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Speakers
Keynote speakers
Indro Mukerjee
Indro Mukerjee is CEO of Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. He is a highly experienced technology CEO and business leader with a track record of leading innovation and technology commercialisation at businesses of all sizes across the world – from publicly listed and multinational corporations to new venture and private equity backed technology companies. With a strong personal interest in the development of skills for industry, he cofounded the UK Electronics Skills Foundation and served on the SEMTA (now Enginuity) board for nine years, where he was also Chairman of the committee managing their investment fund. Indro has a degree in Engineering Science from Oxford University, is a graduate of the Wharton Advanced Management Program and speaks several European languages.
Rebecca Pope (she/her)
Dr Rebecca Pope is a clinical neuroscientist & Roche UK's Digital & Data Science Innovation Lead. Rebecca's focus is working with the NHS, governments, regulators, clinicians and patients on how we can bring the advanced technologies that we’re used to using in our everyday lives, like artificial intelligence, into healthcare. She is also an honorary Senior Research Fellow and PhD supervisor in AI at UCL, TEDx speaker and has been voted as one of 'The Most Influential Women in UK Tech'. Rebecca is deeply passionate about equality, diversity & inclusion in STEM & society and is part of several initiatives & networks that encourage an inclusive environment where everyone feels empowered.
Speakers
Mark Andrews
Mark joined British Patient Capital in May 2022. His previous experience includes academic medical research as well as many years as a Life Science Venture Capital investor at international investment fund managers. Immediately prior to joining Mark was working in Corporate Advisory working with Life Science clients in the areas of M&A. fund raising, strategy and partnering.
Jim Ajioka
Jim is a founder and Chief Science Officer. Jim has had a life-long passion for the environment, with a PhD in Ecology and Evolution. At the University of Cambridge, Jim’s background in building tools for molecular genome analysis led to early adoption of synthetic biology methods aimed at the construction of a biosensor as a sustainable method to assess arsenic contamination of drinking water in Nepal and Bangladesh.
Paul Ashley
Paul Ashley is Director, Data Science External Innovation, and is located at the EMEA Innovation Centre in London, UK. In this role, he is responsible for the development and maintenence of Data Science relevant partnerships and business opportunities with biotech companies, venture capital, academic, and governmental institutions in Europe. Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson Innovation he was Head of Licensing and Ventures at Oxford University Innovation and has previously worked in a business development role at AstraZeneca and as the CEO of a spinout company based on technology developed at the UK’s Defence Science Technology Laboratory. He holds a PhD in behaviour and physiology and a BSc Hons in Zoology.
David Atkins
Dr Atkins has over 25 years’ experience as a global leader in a broad range of life science and healthcare businesses. He has held senior leadership positions in R&D, business development, operations and sales and marketing. David has extensive commercial experience in markets in North America, EMEA, Asia and Latin America. With his most recent responsibilities in venture investing, David has experience in all facets of building and growing new businesses. David was CEO of Congenica 2018 - 2022 and successfully led the business through a major business transformation, several rounds of fund raising and established Congenica as one of few UK “scale up” TechBio businesses operating at the interface of tech and genomics. Prior to joining Congenica, Dr Atkins has over 20 years’ experience with Johnson & Johnson based in Australia, US, Canada, and UK in a broad range of roles including R&D, business development and in global commercial roles. In addition, he was CEO of Synevo, a clinical diagnostic laboratory service business operating across Germany and Eastern Europe and global head of the Advanced Staining pathology business unit for Leica Biosystems, a Danaher Company. David previously was an active scientist with over 30 peer-reviewed publications. David has been an active contributor to the development of biotech and device industries in several geographies and has had leadership roles in professional associations throughout his career including most recently BIA, BIVDA and EDMA. He represents BIA on the UK National Genomics Board, is a member of the Wellcome Sanger Institute COSMIC governance board and supports Gene People as a Trustee.
Steve Bates
What does your role at BIA involve?
Steve Bates FMed Sci OBE has been leading the UK Bioindustry Association as CEO since 2012. He currently chairs the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a board member of EuropaBio since 2015. He sits on the UK’s Life Sciences Council. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. Steve was a founder member of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce in the Covid crisis, sitting on its steering Board alongside Kate Bingham.
Previous experience & achievements
Steve has championed, with government, effective industrial incentives like the Biomedical Catalyst, which have crowded in private sector investment into UK SMEs. He has forged several links for the sector across the USA, Europe and in China. In his time at the BIA, Steve has developed new member groups focused on cell and gene therapy, genomics and engineered biology. A strong advocate of partnership working, Steve champions sector collaboration with research charities and academia. Proud to lead an organisation with a diverse Board with over 40% female representation, Steve is committed to next-generation talent and developing the skills needed for the sector to flourish. Before the BIA, Steve worked for Genzyme and was an advisor to the UK Government of Tony Blair. He was made OBE for services to innovation in 2017 and became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science in 2020.
Meri Beckwith
Meri is the co-founder of Lindus Health. Having previously worked with numerous healthtech and biotech startups, he became frustrated with the slow, unpredictable timelines of clinical research. After experiencing clinical trials as a patient, he realised that both sponsors and patients deserved better. Lindus Health is a next-generation CRO helping biotech and healthtech pioneers run radically faster, more reliable clinical trials.
