Tim Davis
Regional Head, UK Primary Markets at London Stock Exchange Group
Tim Haines
Executive Partner at AbingworthTim has more than 30 years of international management experience in the life sciences industry in both public and private companies. During his time at Abingworth Tim has taken Chair and board roles in a number of companies including Astex, Fovea, GammaDelta Therapeutics, MEDIAN Technologies, PowderMed, Sientra, Scorpion, Venatorx and Adaptate Biotherapeutics.
Before joining Abingworth in 2005 he was Chief Executive of the Abingworth portfolio company, Astex Therapeutics. Tim was with Astex for over 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 and General Manager Baxter UK. Tim has a BSc from Exeter University and an MBA from INSEAD. He is on the Investment Advisory Board of Oxford University Innovation and is a former Director of the BIA, the BVCA Venture Committee and sat on the Wellcome Trust / NHS Health Innovation Challenge Fund.
Patrik Frei
CEO of Venture Valuation
Zoë Johnson
CSDO at Molecule to Medicine- Panel: Working with a CRO to Minimise Risk & Maximise Success
- Science Spotlight One - Neuroscience, Sponsored by Syneos
Zoë Johnson serves as the Chief Scientific & Development Officer at MTM (Molecule to Medicine). She is the CSO and an Executive Director of Lucia Bio, co-created with MTM. Zoë has a PhD in pharmacology from King's College London and her career spans 25 years of R&D leadership in pharmaceutical and biotech companies as well as company creation. She specialises in small and large molecule therapeutic development, with a particular focus on late stage preclinical through to early clinical development.
Emma Thorp
Founder & Coach of Thorp CoachingEmma is the Founder of Thorp Coaching, where she empowers leaders to achieve their goals while staying true to purpose, connection, and joy. With decades of leadership experience, including roles as Chief Commercial Officer and founder of a successful consulting business.
As Co-Founder of the Diverse Directors Programme, Emma champions diversity in boardrooms, preparing underrepresented leaders for Non-Executive Director roles. Her nature-inspired, intuitive coaching approach helps leaders navigate challenges and develop winning mindsets. On the panel “The Humble CEO – What Makes a Winning Mindset”, Emma will explore fostering resilience, embracing humility, and unlocking purpose-led leadership.
Rachel Abbott
CEO of Pan Cancer TRachel Abbott joined Pan Cancer T as CSO in January 2023 and became CEO in May 2023. With over a decade of industry experience developing T cell therapies for cancer, Rachel has led research teams and managed collaborations with big pharma and academia. Rachel was Senior Director at Enara Bio for two years, overseeing TCR Pipeline and Dark Antigen Research. She spent over six years at Adaptimmune, progressing from Senior Scientist to Head of Pipeline Cell Biology. Previously, she was a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Rachel holds a DPhil and an MBiochem from the University of Oxford.
Lilian Alcaraz
VP, Early Innovation Partnering EMEA at Johnson Johnson Innovation
Mark Andrews
Investment Director, Funds of British Business Bank
Irina Babina
CEO of ConcrTrained as a geneticist, Irina spent over 10 years as a cancer scientist, developing targeted breast and gastric cancer therapies and researching mechanisms of cancer resistance. Seeing a lack of translation of promising science, she turned to funding management and investing, helping other researchers with the development of their healthcare innovations. This led her to Concr - a techbio company that applies astrophysics computational models to model human biology in silico and solve translational challenges in cancer treatment and care. After holding several leadership roles at Concr, she was appointed CEO in January 2024.
Catherine Bacon
CEO of FingerPost
Simon Bornschein
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Coding BioSimon is the CEO and Co-founder of Coding Bio. He has a PhD in Immuno-Oncology and is an expert in Cell Therapy and the development of new and innovative CAR therapies. Previously he worked at Celyad, developing novel anti-cancer CAR therapies, and Quell Therapeutics, focusing on engineering immunosuppressive cells to prevent autoimmune diseases.
Jenny Bailey Cooper
CEO of FerryxDr Jenny Bailey Cooper has spent her career to date working in the field of gut health. She has a PhD in gastrointestinal immunology and 18 years’ research experience in gastrointestinal disease. Jenny has a keen interest in intestinal inflammation, particularly mucosal barrier function and novel therapeutics.
In 2019 Jenny became Co-founder and CEO of Ferryx. She has been responsible for the development of Ferryx's proprietary products since their early stages and has led commercialisation. Jenny has led Ferryx through investment rounds, successful grant funding, and into revenue generation via launch of Ferryx's first product, Ferrocalm, in December 2022.
John Baker
CEO of IMU BiosciencesDr. John Baker is the CEO of IMU Biosciences, a biotechnology company pioneering systems-level immune profiling with AI to drive breakthroughs in precision medicine.
Prior to joining IMU, John served as Senior Vice President at Abcam which during his tenure experienced exceptional growth, culminating in a $5.7 billion acquisition by Danaher Corporation in 2023.
John trained as a veterinarian at Cambridge, practiced commercially, and earned a DPhil in Clinical Medicine from Oxford. He spent six years with Bain & Company in London, leading in the Global Healthcare Practice, and has held Non-Executive Director roles at BrickBio and Somaserve.
Graham Ball
Director and CSO of Intelligent OMICSProf Graham Ball is the Chief Scientific Officer and founder of Intelligent Omics. Prof Ball has been a global leader in the development and validation of bioinformatics algorithms using Machine learning to mine and model molecular data for the last 25 years. He has focused on applying these approaches to public data repositories leveraging actionable and translational features from the data for biomarker and drug target discovery. He has published over 200 journal papers and 7 patents in this area. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.
