotechnology Consortium which was established to exploit the possible synergies between the Universities of York, Sheffield and Leeds to maximise the commercial potential of life science research from the three Universities. Linda has had over 20 years experience in the Life Science industry with Zeneca plc / ICI plc during which time she was responsible for managing the biology research within developing life science businesses covering the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, biopolymer, chemical and food business. Linda has a BA in Biological Sciences and an MBA from the Saïd Business School, Oxford.
Chief Executive Officer, Chroma Therapeutics Limited
Ian Nicholson joined Chroma Therapeutics Limited in September 2004. Prior to joining Chroma, he was Senior Vice President of Business Development for Celltech Group plc, responsible for all global licensing activities and additionally held the position of Acting CEO, Oxford GlycoSciences plc following its acquisition by Celltech in 2003.
Prior to Celltech, Mr Nicholson was Commercial Director at Oxford Asymmetry International plc and has held a variety of senior commercial positions with Lonza AG and Amersham International plc. Mr Nicholson serves as a member of the board of directors of the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIA) and also serves as a non-executive director of Symphogen A/S and BioVentix Limited. Ian holds a BSc (Hons) degree from University College, London and an MBA from Boston University.
Chief Executive Officer, Adaptimmune Ltd.
James Noble is CEO of Adaptimmune Ltd. As the former CEO of Avidex Ltd and now Immunocore Ltd, James has in-depth knowledge of Adaptimmuneís technology as well as a wealth of prior experience in the international biotech community. Former CFO of British Biotech prior to leading Avider for 7 years, James also sits as a non-executive director on the Boards of GW Pharmaceuticals plc and Evolve Capital plc (both listed on AIM) and of Courage Corporation (listed on NASDAQ) plus privately held Axles Limited
Chief Executive Officer, Immunocore Limited
James Noble is CEO of Immunocore Limited. As the former CEO of Avidex Limited, James has in-depth knowledge of Immunocoreís mTCR technology as well as a wealth of prior experience in the international biotech community. Former CFO of British Biotech prior to leading Avidex for 7 years, James also sits as a non-executive director on the boards of GW Pharmaceuticals plc and Evolve Capital plc (both listed on AIM) and of Curagen Corporation (listed on NASDAQ) plus the privately held Axellis Limited. He is also CEO of Adaptimmune Limited.
Account Manager, Aptuit Ltd
Nigel joined Aptuit in 2008 to help increase API business within the Aptuit network. His experience covers large pharma process R&D, pilot plant operations, and cGMP manufacturing up to commercial scale for a Contract Manufacturing Organisation. Prior to joining Aptuit, Nigel worked for Shasun, as head of R&D in the UK, supporting all aspects of process design and scale-up. He started his career at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer in Dagenham initially working as a process research chemist, is happily married and has 2 children.
Chief Executive Officer, Oxitec
Hadyn joined Oxitec as CEO in November 2008. Hadyn has an extensive background in the Life Science sector. During his fifteen year career at Zeneca / Syngenta he held various positions, including General Manager of Zeneca Plant Sciences and European Director and Global Head of R&D for Advanta, one of the worldís largest seed companies. More recently he was CEO of MNL Pharma, a company that was focused on pioneering a novel approach in immunology. Mr Parry is also Chairman of Help for Heroes, a charity that was founded in 2007 to support wounded British soldiers.
Director, Licensing and External Research, Merck, Sharp Dohme (UK subsidiary of Merck & Co. inc.)
Robís remit since joining Merck's licensing team in Sept 2007 is to identify partnering opportunities in the UK & Irish Republic. He spent a period in Biotech between 2004-6, advancing programs in CV, metabolic disease & pain from concept to clinic. Previously he held positions of increasing seniority in Parke Davis Cambridge, UK, until their acquisition by Pfizer. He moved to their research laboratories in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as senior director for CNS Molecular Science in 2001. Collaborations were an important part of Robís mandate at Parke-Davis / Pfizer, proving to be a critical factor in the success of the projects he was involved with.
Before he joined the pharmaceutical industry Rob trained in biochemistry & physiology, followed by postgraduate study at Southampton & several years of fellowships at the University of Cambridge. He is also an associate investigator in the Cambridge University Centre for Brain Repair.
Head of Strategic Alliance Management, Europe Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research
Dr Esteban Pombo-Villar CChem FRSC is Head of Strategic Alliance Management at the Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research. His group within Strategic Alliances is responsible for managing the portfolio of current alliances with the Institutes. Prior to 2003 he was External Collaborations Manager for Nervous System Research, after gaining over 12 years experience in leading medicinal chemistry drug discovery projects in the same area. Dr Pombo-Villar obtained his PhD from Warwick University in the UK.