Robbie Berryman
Robbie joined D Young & Co in 2007. Robbie’s areas of expertise include physics, electronics, microprocessor technology, and computing (including hardware and software). He is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court, Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent Attorney. Robbie’s client base is diverse, ranging from start-ups and SMEs to universities and tech giants. He is particularly active in the fields of instruction set architecture, processor micro-architecture and system-on-chip design, being one of the leading attorneys in the D Young team providing patent drafting and prosecution services to Arm, the British company whose processor designs underpin the modern world. Robbie has drafted many of Arm’s key architectural patents which protect the instruction set architecture and processor designs used in the vast majority of smartphones on the market today. Robbie also works on patent applications relating to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), imaging devices, telecommunications, medical devices and 3D printing. Robbie is also part of a number of cross-discipline teams working, in collaboration with attorneys from our biotechnology and chemistry group, on inventions relating to computing and electronics-based solutions to problems in the life sciences field.
Remy Boutonnet
Remy Boutonnet is the CTO and co-founder of Turing Biosystems, an early stage startup which makes an interpretable AI platform for drug design and therapy optimization. Remy has a PhD in computer science from Grenoble University (France) where he studied automated reasoning techniques to analyze complex systems that can not afford to fail, such as nuclear reactors control systems or avionics. After his PhD, he worked in the electronic design automation (EDA) industry, on the development of software platforms for the design of large semiconductor systems, which are used by major tech companies to validate new chips and bring their products to market.
Claire Bloomfield
Dr. Claire Bloomfield is the Deputy Director of the NHS England’s Centre for Improving Data Collaboration. As the Senior Responsible Officer for the Data for Research and Development programme, Claire oversees development and delivery of the Transformation Directorate’s coordinated investments in health data for R&D, to support the ambitions of the Life Sciences Vision, Vision for future of UK Clinical Research Delivery and Genome UK. Her team supports investments to enable R&D and innovation using health data with a goal to improve patient care, including clinical trials operations and infrastructure investment in Trusted Research Environments. Claire previously worked as CEO in the UK National Consortium of Intelligent Medical Imaging at the University of Oxford — a launchpad to improve the healthcare industry through the development and use of AI. As CEO Claire successfully managed partnerships with 14 NHS hospitals, clinical leaders, industry experts, academic researchers, patient groups and charities. Claire held research fellowships at the University of Oxford and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, after finishing her DPhil at Oxford. Claire’s particular interest in health data research focuses on supporting the ecosystem to develop effective collaborations that generate value for all stakeholders, and ensuring equity and diversity in both the development and application of healthcare innovations to improve care.
Christie Brooks
Christie Brooks is Head of Data Strategy and Partnerships at Arcturis Data. Christie has worked in health research and innovation across both industry and the NHS, with previous positions as Head of Business Operation at Sensyne Health and Head of Commercial Data and Innovation at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Christie has a background in law, with a degree in Law from Rhodes University in South Africa. She has a particular interest in intellectual property, data commercialisation and ethics.
Vanela Bushi
Vanela Bushi is an experienced investor and industry executive with over 16 years in the biopharma and healthcare sectors. She is currently co-founder and GP at H Tree Capital, a specialist venture fund focusing on deep tech and with particular focus on opportunities at the intersection of tech and life sciences and healthcare more broadly. Prior to H Tree Capital, she held senior positions with the London offices of Syneos Health, EY Parthenon and PwC focusing on transactions in the biopharma space. Early in her career, Vanela held roles with the Investments Teams at the Wellcome Trust and IP Group (formerly Touchstone Innovations). Vanela is also a Trustee of the William Harvey Foundation. Vanela has always had a passion for all things interdisciplinary and holds degrees from McGill University in Immunology & Microbiology and Physics, and Imperial College London in Bioengineering.
Sona Chandra
Sona is the President, AI at Pangea Bio, where she is leading the development of an AI platform to translate nature's metabolome to medicine, at scale. She has more than a decade of experience in healthcare and pharma, including having accelerated technology uptake during her time working with Takeda Pharmaceuticals, as well as having previously co-founded Oshi Health, a healthcare platform for digestive health conditions that has gone on to several rounds of funding from top-tier investors. She was named one of Forbes 30 under 30 in 2020.
Aline Charpentier
Aline is the Head of Innovation for Bruntwood SciTech Melbourn Science Park, working on establishing it as a thriving ecosystem for TechBio companies. Aline’s experience covers a wide range of support to entrepreneurs in life sciences, having developed Bioentrepreneurs bootcamps across Europe, established the One Nucleus Virtual Innovation Centre for growing companies and now advising an early stage therapeutics fund, BioTranscript. Prior to joining the Cambridge ecosystem, she worked on technology transfer programmes for the scientific services of the French Embassy in the USA (Boston) and technology scouting at the CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique). She holds a MSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Toulouse and MBA from Grenoble School of Management.
Rocky Cranenburgh
Rocky is the CEO and founder of Bitrobius Genetics, a biotechnology start-up developing novel gene and cancer therapies using his invention of the Gentrafix™ platform, which for the first time will allow therapeutic DNA to reach most of the cells in a target tissue. Rocky has over 30 years’ experience in biological research and development. Previously Rocky was co-founder and CSO of biotechnology company Prokarium, where he was responsible for developing novel vaccines for oral delivery using its modified Salmonella strains. Prokarium was spun out of contract manufacturer Cobra Biologics, where Rocky managed the molecular biology group and helped to develop experimental DNA-based therapies and vaccines for its biopharmaceutical clients.