Walter Bartholomeus
Executive Medical Director, Oncology & Hematology of Syneos Health
Laszlo Bax
CEO & Co-Founder of BraingazeLaszlo obtained his MSc degree as an Industrial Design Engineer, at Delft University of Technology. His first medtech job involved remote ECG systems running on PC's and dial-up modems. Ten years later he co-founded his second healthtech venture, remotely connecting home care nurses with each other and their back offices. He then moved on to built a boutique innovation consultancy firm that raised over a billion euros of non-dillutive funding for breakthrough R&D ventures. He today co-leads Braingaze, a company delivering better cognitive health for all leveraging AI and patented digital neural eye-movement markers.
David Beadle
CEO of APOBEC Discovery Ltd.David has over 30 years experience in the life sciences industry from early stage drug development through to product commercialisation, a large proportion of which has been in the field of oncology. As well as having served as a board member and advisor to several therapeutics companies, David was also MD of Global Healthcare Strategy for the equities division at UBS investment bank. He is a director of the MORCure rare disease charity.
Kinga Bercsenyi
Chief Business Officer at ArctorisKinga Bercsenyi, PhD is the Chief Business Officer of Arctoris, a tech-enabled CRO based in Oxford. Kinga completed her PhD at Cancer Research UK, followed by a Sir Henry Wellcome postdoctoral fellowship at King’s College London. She has extensive research experience spanning from preclinical drug discovery to clinical trials. In her role at Arctoris, she is working tirelessly to support biotech and pharma clients in getting better data, which leads to better decisions and ultimately, better drugs for patients.
Gil Beyen
CEO of Montis Bioscience BVGil Beyen has been a CEO of private and listed biotech companies for more than 20 years. Before joining Montis, he served as CEO and Director of ERYTECH Pharma, a dual-listed, late clinical stage biopharma company, based in France and Boston, MA, for over 10 years. Prior to that, he was CEO and Managing Director of TiGenix, a cell therapy company he co-founded, and Director at Arthur D. Little, an international management consulting firm, in Brussels.
Gil holds a MSc in Bioengineering from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago (USA).
Chris Bullock
CEO of QV BioelectronicsQV Bioelectronics is a Medtech company developing GRACE, an implantable electric field therapy device for treating glioblastoma. Implanted during an existing surgical procedure, GRACE provides continuous treatment, aiming to deliver longer, better-quality lives for brain tumour patients. We are working towards a first-in-human clinical trial scheduled for 2026.
Valeria Chichagova
Director of Technology at NewcellsDr Chichagova’s career has focused on harnessing the potential of pluripotent stem cells in the study of human development and disease, and in drug discovery. With over 10 years of experience, she has specialised in developing a wide range of in vitro models. With a strong background in product development and innovation Valeria has led the successful first-to-market product and service launch of human iPSC-derived retinal organoids facilitating their wider adoption across industry. Valeria’s experience ranges from establishing and scaling up production methods to utilising in vitro models for a range of applications, such as gene therapy and disease modelling.
Bharat Chudasama
Vice President, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Syneos Health
Carmine Circelli
Director - Direct (Life Sciences) of British Business Bank
James Clark
CEO of Glox TherapeuticsJames Clark holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Glasgow and has nearly 25 years of experience working in Life Sciences. This experience has been in innovative startups in the diagnostic and microbiome areas to large biopharmaceutical companies. Much of this experience has been in C-level roles and during this time he has led many projects from early discovery to commercial launch.
Dave Cook
CEO of Quodria LtdQuodria is a dermatology biotechnology company based in Alderley Park, UK, founded by experienced biotech entrepreneurs with a strong track record in advancing innovations from the lab to late-stage clinical testing. Its lead program, Q001, is a novel topical treatment for atopic dermatitis with a unique mode of action that is differentiated from, and complementary to, current treatments. Quodria is currently seeking £1M in seed funding to progress Q001 towards clinical development.
Francesca Cordeiro
Founder & CEO of NovaiProfessor M Francesca Cordeiro is a clinician-scientist, Chair of Ophthalmology at Imperial College London, UCL Professor, Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist & Director of the ICORG Clinical Trials Unit at the Western Eye Hospital London, and recently founder and Director of Novai Ltd, a start-up company based on DARC Technology. Her research, funded continuously by the Wellcome Trust since 1996, focuses on translational approaches to saving sight and reducing disability, with over 190 peer-reviewed publications. She has received several international awards for this work, including the GG2 Diversity Award for Outstanding Achievement in Medicine 2017 and the 2019 Duke Elder Award (RCOphth).
Pedro Correa de Sampaio
CEO of NeobePedro is a cancer biologist and entrepreneur with a long-standing interest in the tumour microenvironment. He obtained his PhD in Oncology from the University of Cambridge, and then moved to Houston, Texas, for a postdoctoral fellowship where he studied the spatial interactions between stromal components and immune cell infiltration. His observations led him to move back to the UK to found Neobe, engineering bacteria to remove barriers to immune infiltration in cancer patients. He has since grown the company, raising £3.1M in equity and non-dilutive funds to support its synthetic biology platform, with two assets currently in pre-clinical development.