Former Chief Executive Officer, Arrow Therapeutics
Ken Powell is Executive Chairman of Q-Chip a Cardiff based life science company and an advisor to VC funds. Throughout his career he has developed life science research into successful commercial ventures. Immediately prior to his current role Ken was a founder and CEO of Arrow Therapeutics Ltd a wholly owned subsidiary of Astra Zeneca PLC (Arrow was acquired by Astra-Zeneca PLC for $150 million in February 2007).
With over 30 yearsí international experience in the pharmaceutical industry and academia, his previous posts have included Head of Antiviral Research and Head of Biology at the Wellcome Foundation. He was Professor of Virology and Cell Biology at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research (UCL) where he was also deputy director from 1996 to 2002. During his time at WIBR Ken set up Inpharmatica (now part of Galapagos NV) and Ark Therapeutics (now LSE listed) in addition to Arrow Therapeutics which he founded with five colleagues in 1998. Powell is well known for attracting venture capital investment; his portfolio of backers have included high calibre groups from the US, Europe and Japan.
Chief Executive Officer, Polytherics
Dr Keith Powell graduated with a PhD in The genetics of haem synthesis. After working on vitamin B12 synthesis at Glaxo, he joined the University of Newcastle to work on DNA repair. He then moved to ICI and worked on many projects including single cell protein and microbial plastics. Moving on to Zeneca, he led many groups including ìDiscoveryî, introducing high throughput screening , ìBiotechnologyî and ìEnvironmental Scienceî; his final position was as ìHead of Intellectual Propertyî. Keith then spent several years in California as Head of the Chemistry business of Maxygen. When he returned to the UK, he joined the Bloomsbury Bioseed Fund as Entrepreneur in Residence, becoming CEO of several companies.
Keith is now Chairman of Domainex Ltd and CEO of Polytherics Ltd. He is also a Partner in Longbow.
Chief Operating Officer, RegenTec Ltd
Robin Quirk is COO and a co-founder of RegenTec Ltd. A spin-out from The University of Nottingham, the company has developed materials that support the regeneration of functional tissue using via a new minimally-invasive approach. A registered pharmacist with experience spanning community, hospital, and industrial sectors of the profession, Rob has a PhD in biomaterials research and has worked for over ten years within the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Chief Executive Officer, OBN
Dr. Jon Rees is CEO of OBN, having taken over the direction of the network's activities in July 2005, taking the organisation to financial self-sustainability, diversifying its business, and leading the spin-out of OBN from the University in July 2008. As executive director, Dr. Rees sits on the 5-member Board of OBN, developing strategy for the organisation as well as Business Planning. He is responsible for the day-to-day operational management of OBN, including co-ordination the work of outside contractors and consultants, implementation of strategy, project management, fundraising, and business development.
Dr. Rees has several yearsí background in Project Management, which he moved into after having worked as a post-doctoral research officer in the Dept. of Plant Sciences (Univ. Oxford).
Dr. Rees conceptualized and delivered BioTrinity, now OBN's flagship one-to-one biotechnology partnering conference and company showcase of the South East most promising biotechs which attracted 400 delegates in its first year - and at which over 500 partnering meetings were held. BioTrinity became the largest biopartnering meeting in South East England (SEEDA) region in its inaugural year. Dr. Rees also instigated OBN's Group Purchasing Scheme which is expected to save OBN Member companies up to £1m over its first two years.
Senior Associate, Genzyme Ventures
Allison leads the investment process for Genzyme Ventures and manages its portfolio. She previously held a position within Genzymeís Transactions & Partnering group and played a key role in the recent Osiris Therapeutics transaction. Prior to joining Genzyme, Allison covered the biotechnology sector as a financial research analyst for Paramount Capital, a life-science focused hedge fund. She has also had experience within the fixed-income trading group of Goldman Sachs & Co., Pfizerís European Business Development group, and the Investment Banking division of ING Barings. Allison received her MBA with honors from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a focus on Finance and Health Care Management. She also received her BA in Biochemistry and Economics from Dartmouth College, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. Ms. Robbins is a CFA charterholder.
Chief Executive Officer, CMP Therapeutics
Bruce is a serial entrepreneur with experience in the biosciences sector. He started a biosciences company called Cytocell in 1991, and in 2002 started up a University of Oxford spin-out company called BioAnaLab, where he was part time CSO until 2003. He is co-founder and CEO of CMP Therapeutics Ltd a company founded on Medical Research Council technology that originated in a unit in the University of Oxford that has novel compound for treatment of allergies and infectious diseases in pre-clinical development.