Benedict Cross
Benedict Cross is the CTO and Head of Platform at PhoreMost, a next-generation drug discovery company based in Cambridge, UK. PhoreMost have developed the SITESEEKER® screening platform which uses engineered mini-proteins to unlock new drug discovery strategies in targeted protein degradation and beyond. Ben is a geneticist and biotechnologist, with research expertise in proteostasis, functional genomics and chemical genetic screening. As a serial biotech platform builder, Ben has substantial experience establishing managing business and research alliances across pharma and biotech and leading them to successful outcomes.
Barbara Domayne-Hayman
Barbara has worked on the commercial side of life sciences for thirty years, first in a large organisation (ICI/Zeneca/AstraZeneca), before transitioning to the entrepreneurial world of biotech. Barbara joined the Francis Crick Institute in January 2018 as Entrepreneur-in-residence, where amongst other things, she co-founded, led and now is Chair of the KQ Labs accelerator, which is focused on start-ups from all over the UK who are making use of data/AI applied to health. She is also Chief Business Officer of Autifony, where she is responsible for strategic partnering, fundraising and commercial aspects of drug development for CNS disorders. Barbara was also Chair of Puridify, a UCL spin-out with a breakthrough biotherapeutics purification technology, which was acquired by GE (now Cytiva) in November 2017. She is a member of the investment committees of the LifeArc Ventures Fund, and the Cambridge Enterprise Seed Fund. Previously, Barbara was CEO of Stabilitech, and she was Commercial Director at Arrow Therapeutics until the company was acquired by AstraZeneca. Barbara was also Senior Business Development Manager at Celltech. Barbara has a BA and D Phil in Chemistry from the University of Oxford, and is a Sloan Fellow from London Business School.
Katie Dunbar
Katie Dunbar is an Associate Director in the Therapeutics and MedTech practice at RBW Consulting, specialising in Regualtory Affairs and Quality Assurance. Prior to joining RBW, Katie gained broad experince recruiting high performing teams within Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Architecture and Structural Engineering. She has always been passionate about female representation within STEM industries and champions DE&I in Life Sciences. She is part of the BIA's Women in Biotech mentoring scheme, and takes pride in advising her client base on equitable recruitment practices.
Hilary Fanning
Hilary is Managing Director of Research Development & Innovation at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), managing the research and innovation portfolio, overseeing a department 350 people. Her department supports the full spectrum of research at UHB, including research business support, research governance and grant preparation for submission for funding though to delivery of clinical trials, and support for creation and implementation of AI technologies. In collaboration with UHB’s Education Directorate and University of Birmingham, RD&I supports a portfolio of education and training activities for medical and allied health professionals academic capacity building. More recently, she has taken on the role of Programme Director for West Midlands Secure Data Environment, one of the regional SDEs which comprise an evolving national network as part of NHSE’s Data for R&D programme. She was operational director for the highly successful West Midlands Genomic Medicine Centre, and continues to support the work of NHSE’s genomics programme, through a range of connected activities. Hilary is a member of the Birmingham Health Partners executive. Her BHP executive role includes senior NHS operational responsibility for developing and delivering the research strategy of BHP. Hilary qualified as a registered nurse in 1985, going on to specialise in renal nursing. She has worked in both the public and private health sectors in the UK and Ireland. Hilary moved to UHBFT in 2001 from St Mary’s Hospital Paddington, where she held a joint Senior Lecturer Practitioner post with Thames Valley University, providing senior nurse management for St Mary’s Renal Services and leading post-graduate specialist renal nurse education for North West Thames.
Anthony Finbow
Anthony Finbow is Chief Evangelist at Eagle Genomics, a pioneer in the application of network science to biology across key industries such as Food & Nutrition, Beauty & Personal Care, AgBio and BioPharma. He has worked for over two decades as a leader, building and scaling deep technology businesses, and has a particular enthusiasm for businesses operating at the intersection of life science and data science. Anthony is currently Vice Chairman of the BIA's Genomics Advisory Committee. He is also on the Executive Committee of the UK Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) Microbiome Innovation Network, set up to develop a proactive, self-sustaining microbiome community in the UK and to raise the visibility of the UK’s world leading microbiome science. As Executive Chairman and CEO, Anthony has built and exited a number of intellectual property rich B2B software companies. In particular, he was responsible for the turnaround, strategic repositioning and sale of private venture backed communications software company, Psytechnics to US Nasdaq-listed NetScout. Similarly, as Managing Director of MetaSolv, he was responsible for doubling the size of the European business, prior to that company being acquired by Oracle. In his early career, Anthony worked as an aircraft engineer and in industrial lasers and electro-optics. He trained as a lawyer and worked as a banker in the privatization of former East German industrial companies, before moving into leadership roles with technology businesses.
George Foot
George is Co-founder of Sixfold Bioscience, a biotech that utilises advanced nanoengineering to create safer and more targeted systems for the delivery of RNA therapies. Prior to Sixfold, George completed his PhD at Cambridge University.
Jake Galson
Jake Galson is Alchemab’s Vice President of Technology where he leads the development and application of novel technologies for the company. Prior to Alchemab, Jake was the Bioinformatics lead at Kymab Ltd, where his group developed the IntelliSelect® antibody discovery software platform. Jake is also one of the pioneers of immune receptor repertoire sequencing, serving as a member of the AIRR community, and authoring numerous key publications in the area. He has also worked at The Oxford Vaccine Group, GSK Vaccines, and University of Zürich, applying this approach to further understand basic immunology, as well as in support of vaccine development, diagnostics, and antibody drug discovery. Jake holds a PhD in Medical Sciences and a BA in Biological Sciences (First Class), both from the University of Oxford.