Andrew Craig
Founder, & Author - Our Future is Biotech of Conviction Life Sciences
Jason Crain
Senior Research Scientist & Visiting Professor at IBM Research Europe / University of OxfordProfessor Jason Crain received his undergraduate
degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and PhD from the University of Edinburgh where he held the Chair of Applied Physics. He was Executive Director of Research at the UK's National Physical Laboratory from 2007-2016, is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Council Member of the National Nuclear Laboratory. He joined IBM Research in 2017 and is Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford. His technical background is in the physics and properties of matter at the molecular scale. Professor Crain has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers.
Andrew Davies
Director Leasing of ARC Group
Mike De Leeuw
CEO & Founder of OncoLize BVMike is an entrepreneur/investor in Biomaterials for Drug Delivery since 17 years, starting-up DSM BioMedical, InGell Labs, Hy2Care and MyLife Technologies, and his new venture OncoLize.
He initiated/raised over €120 Mln public and private funding in this niche technology. Before, Mike worked for 20 years with DSM-Pharma/China, SHELL and UniLever, with degrees in Tumor Virology (Leiden) and Business Administration (RSM/IMD).
Mike's special interest in making cancer therapies more bearable for both patients and their loved ones. Based on his extensive experiences in China, India and Indonesia, his drive extends to ensuring Triple A products: Affordable and Accessible for All, wherever.
Lucas Decuypere
CEO of AllegroLucas Decuypere, LLM, MSc. Mgmt and Economics, is the CEO and President of Allegro. A seasoned serial entrepreneur, Lucas has founded and successfully exited multiple ventures, including Localtomorrow and Adagio (now iO). With over 15 years of proven excellence in leadership, strategy, and business development, he has consistently driven transformative growth at the intersection of technology and life sciences. Lucas is renowned for his ability to turn bold ideas into market-leading companies, cementing his reputation as one of the foremost innovators in the global business landscape.
Peter Dines
Managing Director of Mercia VenturesPeter is Managing Director of Mercia Ventures, one of the most active seed and series A VC’s in the UK. Prior to Venture Capital he gained leadership experience founding a medtech and diagnostic imaging company which he successfully exited. Peter is passionate about the subject of leadership and you can see some of his regular thoughts in his LinkedIn newsletter.
Carles Domenech
Executive Chairman and CEO of Ability Pharmaceuticals
Neciah Dorh
CEO of FluoretiQNeciah Dorh (CEO, Director): Neciah is a founder and former Enterprise Fellow at Quantum Technology Enterprise Centre, where he received business training from Cranfield School of Management. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from University of Bristol and is currently a member of NHS England Diagnostics Industry Advisory Group (DIAG) along with company representative at the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA). Neciah has raised over £3m in grant and equity funding. Neciah has also led negotiations and successful execution of multiple collaborations.
Mark Dowling
Head of Search & Evaluation for Immunology Business Development at SanofiMark began his career in 2004 as a GPCR pharmacologist at the Novartis Respiratory Unit in the U.K., where he led multiple drug discovery programs in IPF, COPD and Asthma. In 2014 the Respiratory group was re-located to Cambridge, USA where he led the Atlantic transition as Ad Interim Disease Area Head in 2016. In 2018 he joined Kaleido Biosciences as VP, Translation Sciences. Mark became Head of Search & Evaluation Immunology at Sanofi in 2021. His team is responsible for the identification and due diligence of assets to enhance the early and late-stage Sanofi pipeline in Dermatology, Respiratory, Gastrointestinal, Rheumatology.
Giles Dudley
CBO at Stimuliver
Rafael E. Carazo Salas
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of CellVoyant
Suzanne Eldridge
Senior Lecturer at QMUL / ReFleksSuzanne is a molecular biologist with a background in engineering. The main goal of Suzanne’s research is to discover, understand, and develop new drugs that will prevent osteoarthritis and heal cartilage.
Suzanne became unsatisfied with the engineering approach to ‘fix’ the body once its ‘broken’ and pursued a master’s and subsequent PhD in molecular biology of cartilage and joint disease in an effort to understand the mechanisms by which the cartilage and joint fails in the first place – and more importantly, why there are no treatments.
Steve Emery
CSO at Chain BiotechnologyDr. Steve Emery has 40 years international experience of bringing novel commercial therapeutic agents into development. He joined Chain Biotech in October 2022, helping the company revise its focus towards the development of Cancer vaccines.
Steve spent 14 years working for AstraZeneca in the oncology department and latterly in Business Development, as Executive Director and Head of Global Due Diligence for the AstraZeneca business worldwide.
Post AstraZeneca, he was MD of SCE Consulting Limited since 2009 providing Biotech start-up business coaching. together with scientific and product development consultancy to clients across Europe.
James Field
CEO of LabGeniusJames is the CEO of LabGenius, a next-generation antibody discovery company. LabGenius has pioneered the development of an ML-driven antibody engineering platform that’s capable of designing, conducting and - critically - learning from its own experiments.
As CEO, James has raised >$70M in financing from top-tier VCs (e.g. M Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Lux Capital, Obvious Ventures, Atomico and Kindred) and struck R&D deals with top pharmaceutical companies like Sanofi.
Prior to founding LabGenius, James completed a PhD at Imperial College where he developed novel methods for re-engineering protein nanocages for targeted drug delivery.
James Fry
Partner - Head of Life Sciences at Mills and Reeve LLPJames is a partner at the law firm Mills & Reeve and heads the firm's life sciences sector. James is an experienced commercial and IP transactions lawyer with significant experience across the life sciences, including biotech, pharma and medical technologies. He regularly advises biotech and biopharma organisations on out-licensing and in-licensing transactions, broader partnering transactions, and on product development and commercialisation.