After graduating from London University he spent 6 years in Roche as a research biochemist. He then moved into sales and marketing positions in the medical diagnostics industry. During his time at Porton International, Bruce was involved with the commercialisation of a number of specialised therapeutics before starting a diagnostic business for them. He is a special professor at the University of Nottingham business school, entrepreneur in residence at the Cass Business School, London and North Oxfordshire Enterprise hub, Hub Champion.
Chief Executive Officer, GlycoForm
David has more than 20 years experience in large pharmaceutical companies, having held a senior international position in research and development within GlaxoWellcome . He moved into the biotechnology sector in 2000 working as R&D director for Strakan Ltd (now ProStrakan Group), Charterhouse Therapeutics Ltd and Antisoma PLC before becoming CEO of Cerogenix Ltd. He was a non-executive director of BIBRA International, Enhance Biotech Inc, sat on the board of the UK Public Health Laboratory Service and has been a consultant in the life sciences practice of Spencer Stuart. He joined Glycoform as CEO in July 2008.
Head of Business Development, Technology Transfer, Wellcome Trust
Richard is a founding member of Technology Transfer, Wellcome Trust, where he is Head of Business Development. He is also an advisor to the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Genome Research Limited. Richard has extensive experience with early-stage funding of life science technologies, commercial transactions and intellectual property management, Board, SAB and government agency advisory roles.
Vice President, Global Head Licensing - Pharma Partnering, Roche Pharmaceuticals Division
Mr. Nigel Sheail, based in Basel, Switzerland, leads the Global Licensing group in the Pharma Partnering department of Roche Pharmaceuticals. Pharma Partnering is department responsible for identifying, accessing, evaluating and pursuing opportunities with external partners. Mr. Sheail has been responsible for a broad range of deals from research technology collaborations through to phase 3 product licensing opportunities. He was also involved in the establishment of two ìspin-offî organizations, BioXell and Basilea.
Academically trained as a molecular biologist, Mr. Sheail is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has held a number of functions within the Pharmaceutical industry both with Roche and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Prior to joining Pharma Partnering, Nigel worked as the Global Controller for Research and was Finance Director responsible for the establishment of Rocheís operations in China which included the establishment of five joint venture operating companies and a holding company. Mr. Sheail was a founding member of the Swiss Pharma Licensing Group.
Chief Executive Officer, Orthox
Nick founded Orthox Ltd in 2008, securing £1.6 million seed funding from the Wellcome Trust, to commercialise regenerative cartilage and bone repair devices using a revolutionary new biomaterial, Spidrex®. A bioscience graduate of Oxford and Strasbourg Universities, Nick developed Spidrex® with Oxford Biomaterials Ltd., the company of which he was CEO for the four years prior to founding Orthox. During this period, he raised over £3.5 million in private equity finance and public grants to fund the Spidrex® development programme, and was founding Director of two other equity financed Oxford Biomaterials spin out ventures, Neurotex Ltd. and Suturox Ltd.
Chartered & European Patent Attorney, Partner, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge Innovations LLP
Dr. Candi Soames' practice has focused for some time on Biotechnology and Immunology. She has a first degree in Biochemistry and a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. Her strength in Immunology is reflected in her D.Phil work on complement regulation and subsequent post doctoral research on the basis of intracellular signalling in immune molecules. Candi is a standing member of the UK Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys biotechnology committee. She also lectures frequently on European patent law and practice and writes for journals including Nature Drug Discovery on intellectual property issues.
Business Services Partner, James Cowper LLP
Sue Staunton has a particular interest in working with technology businesses and their owners and, as such, heads our technology team.
Sue works with clients on the development and implementation of their corporate strategies. She also has a great deal of experience in working with businesses in financial crisis to establish strategies to assist them to move forward successfully.
Deputy Chairman, Circassia Limited
Charles co-founded Circassia in May 2006. Immediately prior to establishing Circassia, Charles was a Director and General Counsel of Zeneus Pharma where he oversaw the companyís transactions, including the in-licensing of several products. Before this he was Executive Director, General Counsel and Company Secretary of PowderJect Pharmaceuticals Plc which he joined in 1996. While at PowderJect he was responsible for all legal, intellectual property and compliance matters, and managed the legal aspects of several major acquisitions and fundraisings, including the eventual sale of the company to Chiron for $1 billion in 2003. Prior to this, Charles practised as a corporate lawyer in the City of London for over 15 years.