Steve Gardner
Steve is a serial technology entrepreneur with over 30 years’ experience developing and commercializing ground-breaking data science and informatics in the healthcare, life sciences and agri-food sectors. Never afraid to innovate, Steve has an established track record in building world-class companies, teams and products working at senior levels in the UK, EU and US for Fortune 500 and start-up companies. He is a former Global Director of Research Informatics for Astra A/B and has consulted with drug discovery and safety teams in over 20 biopharma companies.
Vishal Gulati
Dr Vishal Gulati is the founder and managing partner of Recode Health Ventures, a VC fund based in San Francisco and London. The fund backs scientists and engineers in North America and Europe who are reimagining the future of healthcare using emerging, exponential technologies. Prior to founding Recode, Vishal trained and practised as a medical doctor and clinician scientist at the University of Oxford and Imperial College and had a successful VC career at Atlas Venture, Oxford Science Enterprises and Molten Ventures (fka Draper Esprit). Over the last two decades, Vishal has served on the boards of over fifteen public and private health and life sciences companies; from Horizon Discovery (a leading player in CRISPR gene editing now acquired by Perkin Elmer) to the world’s most scalable DNA synthesis platform (Evonetix). He was an early backer of some of the pioneering European companies in digital health and AI drug discovery space such as Clue, Ieso, Quit Genius (Pelego), Zoe, Kheiron, Arctoris, Turbine, Relation Therapeutics, LabGenius and Chemify. His portfolio of over 30 VC and angel investments makes him one of the most active investors in this space. Vishal chairs the investment committee of Cancer Research UK seed fund and holds similar roles at The Francis Crick Institute (KQ Labs), the British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, and Innovate UK. Vishal also serves on the advisory board of Reuben College, the newest of the Oxford University Colleges focusing on biology and artificial intelligence.
Namshik Han
Prof Namshik Han is the Co-founder and CTO of CardiaTec Biosciences. With over 15 years of experience in machine learning, computational biology, and multi-omics, he also serves as the Head of Computational Research & AI at the Milner Therapeutics Institute, University of Cambridge. In this role, he collaborates with prominent pharmaceutical companies, SMEs, and leading research institutions on various AI-driven drug target, drug, and biomarker discovery projects. His passion lies in bridging the gap between academic research and industry, which led to the establishment of CardiaTec Biosciences in June 2021, alongside co-founders Raphael Peralta and Thelma Zablocki. Cardiatec's mission is to revolutionise cardiovascular therapeutics, addressing the leading global cause of mortality through pioneering the development of the first multi-omics-driven drug target discovery platform specifically designed for cardiovascular disease. The company recognises the potential of multi-omics technology to unravel the complex nature of cardiovascular biology, with a human-centric, AI-enabled approach that enables identification of novel and more precisely defined drug targets, increasing the likelihood of clinical success. Cardiatec is proud to announce their recent recognition in the field at the Cambridge Independent Science & Technology One to Watch Awards 2023.
Jia-Yi Har
Jia-Yi Har is a Partner at Cathay Health, a tech bio VC fund that specializes in investments at the intersection of life science, healthcare, and technology. She currently serves on the board at Ascend Gene & Cell Therapies. With nearly two decades of experience, Jia-Yi has a multidisciplinary background encompassing investments, venture building, business management, and academic research. Before joining Cathay, she was responsible for healthcare investments at Partners Group, a private equity firm with over $140 billion asset under management. Earlier in her career, Jia-Yi led the Asia Pacific Imaging Software division at Philips Healthcare and successfully built, scaled, and exited several early-stage health tech ventures. As an academic researcher, her focus was on microbial genetics and biophysics. She earned her MSc in Civil & Environmental Engineering from MIT, where she was a recipient of the Schoettler and Linden Earth System Fellowships.
Richard Hebdon
Richard is the Director of Health & Life Sciences at Innovate UK. He leads and manages the Innovate UK Health & Life Sciences team which has a health and biosciences innovation focus and total portfolio investment of £419m over the period 2022-25. His team comprises 18 people and includes industry and technology sector specialists, programme, portfolio management expertise, global and EU specialist (NCP) expertise. Prior to joining Innovate UK, Richard worked in technology transfer, R&D management and research and innovation roles in industry (including SME's and a start-up) and the public sector. This included working in pharmaceutical and vaccine discovery and FMCG product innovation. His original technical background is in microbiology
Sara Holland
After a PhD in fission yeast chromosome engineering, Sara spent 8 years as a postdoctoral researcher at Nottingham University in yeast molecular biology before joining Potter Clarkson 9 years ago. Now a UK and European patent attorney, Sara has a strong interest in helping to commercialise research originating from universities, particularly in the synthetic biology/engineering biology space. Educating people, particularly academics and scientist founders about IP and its critical role in bringing technology to the market is a key motivator and Sara has lectured on a number of Masters courses and EPSRC summer schools. Sara also co-founded a Women in Synthetic Biology network, alongside Liz Fletcher of the IBioIC and Fiona Mischel from Synbiobeta.