KIRAN GULATI
Director, Business Operations of New England Biolabs (UK)
Rebecca Godfrey
COO at ExpressionEdits
Stuart Hannah
CEO of Microplate DxDr Stuart Hannah is a health technology entrepreneur on a mission to transform the lives of patients globally by developing rapid diagnostic tests to tackle antimicrobial resistance. Dr Hannah has 10+ years’ academic and industrial experience in developing and commercialising diagnostics for healthcare. Stuart has already raised over £5 m in equity investment and grant funding for Microplate Dx, and helped the company win numerous awards, whilst growing the highly-experienced Microplate Dx team to 14 members.
Kenneth Harlow
CEO of Aligned Bio ABKenneth Harlow holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and has nearly 30 years of experience working in the life science space. This experience has accrued in companies ranging from innovative startups in diagnostic, sensor technology and bioprocessing to medium to large biopharmaceutical companies. Nearly 20 of those experience years has been in the C-suite. This experience has helped him to understand the complex interplay between science, intellectual property, business and commercial development and how this trinity combines to meet customer needs, which is the ultimate driving force for any commercial enterprise.
Daniel Harrison
AIML Lead|Retail/CPG & Ireland at AWSDaniel Harrison, AI Specialist at Amazon Web Services (AWS), leads AIML for the UK Retail, CPG, and Ireland businesses. With experience spanning both technical and business domains, Daniel provides subject matter expertise to help organizations unlock business value through advanced technologies. His areas of interest focus on practical strategies for fostering innovation and building adaptable corporate cultures in an ever-evolving marketplace. Daniel's ability to bridge complex technological concepts with tangible business outcomes positions him as a valuable asset.
Jonathan Heeney
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of DIOSynVax
Nicola Heron
Chief Strategy Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult
William Hicks
Co-Chair, Life Sciences Practice at MintzDavid Hipkiss
CEO of AlveoGeneDavid is Senior Life Science Professional and Serial Entrepreneur with almost 20 years of Chair, CEO and CBO leadership experience in the the private and public company setting.
This is coupled with a near 30-year track record of successfully developing and commercialising novel pharmaceutical and biotechnology platforms, which have resulted in high value outcomes for shareholders and stakeholders alike.
He holds an Honours Degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of Birmingham, UK.
Anne Horgan
Partner at Cambridge Innovation Capital LimitedAnne is an investor focusing on Life Sciences financing.
Prior to joining CIC, Anne was a Partner at AdBio Partners, a venture capital firm specialising in seed investments, and Senior Associate at Sofinnova Partners.
Anne has 25 years’ experience in Life Sciences innovation acquired as Business Development Executive at Cancer Research UK and Senior Medicinal Chemist at Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd.
Anne carried out postdoctoral research at Yale University after her PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Bristol. She holds a diplôme d’ingénieur (Chemistry), is an inventor on 8 patent families and has authored 7 peer-reviewed papers.
Jacob Hurst
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer of EtcemblyJacob Hurst, is the co-founder and CTO of Etcembly. Within Etcembly he helped pioneer the informatics techniques that have resulted in Etcembly being the second company in the world to affinity enhance a TCR to pM level and the first company to do so entirely by informatics. He holds a PhD in Machine Learning, and has worked with biological data since 2002.
Jacob has worked as a scientific researcher at University College London and University of Oxford. and has co-authored over 50 scientific papers with a deep knowledge of antibodies and TCRs.
Juan Ignacio Imbaud
CEO of PROTEIN ALTERNATIVES
Alistair Irvine
CEO of Scarlet TherapeuticsAlistair Irvine, PhD, joined Scarlet as CEO in August 2022. He is an experienced biotech and medtech executive who has worked in the industry for >30 years and has broad international executive and R&D experience. Previous to Scarlet, he was Chief Business Officer at Kuros Biosciences AG, a company which now has a market cap around $1B. He has also held senior management roles at Innovata plc, ML Laboratories plc, and Cobra Therapeutics Ltd. Dr. Irvine holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Sheffield, U.K. and a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh, U.K
James Jackson
CEO of Digostics
Olivier Jarry
Managing Director of Atlas Advisors
Ron Jortner
Founder & CEO of Aspire BiosciencesAspire Biosciences is an early-stage biotech with an ambitious vision: to develop treatments for unaddressed rare diseases at scale, all while generating Return on Investment. Our innovative Systematic Serendipity methodology leverages knowledge curated by patient groups – and has generated several programmes, including PoC in a rare neurodegenerative disease.
Carina Kern
CEO of LinkGevityDr. Carina Kern is the founder and CEO of LinkGevity, an AI-enabled drug discovery company focused on age-related disease and deterioration. As Head of Lab at Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge, her pioneering work led to the discovery of Anti-Necrotic™, a first-in-class small molecule that directly blocks necrosis—a key driver of degenerative diseases. Under her leadership, LinkGevity is preparing for Phase II clinical trials, utilizing an accelerated aging model in the kidneys. Her lab is backed by The Francis Crick Institute’s KQ Labs, EU Horizon, the UK Government, and NASA, which recognized its potential to combat kidney failure and aging in space.
Gray Kueberuwa
CEO of ImmunoKeyImmunoKey is a pioneering biotechnology company developing next-generation CAR T-cell therapies. The versatile CARKeyTM platform is designed to address barriers to success in treating solid tumours, thus reaching patients with critical unmet clinical need. Backed by a leadership team with proven success in cell therapy development, ImmunoKey is poised to unlock new possibilities in cancer immunotherapy.