Partner, Patent Attorney, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge Innovations LLP
Rebecca Tollervey is a partner at Mewburn Ellis LLP, working in the firmís Bristol office. She joined the Mewburn Ellis in 2000 and became a partner in 2008. Rebecca works in the firmís biotechnology group, and particularly in the fields of molecular and cellular biology, diagnostics and micro-arrays, and therapeutic biomolecules.
Chief Scientific Officer, Isogenica Ltd.
Chris joined Isogenica Ltd. in 2002 and has been developing the companyís platform technology, CIS Display, for the discovery of polypeptides as research reagents, diagnostic tools and therapeutics. He has also been involved in research and licensing deals with several pharma companies during his time with the company. Previously, he was Team Leader at Gendaq Ltd. (Sangamo Biosciences Inc.), which was a biotech spin out from the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, that developed customised transcription factors using engineered zinc finger DNA binding proteins.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder of PharmaVentures
Dr Walton is the Founder and CEO of PharmaVentures. After completing his doctoral research on the genetics of cell proliferation at the University of Michigan (US) and Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Dr Walton gained broad commercial experience in biotechnology in management positions at Bass and Celltech plc (1982-1992).br /> Since 1992, his businesses have conducted over 450 consultancy assignments with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in more than 20 countries. These assignments have encompassed all aspects of deal transaction activities, including business and corporate strategy, strategic alliances, business development, technology valuations, business and financial modelling, due diligence, expert reports for IPOs, commercial assessments and market research.
Although Dr Waltonís main focus is his role as CEO of PharmaVentures, he is available for some consultancy assignments.
Senior Editor, Europe, BioCentury
Based in the U.K., Mike has been a commentator and analyst of the biotech industry for more than 20 years. After first joining BioCentury in 1997, Mike moved into the investment banking community in 2000 and was a sellside analyst for two investment banks. In 2002 he co-founded the business intelligence group Critical I Ltd. He rejoined BioCentury in 2005. In 2006, Mike was shortlisted by Nature Biotechnology in its 10th anniversary issue for making a significant contribution to biotech in the past 10 years. Mike, who graduated in biochemistry and chemistry from the University of London, formerly was Editor of both European Chemical News and Performance Chemicals.
Director of Mary Lyon Centre, MRC Harwell
Dr. Weaver joined MRC Harwell in Sept 08. Previously he was the Commercial Director of Medical Solutions, plc, a provider of pathology and diagnostic services to the UK healthcare industry. He was the CEO of Geneservice Limited, a genomics service provider that he founded as a spin-out from the UK MRC genome project. Before this Dr. Weaver worked as a Director of Technology Development for INCYTE Plc and Hexagen, Ltd. He has a PhD in Oncology from the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Heptares Therapeutics
Malcolm has a BSc and PhD in biochemistry and biophysics from Imperial College, London. He was Head of the Biomolecular Structure Department and then the Molecular Sciences Division of GlaxoWellcome with responsibility for 300 people engaged in target validation and lead discovery. During this time he led the application of structural biology and modelling to drug discovery, resulting in the advancement of clinical candidates to a wide range of diseases. He joined the structural bioinformatics and drug discovery company Inpharmatica Ltd as CEO in 2000, growing it from the spin-out stage to a 100-person company. Inpharmatica was sold to Galapagos NV in 2006. He joined MRC Technology in 2006 in order to establish Heptares Therapeutics Ltd in July 2007, as Founder and CEO. Malcolm was elected Visiting Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College, London in 1997, and to the Council of the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in 2004.
Registered US Patent Attorney, Partner Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP
Kathleen advises biotech and pharmaceutical clients on strategic legal issues relating to intellectual property, including helping companies avoid roadblocks and laying the groundwork for new commercial efforts. She provides advice to clients on patent portfolio creation and management, patentability and freedom to operate legal opinions, patent prosecution, and intellectual property due diligence for investments. Kathy works closely with companies to ensure that intellectual property is effectively protected and/or avoided in their business deals. Her clients include start-up biotech companies, as well as mature biotech/pharma companies, and research institutions. Her work, in synergy with her European Patent Attorney colleagues, assists in growth of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries and commercialization of new drugs and disease treatments on a global basis.
Managing Director, De Facto Communications.
Mike specialises in both life sciences communications and in healthcare financial communications. A trained microbiologist, he has worked in a number of senior sales, marketing and technical roles for Glaxo, SmithKline and Wellcome in the UK and overseas.
An expert in financial communications, Mike has managed more than 10 IPOs raising well in excess of £200 million, worked on secondary and follow-on offerings raising in excess of £2.4 billion, consulted on a number of mergers and acquisitions of products and companies in the life science sector, developed disaster recovery programmes for SME companies, and conducted due diligence on products companies and facilities for acquisition purposes.