Emily Jefferson
Professor Emily Jefferson became the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Health Data Research UK in November 2022. She is seconded from her position as Professor of Health Data Science at the University of Dundee. She leads on the development and delivery of technology services to enable the provision of consistent and meaningful research access to health data. This includes the Health Data Research Innovation Gateway, which accelerates the discovery and access request management enhancing the ethical, secure, and transparent use of health datasets and other assets. Emily will lead the next stage of development which will include collaborating with Trusted Research Environment providers across the UK on federated analytics. Emily had a track record of collaboration across HDR UK’s broad community of partners before joining as CTO, including her role as Director of the HDR Alleviate Pain Data Hub; as Co-Principal Investigator for the CO-CONNECT, programme, as work package lead on the HDR UK Phenotypes Library and the HDR UK Multi-omics Project and as Primary Investigator on the HDR Scottish Data Federation Project and the HDR UK Biorepository Project. Prior to her role as CTO, Emily was the Director of the Health Informatics Centre (HIC) at the University of Dundee for 10 years during which time she led a large team providing services and academic collaborations to over 700 different research projects covering health informatics, data science, data management, governance, and machine learning. She also held a part-time role at the University of Glasgow for 18 months.
Alison Jones
Alison Jones is a Science Director at Charles River Laboratories, Cambridge, UK. She has 26 years’ experience in drug discovery and has worked in a number of small / medium sized biotechs as well as in the contract research organisation (CRO) sector. As part of her current role, she has strategic oversight of a number of large, integrated drug discovery projects, Scientific Portfolio lead of Logica, an AI in drug discovery initiative, as well as contributing to the strategy for early discovery. She also mentors and trains the next generation of project leaders. She has led teams in many different therapeutic areas, including oncology, inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases, delivering novel small molecule candidates. She is a named inventor on > 20 patents with a niche expertise in establishing robust company patent portfolios. She has a first-class degree in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Glasgow and a PhD from Durham University.
Rabia Khan
Rabia Khan, PhD (Immuno Genetics, MBA) is the founder and CEO of Serna Bio, a YC-backed biotech building the world's first map of the druggable transcriptome. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the UK Dementia Research Institute, and an advisor to No Label Ventures, a fund investing in immigrant founders in the UK and EU. Prior to founding Serna Bio, Rabia was Managing Director, Discovery Sciences at Sensyne Health plc (now - Arctoris Data) where she established the scientific strategy, built the data science and discovery teams by recruiting and leading a team of 50 machine learning and clinical researchers, delivering on a number of significant pharma partnerships including Bayer, BMS, Roche and Alexion. She also held senior roles at BenevolentAI and Meta (acquired by Chan Zuckerberg BioHub). At Meta (previously Sciencescape), she was pivotal in the partnership with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to acquire horizon-scanning technology that used NLP to research the biomedical corpus. At BenevolentAI, she helped shape the discovery strategy for a number of programs, led the Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Glioblastoma drug discovery programmes and served as the interface between the technical and biological teams under the mentorship of Prof. Jackie Hunter. Born and raised in Pakistan, Rabia has a passion for supporting diversity in technology, and supporting initiatives focused on improving access to care for Schizophrenia and Dementia.
Madelene Larsson
Madelene is a Principal investor at Giant Ventures where she leads on deeptech in climate and health. She was previously a product leader at Revolut and spent 6 years at J.P. Morgan, helping technology companies in the fintech and healthcare space go public. She holds a MSc in Industrial Engineering from Lund University, Sweden, and McGill University, Canada.
Joseph Lehár
Dr. Joseph Lehár is a data science executive with over 20 years experience using data and digital technologies to enable precision medicine. Before his current activities at Owkin, venture and board member/advisor to multiple organizations, Joseph led cross-functional teams and drove scientific projects at J&J/Janssen, Google/Verily, Novartis, and CombinatoRx. His first career in astrophysics focused on gravitational lensing; at Harvard, Cambridge Univ, and MIT. For more information, see Joseph’s LinkedIn and gScholar profiles.
Calum Macleod
Calum Macleod is Business Development Director, Zuhlke UK. Zuhlke UK has a strong global MedTech capabily and built the Covid19 App for England and Wales. Zuhlke Ventures has invested in >15 Health start-ups over the last 15 years. Calum has spent more than 30 years delivering innovative technology across the automotive, defence, Central/ Local government sectors spending the last 12 years in Healthcare. He has held a range of roles, including VP Healthcare at a large system integrator and senior commercial roles with a range of start-ups. He has a passion for helping good companies break into new Healthcare markets, often in partnership with global technology companies.
Alya Masoud
Alya Masoud is the current Director of the Activator at Nucleate UK and Global Head of the Pre-Accelerator Program at iGEM Startups. She graduated from King’s College London as an Accredited Nutritionist, and following her work in the iGEM competition developed a deep passion for Synthetic Biology and Neuroscience. She completed her MSc in Clinical Neuroscience and is presently pursuing a PhD at UCL in the Molecular NeuroPathology Laboratory. Alya aims to combine her studies with her strong interest in bio-entrepreneurship, to bridge the gap between both scientific research and business to drive innovation in the biotech sector.
Alex Merwin
Alex Merwin has fifteen years of experience building and scaling commercially focused teams in advertising technology, big tech, and digital health. At AWS Startups, he serves as Head of Growth for Healthcare & Life Science Startups. In this role, he applies his previous experience from two successful unicorn startups to advise founding teams within the healthcare and life science sector. His focus is to expedite their product development and go-to-market strategies, ultimately aiming to deliver scaled clinical impact. He studied at the University of Colorado Boulder, earning a Bachelors in Marketing with an International Business Certificate. He also attended executive development courses at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.