Jonathan Kwok
CEO & co-founder of InfinitopesInfinitopes is a Cancer Research UK (CRUK) led spinout from Oxford University. We combine world leading expertise in Precision Immunomics antigen discovery, T-cell immunology, biomanufacturing, vaccinology, and oncology clinical trials. Our preclinical vaccines deliver 80% protection, vs control animals dying in three weeks. Lead candidate entering phase I/IIa in 2024.
Robert Ladner
CEO of CV6 TherapeuticsDr. Robert D. Ladner is the CEO and Founder of CV6 Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech company focused on developing innovative therapies for cancer and inflammatory diseases. With extensive experience in academia and industry, he has made significant contributions to cancer research, particularly in DNA repair, uracil-DNA metabolism, and therapeutic mechanisms of action. Dr. Ladner earned his MSc and PhD from Rutgers University and later joined the University of Southern California. He is currently headquartered at Queen’s University Belfast, where his research aims to develop therapies targeting uracil-DNA metabolism to transform the effectiveness of treatments for cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Laura Lane
VP Ventures (Europe Head) at Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly Ventures)Laura joined Eli Lilly & Co. in August 2022 as the European Head of Lilly New Venture’s Venture Science team. Her focus is on Lilly’s venture capital strategy for Europe covering both direct investments into biotech and life science companies, and fund-of-fund relationships and investments.
Laura joined Lilly from Advent Life Sciences where she was part of the London-based investment team. Selected new investments included Highlight Therapeutics S.L., MiroBio Ltd (acquired by Gilead Sciences August 2022), PIC Therapeutics Inc. and Proximie Ltd. She was involved across the full spectrum of investment activities, supported the wider portfolio including re-financings, and led on business development and pharma outreach activities. While at Advent she also served on the Boards of Aleta Biotherapeutics Inc., Artax BioPharma Inc., Highlight Therapeutics S.L., and Ventus Medical Ltd.
Prior to Advent, Laura held CEO and COO positions at several UK life science/biotech companies. This included leading the Series A and non-dilutive fundraising, and being a founding member of leadership of VirionHealth. Earlier in her career, Laura held BD and business intelligence roles.
Laura currently serves on the board of the non-profit Collaborative Community against Coronavirus (3CCorona) CIC.
Laura gained her masters and doctorate from the University of Cambridge.
Lennard Lee
Medical Director of Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford Limited
Chloé Leprêtre
Head of Global R&D Search and Evaluation at ServierChloé is Senior Director, Global Head R&D Search and Evaluation at Servier, in charge of external innovation for the pipeline and research platforms. She has > 15 years experience in life sciences business development sector and joined Servier Global BD Team in 2018 to lead partnering deals in the Discovery space. Before Servier, Chloé worked as BD Manager at Onxeo, a listed biotech company in Paris, and started her career as a technology transfer manager at CNRS’ TTO.
Chloé holds a PhD in aging biology from Université Paris Cité, and an MBA from IAE Paris Sorbonne Business School.
Liza Levy
Founder of Unravel HealthUnravel Health provides real-time, lab-grade monitoring of hormones and related markers to revolutionise diagnosis, treatment and medication for women.
Kath Mackay
Director of Life Sciences at Bruntwood SciTechDr Kath Mackay is Director of Life Sciences for Bruntwood SciTech - the UK’s leading property provider dedicated to driving the growth of the UK science and technology sector. She has a keen interest in growing the life science industry, and businesses and infrastructure within the sector, ensuring the UK is the best place to establish and scale a life science organisation.
As Director of Life Sciences, Kath is responsible for developing the life science vision and strategy for Bruntwood SciTech, external affairs, and developing sector specific innovation services and investment support for the life sciences business across our network of campuses. Kath also oversees Alderley Park - the UK’s largest single- site life science campus - the new £210m Birmingham Health Innovation Campus, and Citylabs in Manchester, the world-leading health innovation and precision medicine campus in partnership with Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
Kath joined Bruntwood SciTech from the executive board of Innovate UK where she led the team responsible for growing and scaling businesses working in the biomedical, health, agriculture and food sectors, creating and delivering a £700m portfolio of infrastructure, Catapults, grant and loan investments. Kath is also Non-Executive Director of the Northern Health Science Alliance, the North of England’s health partnership, UKRI’s National Biofilms Innovation Centre, and Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership.
Dave Madge
Vice President, Discovery Services at WuXi AppTec
Michael Malecki
President & CEO of Apex Market AccessMichael Malecki is President and CEO of Apex Market Access Inc., a biopharma market access consultancy focusing on U.S. pricing and reimbursement. He previously led commercial strategies at Blue Note Therapeutics as VP of Commercial, Access, and Reimbursement, and held roles at Amgen in Value & Access, Regulatory Policy, and Competitive Intelligence. Michael’s focus on principal-agent issues in payer dynamics has earned him industry recognition. He honed his expertise at Decision Resources Group after completing a Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. He began his career studying chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego.
Damian Marron
Head of Biopharma at Treehill PartnersDamian is an accomplished Board Chair, Non-Executive director and former serial CEO, with a successful track record of leadership and value creation in public and private biotechnology companies. Exited two companies by M&A and one by IPO, raised over $250M in equity and over $1Bn biodollars.
Damian is Head of Biopharma Advisory of Treehill Partners, Chair of the Board of Circio Holding ASA, Nicox SA and Indegra Therapeutics Ltd, and NED at Cantargia AB and Onya Therapeutics Ltd.