Mike also worked with Deutsche Bank to raise money to privatise the Bulgarian pharmaceutical industry. As the CEO of Balkanpharma, he led the consolidation of the three pharmaceutical facilities in Bulgaria into one cohesive organisation. Balkanpharma remains the core of the Actavis Group the US$ 1.4 billion market capitalization generics manufacturing company.
Chief Executive Officer, e-Therapeutics plc.
Malcolm has been a Royal Society Research Fellow at the RIKEN Institute, and at Oxford University, Director of the Institute for Neuroscience, Provost of Science and Engineering, and Pro-Vice Chancellor at Newcastle University. His research focuses on understanding how function arises from structural aspects of complex biological systems, using complex systems analysis and informatics. Outputs include 6 publications in Nature and Science, and 6 new drug candidates, 2 of which are entering Phase III. He is one of eighteen scientists worldwide nominated by the Sunday Times as the "Brains behind the 21st Century.î
Previous Biographies
John March, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Scientific Officer, Big DNA
I am the founder and Chief Executive of BigDNA Ltd, a vaccines development company (both platform & products) utilising a patented technology using bacteriophages (viruses of bacteria) as DNA vaccine delivery vehicles. I bring perhaps a slightly unconventional approach to biotech commercialisation (the company is named after my car number plate!), and I have been involved in all stages of the research and commercial development to date, morphing from scientist to businessman. BigDNA is fully funded for the next 3 years and has grown to 14 employees. We are targeting a major pharma trade sale within 3 years, by which time we expect to have completed phase I/II trials of our lead product.
Charlie Alexander
Professor Malcolm Young
Mike Wort
Dr. Kathleen Williams
Dr Malcolm Weirs
Dr. Tom Weaver
Mike Ward
Fintan Walton
Chris Ullman
Rebecca Tollervey
Charles Swingland
Sue Staunton
Dr. Candi Soames
Nick Skaer
Nigel Sheail
Dr Richard Seabrook
David Scales
Bruce Savage
Allison Robbins
Dr Jon Rees
Robin Quirk
Keith Powell
Ken Powell
Esteban Pombo-Villar
Rob Pinnock
Hadyn Parry
Dr Nigel Parkinson
James Noble
James Noble
Ian J. Nicholson
Linda Naylor
Alasdair Naylor
Paul Murphy
David Mott
Bryan Morton
Dr Melanie McCullagh
Dr Tony Maschio
Keith Martin
Graeme Martin
Dr Anker Lundemose
Eddy Littler
David Laskow-Pooley
Andrew Lane
Nicholas La Thangue
Dr David Knowles
Jim Kinnear Wilson
Simon Kiddle
Dr Andrew Kelly
Chris Jones
Simon Jones
Dr Jackie Hunter
Wills Hughes-Wilson
Dr J Nick Housby
Dr Regina Hodits
Denis Geffroy
Professor Peter Friend
Sam Fazeli
Dr Mike Evans
Martin Edwards
Dr. Wolfgang Ebenbeck
Nick Dunster
Paul Drohan
James Dipple
John Dawson
Paul Davies
Jane Dancer
Rod Cook
David Colpman
Dr Christophe Chassagnole
Kate Burt
John Burt
Carlton Brown
Dr Richard Broadhead
Dr John Beadle
Adam Barak
Patrick Baddeley
Chris Atterwill
Dr Mark Ashton
Andrea Alunni
Jim Kinnier-Wilson, Head of Life Sciences, Manches
Jim Kinnier Wilson is Head of Life Sciences at Manches LLP. He is a biochemist with an MSc in Biochemical Engineering and has specialised in intellectual property, advising many life sciences clients since qualifying in 1987
Dr Spragg gained a first class honours degree in microbiology and PhD in marine biotechnology from Heriot-Watt University. Dr Spragg developed the company whilst holding a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship in biotechnology/
Aquapharm is a leading marine biotechnology company pioneering the discovery, isolation and development of novel bio-chemicals isolated from the biological diversity of marine microbes. The company is developing these natural products as new anti-infectives as well as further high value products for use in other commercial sectors such as natural cosmetic ingredients, nutraceuticals and industrial applications.
Since founding the business, Dr Spragg has successfully raised over £10M in equity finance. D Spragg is the recipient of the 2007 Gannochy Innovation Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for achievements in biotechnology & innovation. In 2008, Dr Spragg's entrepreneurial achievements were recognised through winning the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year 2008 in Health Care for Scotland.
Linda McCausland, Head of Physical Sciences, Almac Group Drug Development Services