Chris Murray
Chris Murray studied for his undergraduate degree and doctorate at the University of Cambridge. After a post-doc at Indiana University, he joined the Biotech company, Protherics, where he helped develop docking methods and applied structure based drug design to serine proteases such as Factor Xa. In 2000 he joined Astex Pharmaceuticals where he now serves as SVP of Informatics. At Astex, he has overall responsibility for the application and development of computational approaches to help drug discovery, including chemoinformatics, bioinformatics and machine learning methodologies. He was also heavily involved in establishing fragment-based approaches to drug discovery and has acted as project leader on a number of drug discovery projects including the beta-secretase, hsp90, FGFR, DDR and ERK programs.
Jennifer O’Farrell
Jennifer O’Farrell joined D Young & Co as a partner in September 2020. Jennifer’s expertise focusses on immunology, molecular biology, biotechnology and biochemistry. Jennifer’s work focusses on prosecuting patent applications before the EPO and UKIPO, defending and challenging patents before the opposition divisions and Appeal Boards of the EPO, and co-ordinating worldwide patent portfolios and filing SPC applications. Jennifer also performs Freedom to Operate analyses and provides strategy advice to a number of clients. Jennifer also co-authored a recent thought leadership piece relating to the impact of Brexit on the pharmaceutical industry and has co-authored a number of articles on patentability in the field of techbio. Jennifer is a member of the UK BioIndustry Association’s (BIA) Cell & Gene Therapy Advisory Committee and regularly speaks at both biotech industry and patent events. IAM Patent 1000 has described Jennifer as “a fantastic IP communicator who pairs her elite EPO oppositions practice with appearances at a variety of industry lectures and events” and confirms that her ability “to liaise with inventors and capture the essence of new technologies in clear, concise language is very impressive”. IAM Patent 1000 also highlights that “O'Farrell's desire to stay at the cutting edge of developments in the field is exemplified in her membership of the UK BioIndustry Association’s Cell & Gene Therapy Advisory Committee.” Jennifer is also a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC).
Jack O'Meara
Jack O'Meara is co-founder and CEO of Ochre Bio, a biotechnology company developing novel RNAi medicines for liver diseases. Ochre has raised $44M from top tier global investors, assembled a team of seasoned biotechnology professionals, and built a drug discovery platform combining advanced genomics, machine learning, and human-centric translational models. Jack is a biomedical engineer by training, with a background in bringing new medicines and health technologies to market. He was on the team at Avexis that brought the first blockbuster gene therapy, Zolgensma, through FDA, EMA and PDMA approval. Jack received his Bachelor's degree from National University of Galway and his Masters from the University Notre Dame. His work has been featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and he was listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. He's passionate about the intersection of healthcare, technology, science, and strategy.
Luca Parisi
Luca Parisi is the Director of Clinical Analytics and Data Science at Citeline, where he received the ‘Innovation Award’ in December 2022. Luca and his team leverage advanced analytics techniques and algorithms to develop and deliver industry-leading Clinical Analytics solutions that enhance and optimise clinical trial planning and execution strategies, positively impacting millions of patient lives. Prior to joining Citeline, his industry contributions from both hands-on AI Engineering and Data Science Leadership standpoints led Luca to also achieve a nomination for the “UK Best Newcomer Award” by a Managing Director, one of the top 28 case studies in AI globally, and a pending US/GB patent at Accenture, and the “Bronze Global Impact Award” and a nomination for the “Analytics Centre of Excellence (ACoE)'s Global Impact Award” at IQVIA. Luca holds a BEng Hons in Medical Engineering from Cardiff University, a PhD in Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Clinical Decision Support from the University of Bradford, and an MBA with AI Specialism focused on Decision Intelligence from Coventry University.
Manish Patel
Manish has a doctorate in mathematical modelling with an emphasis on dealing with large, complex datasets. He is the technical architect of Jiva.ai, a new machine learning algorithm that will form the basis of a new breed of AIs.
James Peach
James is CEO of Human Centric Drug Discovery, an Oxford University spin-out using more human data to improve CNS drug discovery. He also advises CRUK and ABPI on commercial access to UK health data. James started his career in consulting, working with McKinsey. He then set up a cancer genetic and clinical database with CRUK, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and then set up Genomics England, focussing on sequencing and sample acquisition. He has worked in the UK Catapult system on sample and data access for UK SMEs, and as commercial director for HDRUK’s cancer data hub, as well as various pharma/techbio consulting projects. His passion is working with patients to increase the legitimate use of health data for research.
Sheuli Porkess
Dr Sheuli Porkess is the Chief Medical Officer Life Sciences for C2-Ai, an advanced analytics company specialising in precision clinical-risk adjustment. Sheuli’s career began in clinical medicine in the NHS before moving to industry and working medicine development, medical affairs and research policy within the UK and internationally, across multiple therapy areas. As well as working with data in industry roles, Sheuli has worked on data and clinical research policy in her former role as Director of Research, Medical and Innovation at the ABPI. Sheuli is a Global Fellow in Medicine Development with IFAPP and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Sheuli holds a number of other roles, including Vice-President of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Director of Actaros Consultancy, visiting lecturer at King’s College London and membership of the expert advisory groups for the UKRI Multiple Long-Term Conditions Clusters Programme Steering Group and the UK Pharmacogenetics and Stratified Medicine Network.
Andrew Poxton
Andrew is an experienced recruiter who has spent the last 15 years working across Agency, embedded and in-house TA positions for international businesses. He joined RBW Consulting at the turn of year from the high growth Tech sector specifically to enhance their offering within TechBio and AI.