Previously Chair of the Board of Pepgen Ltd and Cytoseek Ltd and NED at Bone Therapeutics SA and Resolys Inc.
Gino Martini
CEO of Precision Health Technologies Accelerator Ltd (PHTA)An experienced academic and industrial pharmacist, Professor Gino Martini has extensive expertise in oncology, rare and infectious diseases, and drug development – as well as policy development and external advocacy.
As the CEO of PHTA – the University of Birmingham’s flagship life sciences research accelerator – Gino is responsible for helping growing businesses to succeed, through making connections to multidisciplinary opinion leaders and providing commercialisation support and expertise.
Professor Martini has an MBA specialising in SME success and business failure awarded with distinction from the University of Liverpool.
Kevin Maskell
CEO & CSO of Bioarchitech LtdFounder, CEO & CSO of Bioarchitech. Kevin is the inventor of Bioarchitech’s core technologies. With >20 years immunology, virology and oncology experience spanning from academia (University of Oxford) to industry both small (Oxford spin-outs BioAnaLab and Oxford Cancer Biomarkers) and large (Merck Millipore) has given him a comprehensive view of the whole drug discovery life cycle.
Jessica McCreadie
Investment Director of Northern Gritstone
Ramsay McFarlane
Doctor / CEO of Awen Oncology LimitedDr.McFarlane obtained a Ph.D. in medical genetics (University of Liverpool), and undertook postdoctoral training in the University of Sheffield and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle. He subsequently acquired an independent academic position and set up the North West Cancer Institute at Bangor University, later serving as the director of Research for the new Medical School. A sabbatical year at the Cambimer regenerative medicine institute in Seville inspired him to translate his academic research. Following commercialization awards from Cancer Research UK and Innovate UK he became a co-founder of Awen Oncology, for whom he is now the CEO.
Rachael McInnes
Chief Scientific Officer at Onya TherapeuticsOnya is a pre-revenue, pre-clinical wound therapeutics company on a mission to reduce the use of and provide alternatives to antibiotics, addressing the critical challenge of antimicrobial resistance.Our flagship product will be in clinicians hands by 2025, followed by UK market authorisation, then scaling globally.
Ben Miller
Vice President, Liver Portfolio Development Lead at IpsenBenjamin Miller is a seasoned clinical development leader with extensive experience in biopharmaceutical R&D. Specializing in the design and execution of clinical trials, Benjamin plays a key role in advancing innovative therapies from early development to regulatory approval and commercialization. With a strong background in strategy, trial operations, and cross-functional leadership, Benjamin collaborates with global teams to drive scientific and medical advancements. Passionate about translating research into impactful treatments, Benjamin is dedicated to improving patient outcomes through data-driven decision-making, innovation in clinical development, and bringing new treatments to patients with unmet needs.
Lynne Murray
Venture Partner at SR One Capital Management
Neil Murray
CEO of ReNewVaxNeil has over 30 years of research, sales, business development and senior management experience in a range of blue chip and smaller companies. He was the founding CEO of Redx Pharma which he led through its IPO in 2015. With a biotech focus in oncology, immunology and infectious disease, he has negotiated acquisitions, in- and out-licensing deals and collaborative research and clinical stage projects and supported due diligence with a range of major companies and universities.
Ashwin Nandakumar
CEO & Co-Founder of Granza BIo
Nam Chol Park
Chief Business Officer at Oxford Vacmedix UK Ltd
Tom Payne
COO at Laverock Therapeutics LtdCommercially minded Science Leader with extensive track record of innovation and contribution to organisational development. Broad scientific expertise in gene therapy, gene editing and cellular engineering. Demonstrated ability to build and develop high-performing and interdisciplinary teams. COO at Laverock Therapeutics, previous roles include CSO at Oxgene, and Head of Platform Development at Cellinta (now Trogenix).
Uday Phadke
Co-Founder & CEO of Triple Chasm Company
Chris Phillips
Founder/CSO of DigistainI have worked in the Imperial Physics Dept most of my career, apart from spells in UCSB California and the BBC. My research started of as semiconductor spectroscopy, but lately I've applied the techniques to healthcare. I have published>350 papers, had 37 PhD students, 24 PDRA's a £30M grant income, and am a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of chemistry. a
Sarah Pollitt
Chair at ENSILITECH (part of Science Creates)Sarah is Chair of EnsiliTech, a biotech with a manufacturing technology that thermally protects biopharmaceutical products to simplify manufacturing and eliminate refrigeration in the supply chain.
Sarah's career experience is as a senior commercial leader at AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, roles at the intersection of science, clinical and commercial. Sarah has deep experience in the commercialisation of new medicines and innovative medical technologies for successful global launch. She is experienced in partnering with biotechs to in-license new pipeline medicines.
Sarah holds a BA degree from the University of Cambridge, an MBA from INSEAD Business School and the Non-Executive Director (NED) Diploma.
Krzysztof Potempa
Founder and CEO of BRAINCURESDr. Krzysztof Potempa is a drug hunter dedicated to the prevention and treatment of neurological diseases that affect at least 1 in 6 people worldwide. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA, USA) and a Ph.D. degree in Neuroscience from the University Pierre Marie Curie (Paris, France). After working for a decade in pharma and academia, he established BRAINCURES, an award-winning data analytics platform company that leverages a novel biological intelligence approach to drive a five-fold increase on today’s 1 in 5 preclinical and 1 in 10 clinical success rates.
Yogesh Prasad
CEO, Director of Biosecure ID LimitedBiosecure ID is building a Universal DNA Analysis Platform—integrating sample collection, simple automated laboratory workflow, including advanced sequencing, AI-driven data automation, and open-source innovation—to deliver faster, more accurate, and scalable genomic solutions in forensics, healthcare, and digital security.
Josep Prous
CoFounder & CSO of CONNECTA TherapeuticsDr. Josep Prous, Jr. is a scientist and business entrepreneur who has founded and served in executive management and board roles at numerous biomedical research and technology companies.
He is a co-founder of CONNECTA Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing new treatments for CNS unmet medical needs where he acts as Chief Scientific Officer
He is also Executive Director - Science at Prous Institute for Biomedical Research, a research organization committed to discovering novel therapies through the application of artificial intelligence methods, where he is responsible for the company’s investment strategy in life science start-ups and academic spin-offs.
Zalán Péterfi
CEO of VRG TherapeuticsZalán is a Harvard-trained scientist, ex-McKinsey consultant with extensive experience in the pharma and biotech industry. He is passionate about and experienced in topics where both scientific/medical expertise and management/business excellence are essential to drive maximum impact. He is a life-science focused leader with the ability to recruit, train, and manage high-performing teams demonstrated by 10+ years of leadership in academic and business settings.
Jonathan Rees
Co-founder & CEO of MitoRx TherapeuticsCommercial co-founder and CEO of MitoRx. Pharma and venture capital deal sourcing at Takeda and EQT/LSP, Ducentis ($400m exit), founder of OBN, PKD Charity UK Trustee and entrepreneur.
Urmi Richardson
President EMEA at Thermo Fisher Scientific
Andy Roberts
Head of Innovation at Bruntwood SciTechAndy is Head of Innovation at Bruntwood SciTech, and focuses on supporting companies, andn the wider ecosystem, at campuses including Alderley Park in Cheshire and Manchester Science Park & City Labs, both in the acclaimed "Oxford Road Corridor" with strong links to the local Universities and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, the largest NHS trust in the UK. Andy is passionate about building early stage companies, and has spent over a decade working with organisations like Innovate UK and NIHR, firstly as a grant-awardee, and more recently as a grant assessor and monitoring officer.
Juliette Roberts
VP, Therapeutic Strategy & Innovation at Syneos Health
Stuart Rose
CEO of OBNAndy Round
Investment Director of Deepbridge Capital
Jeremy Salt
CEO of The Vaccine Group
David Sarphie
CEO of Seroxo LtdDr Sarphie is co-founder and CEO or Seroxo. He brings over 25 years of industry experience in medtech, biotech and consultancy sectors; previously he was a co-founder of PowderJect Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Chiron in 2003 for $879M). He was also CEO of Acrobot and Executive Advisor for BioExec Ventures before becoming CEO of Bio Nano Consulting & later AquAffirm. He holds a DPhil in biomedical engineering from University of Oxford, an MSc from Stanford University, and a BSc from the University of Notre Dame.
Karin Schmitt
Chief Operating Officer at Mursla BioGlobally experienced science and business executive with more than 25 years of diverse experience in biotech drug discovery, platform technologies, cell/gene therapy and medical device companies. Career spans Boston area, Silicon Valley and the Cambridge cluster. Early employee in several successful start-ups. Significant contributions to rapid growth of companies to IPO and beyond through fostering scientific innovation, managing scale-up and providing strategic leadership. Combines commercial accomplishments with strong scientific leadership and regulatory guidance.
Oliver Sexton
Investment Director of UKi2SOliver Sexton joined Midven in April 2014 to manage the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund’s synthetic biology investments.
Prior to joining Midven, Oliver managed commercialisation of bioengineering and medical technologies At Imperial Innovations and was on the board of oncology therapeutic Acublate Ltd. Earlier in his career he held commercial and partnering roles at Ark Therapeutics.
Oliver also managed a team of biotech buy-side analysts and worked at a pharma strategy consultancy.
Oliver has a BSc in Molecular Biology/Biotechnology and an MSc in Plant Science from Bristol University.
Nik Sharma
Co-Founder & CEO of BioCorteX
Philip Simister
Head of Science and Entrepreneur Advocate at OBN
Jeremy Skillington
CEO of Poolbeg Pharma plcJeremy Skillington began his biotechnology career in the Business Development group of Genentech, Inc in California in 2002. At Genentech he was responsible for executing over 40 licencing, investment and collaboration transactions. Returning to Ireland in 2009, Jeremy led Business Development and was a member of the Senior Management team at Opsona Therapeutics Ltd before becoming a founder and CEO of immuno-oncology company TriMod Therapeutics Ltd. In 2014 Jeremy joined German investment fund HS Lifesciences GmbH to provide start-up and business development support to portfolio companies ImmunoQure AG and Ethris GmbH.
Jeremy joined Inflazome on its founding in 2016 and was instrumental in their acquisition by Roche in September 2020 for €380M (£325M) upfront and significant downstream milestones. Jeremy studied Biochemistry at the National University of Ireland, Galway where he was awarded his Ph.D. He performed his post-doctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco in the lab of Prof Rik Derynck.
Hannah Sore
Co-founder & CEO of PharmEnable TherapeuticsA medicinal chemist by training, Hannah is passionate about pushing the boundaries of what is possible with small molecule therapeutics and breaking down the barriers of inaccessibility.