Joe Price
I'm the CEO and one of the co-founders of Evolutor Ltd, a microbe optimisation company with the mission to build a horizontal platform of hardware, AI and synthetic biology to automate and amplify the process of evolution and build the world's highest-performance microbial production hosts. I have an academic background in zoology and evolutionary ecology before I moved into bioengineering. Before founding Evolutor, I was working as a researcher in the academic team of my co-founders on gas fermentation to produce bioplastics. Part of my personal philosophy is that in building disruptive technologies it's also our responsibility to build disruptive commercial models, and I view open and honest collaboration between commercial entities as a huge part of that.
Alessandro Riccombeni
Dr. Alessandro Riccombeni has 15 years of international experience in genomics research, product development, and business strategy across the US and EMEA. Riccombeni has led the development of cloud platforms and commercial services for population genomics and gene editing. He started his career in research, leading projects in Oncology and Infection Biology before moving into industry. He holds a Ph. D. from University College Dublin and an MBA from London Business School.
Mark Robinson
Illumina is a global leader in DNA sequencing and array-based technologies. For 25 years, Illumina’s innovations have fuelled advancements in life sciences, oncology, reproductive health, genetic disease, agriculture, microbiology, and other emerging segments. Headquartered in San Diego, California, Illumina is listed on the NASDAQ with global revenues of $4.6bn and more than 10,000 employees worldwide. Mark has been the General Manager for the UK & Ireland since January 2023. In this role, he leads the commercial business in these strategically important geographies, designing the strategy, setting the goals for growth and managing the day-to-day operations. Additionally, Mark has overall responsibility for key relationships in the UK, including those with government, NHS and Genomics England. He also has broader oversight of Illumina’s operations across the UK and Ireland, including site leadership of Illumina’s European hub in Cambridge. Mark joined Illumina as its EMEA CFO in November 2019 and in March 2021 became responsible for its broader international business, covering the EMEA, Asia Pacific and China regions with revenues of circa $1.5bn. In this role, Mark led the finance function across the 3 regions and overseeing accounting, financial shared services, tax and FP&A; whilst playing a significant role in the strategic leadership of the business. Prior to joining Illumina, Mark has a strong track record within healthcare; spending 13 years at Johnson & Johnson in various senior finance roles across the Medical Device and Consumer sectors and, before that, 5 years at Pfizer in their Pharmaceutical and Consumer Health divisions. Mark is a chartered management accountant and holds an economics degree from the University of Exeter.
David Roblin
David Roblin is a distinguished scientist, physician, entrepreneur and leader in pharma, biotech and academia with extensive experience in C-suite and Board roles. David brings in a unique line of sight from the bedside to bench. After 5 years of medical practice in university hospitals, and for over 20 years he held senior positions in Bayer and at Pfizer, culminating as SVP and Head of European R&D before entering biotech; His experience crosses therapy areas from research and development to commercialisation. At Pfizer and Bayer, David was instrumental in the successful development of many important medicines and leading key initiatives to reduce drug candidate attrition. David then served as the Chief Operating Officer and first Director of Scientific Translation at the Francis Crick Institute in London where he continues as the Chair of Scientific Translation. He is also a non-executive Director of Sosei Heptares and NE-Chair of Centauri Therapeutics.
Rosie Rodriguez
Rosie Rodriguez, Relation Therapeutics SVP of Growth, Head of People, Place & Projects, has over 20 years of successful Research and Development experience in Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences. She is a senior executive accomplished in Clinical Development, Alliance/ Portfolio Management, Organisational Development and Business Strategy. Rosie is passionate about building a purpose driven culture within biotech and is leading these efforts at Relation, a seed stage startup transforming drug discovery . Rosie holds a PhD from The Institute of Cancer Research (CRUK).
Alex Shandro
Alex advises on transactional IP and complex commercial contracts, with a particular focus on AI. Alex works across all sectors, and predominantly in the life sciences and technology sectors. Alex specialises in the legal issues arising from AI, and is a core member of A&O’s AI group delivering strategic advice to more than 60 clients on the safe deployment of generative AI. This includes cutting edge strategic advice on mitigating the IP infringement risks arising from the use of generative AI tools, and associated contract terms. Alex has market-leading expertise on AI drug discovery collaborations, with years of experience advising several AI-first biotechs on their partnerships with pharma companies. Alex also advises on the IP and technology aspects of business/share sales and growth capital transactions, and most recently advised on the IP and transitional commercial arrangements for a series of complex, high value divestments for largescale global pharma companies.
Chris Stefanowics
Chris leads the international expansion for Reliance Health, a tech-enabled health insurer and provider operating in Nigeria and Egypt with plans to expand to further emerging markets. Chris has previously expanded other businesses into over a dozen countries including India, Canada, Malaysia and Indonesia in a wide range of industries from health technology to casual dining restaurants. He specialises in adapting and localising brands, value propositions and operating models for new markets.
Frances Stock Allen
Frances' practice focuses on representing public and private life sciences companies and industry investors in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical technology sectors on a broad range of matters, including licensing and other complex commercial and intellectual property arrangements, as well as UK and European Union regulatory and data privacy matters related to those transactions. She provides pragmatic, commercially driven, and digestible advice to help clients achieve their business objectives and strategic goals. Frances frequently writes and speaks on topics related to legal issues in the life sciences sector, including for publications such as Law360 and Privacy Laws & Business.
Michelle Teng
Michelle Teng is the co-founder and CEO of Etcembly, an Oxford based techbio that is changing the traditional slow & high-risk bispecific TCR immunotherapies drug development paradigm to fast & precise therapeutics development. The company has recently revealed the world’s first TCR engineered by Generative AI for ultra precise targeting in solid tumours. Michelle also started the H-ABC UK foundation, a charity that is raising awareness of a rare form of leukodystrophy. She is also the co-founder CSO of Synaptixbio, a biotech that is bringing a commercial treatment for rare paediatric neurological indications to the clinic.
Robert Thong
Robert Thong has 30+ years’ experience of business leadership and consulting for over 100 different bioscience and healthcare organizations from 14 countries in Europe, the United States and Asia. Formerly co-head of the Life Sciences Group at Capgemini in the 1990s, Robert then became European Bioscience Head at COBA (now absorbed into the PwC Deals Strategy group) and subsequently Managing Director of Datamonitor Healthcare (now Informa plc). He was a non-executive director at Alpharma Inc. (US-listed mid-cap pharma, now part of Pfizer) and founded three small boutique consultancies addressing the business issues of bioscience SMEs and start-ups. Robert is a published author on biopharma R&D alliances, lectures at the University of Cambridge & University College London on bioscience business models and B2B partnerships, judges for the annual Scrip Pharma Industry Awards and is writing a new book on the bioscience startup journey. Before his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, Robert was an Exhibition Scholar in his BSc Mathematics degree at Imperial College London and then qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, managing life assurance & pension funds, and developing investment products for high net worth individuals. His aptitude for understanding risk in regulated environments honed from these early beginnings continues to be applied today in bioscience innovation.
Marcus Vass
Head of international Digital Health, Marcus Vass is trusted advisor to new entrants, leading disruptors and big pharma clients in a spectrum of collaborations. His Digital Health work encompasses regulation, licences, contracts, privacy and health data protection in life sciences and healthcare projects.
Neil Ward
Neil Ward is PacBio’s VP and General Manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Neil is a veteran of the genomics industry and joined PacBio from illumina where he was senior sales director for Northern Europe. Prior to his 13 years at Illumina, he held bioinformatics and sales roles at Agilent Technologies, Silicon Genetics, Oxford Biomedica, and Celltech.
Izzy Webb
Dr Izzy Webb is the Head of Engineering Biology and Strategy in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Prior to this Izzy has held roles in the Business Secretary’s Office, leading on R&D policy, as well as in the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit leading on technology policy. She has also held roles in various policy departments including BEIS, Cabinet Office and Defra. Before joining the Civil Service Izzy completed a PhD in microbiology at the John Innes Centre and University of Oxford, investigating a set of proteins involved in symbiotic nitrogen fixation.
Ben Williams
Ben co-founded Sun Bear Biofuture in 2022, producing everyday essentials more sustainably using precision fermentation and starting with an alternative to palm oil. Ben has previously worked on R&D projects at Microsoft Research and Ocado Technology, and as CTO at Sun Bear now leads the work in optimising and scaling up their fermentation process.
Kerrie Woods
Kerrie has delivered large-scale transformation programmes in the field of clinical informatics for over 15 years. With expertise in programme, project and IT service management as well as research data governance. She has established new capability for a range of initiatives within the NHS and beyond, including the 100,000 Genomes Project, NIHR DeNDRoN, the NIHR Health Informatics Collaborative and the National Consortium for Intelligent Medical Imaging. As Director for R&D Clinical Informatics at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Kerrie oversees the Trust’s clinical data warehouse for research. She directs The Thames Valley and Surrey Secure Data Environment (TVS SDE), which is delivering research data services that will streamline access to NHS data for approved purposes.
Hakim Yadi
Hakim is a Co-Founder and chief executive of Closed Loop Medicine. Closed Loop Medicine is a clinical stage, UK-based therapeutics company focussed on developing novel drug + digital combination products that create value for patients, physicians and global health systems. Hakim joined CLM from the Northern Health Science Alliance Ltd, the pan-Northern health partnership which brought together for the first time 20 research-based NHS hospitals, the North’s Academic Health Science Networks and Universities to collaborate on improving health outcomes across the North. Hakim started his career at PA Consulting, where he co-managed the company's translational medicine team. During his time at PA, he was seconded to the UK Government where he worked as the Chief Operations Officer and was a founding member of the UK Department of International Trade (DIT) Life Sciences Organisation (LSO). In this role, he helped to oversee DIT’s global life science inward investment strategy. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and in 2017 he was awarded an OBE for services to Healthcare Technology and the Economy.
Karolina Zapadka
Karolina joined Parkwalk Advisors' investment team in 2021. She has over a decade of experience building life sciences and healthcare companies within the Cambridge Cluster. Karolina played a pivotal role in securing pre-seed, seed, and Series A investments from a stellar syndicate of investors. In 2018 she co-founded and successfully delivered the first life sciences startup accelerator in Cambridge with a portfolio value of over £90m. She started her career as a scientist at a leading biopharmaceutical company delivering a portfolio of products to clinics. Karolina completed a PhD in protein folding/metabolic science from the University of Cambridge and carried out a drug development postdoc work at MedImmune/AstraZeneca. Parkwalk Advisors is one of the UK’s leading growth fund managers, backing world-changing technologies emerging from UK universities and research institutions. Our unique asset class backs high-potential, hard science technology companies from a range of sectors, including life sciences, AI, big data, materials, medtech and much more.
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