Hannah brings over 25 years of research expertise within the life sciences and drug discovery sector at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Astex Therapeutics and at the University of Cambridge. During her time at Astex Therapeutics, she is delighted to have contributed to the discovery stage of TruqapTM (capivasertib).
Hannah completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in Organic Chemistry and has authored over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and is an inventor on 13 patents.
Karen Spink
Head of Medicines at Innovate UK (UKRI)Karen is the Head of Medicines at Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency. She oversees a portfolio of investments aimed at accelerating the commercialisation of life-changing therapies, addressing unmet patient needs, and stimulating economic growth from the UK's rich science base. Karen holds a PhD in cancer genomics and brings over 25 years of experience across the pharma, biotech, and start-up sectors.
Kelvin Stott
CEO of Amporin Pharmaceuticals AG
Zsolt Szelecki
Head of People Advisory Services at BDO
Sujit Tangadpalliwar
Founder & CEO of BiolligenceDr. Sujit Tangadpalliwar is the founder & CEO of Biolligence, a TechBio company revolutionizing drug discovery through AI-driven clinical toxicity prediction. With over a decade of experience at the intersection of AI and drug discovery, he previously played a key role at Exscientia, contributing to its growth, and multi-million dollar pharma deals. Sujit has developed multiple industry-adopted AI platforms and is passionate about transforming drug safety assessments with human-relevant, explainable AI solutions.
Marina Tarunina
Research Director of PlasticellDr. Tarunina joined Plasticell Ltd as Principal Scientist in 2007 and become company’s Research Director in 2017. She has contributed to the development of the company’s CombiCult® technology platform and exemplified its broad applications in different areas of stem cell biology. Prior to joining Plasticell she was a senior scientist at Inpharmatica Ltd conducting drug discovery research in the area of metabolic disease. Previously she held postdoctoral fellowships at Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Marie Curie Research Institute where her research was focused on tumour suppressors and senescence.
Helen Tayton-Martin
Chief Business Strategy Officer at Adaptimmune
Hugo Tewson
chair at Digostics LtdGTT@home transforms provision, access and standardisation of the gold-standard in-clinic Oral-Glucose-Tolerance-Test or OGTT, simply by providing the test in a kit to be performed by patients, unaided and in their own homes . Fully automated and digitised, it eliminates the major issues with current in-clinic tests whilst providing gold-standard, clinic-equivalent results.
Janette Thomas
CEO of Five Alarm Bio LtdCEO of Five Alarm Bio since mid 2022. Janette has a background in Biochemistry research at Leicester and Cambridge Universities, after which she has had 25years of pharmaceutical drug discovery and development experience from large Pharma (GSK) and SME’s. She has been instrumental in the early strategy and growth of small companies including Horizon Discovery (now a public company). She was Director of International Operations at Atlantic Healthcare until she founded Pellis Care Ltd. As a member of leadership teams, Janette has broad experience in developing company and product R&D strategy.
Jacob Thompson
Co-Founder of MucVacMucVac is a Manchester-based Biotech start-up developing a novel vaccine platform specifically designed to stimulate robust immune responses at mucosal surfaces that can be used to develop more effective vaccine candidates in a quick and simple manner"
Emma Tinsley
CEO of WeatherdenEmma Tinsley is a leading biotech executive and the CEO of Weatherden, a global integrated clinical consultancy and experts in scientific strategy and clinical development. Emma has deep experience of company formation, clinical development strategy, operating model transformation and investment management and was previously at SV Health Investors in the biotech company creation team creating immunology and oncology companies; and prior to this, in the Life Sciences team at KPMG.
Ewa Truchanowicz
Advisor, Health Tech Exec, NED, Founder, Investor, Mentor of Bidshaper
Mihriban Tuna
CEO of ImmutrinMihriban is CEO of Immutrin and Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge Innovation Capital. She brings 20 years’ experience in biologics drug development across biotech and pharma.
Prior to Immutrin, Mihriban was Chief Scientific Officer at Adaptate Biotherapeutics, Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery, at F-star Therapeutics and a team leader at Domantis.
Mihriban holds a BSc in Biology from Middle East Technical University, a PhD in Biochemistry from University of Sussex and an EMBA from University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
Kristof Van Emelen
CEO of ObulytixKristof brings over 25 years of experience in drug discovery, early-stage drug development and executive leadership within the Life Sciences sector and currently serves as CEO of Obulytix. Prior to his tenure with Obulytix, he was VP Drug Discovery at rare disease company Scenic Biotech (Amsterdam). Before that, he held senior leadership roles at Ermium Therapeutics (Paris), and as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the VIB (Ghent). Between 1997 and 2017, Kristof held various scientific and leadership positions at Johnson & Johnson, across different therapeutic areas. Kristof holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from KU Leuven.
Mel Walker
Managing Director of BioPharma FuturesMel is a senior life sciences advisor with over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry (Roche, GSK, Otsuka). In 2020, Mel founded BioPharma Futures, and more recently Access InVivo, offering strategic advice to pharma, biotech, healthtech and consulting companies. His approach focuses on global patient access with a particular emphasis on early commercial requirements and partnership opportunities. Mel supports companies through his extensive real-world experience, deep knowledge of what it takes to succeed, and broad network of collaborators. Mel holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy, a PHD in Health Outcomes, and has co-authored over 30 research papers and abstracts.
David Weinkove
CSO at Magnitude BiosciencesProf David Weinkove is well respected in the academic fields of C. elegans and ageing biology. As a postdoc, he worked with David Gems, Ronald Plasterk and Erik Jorgensen. He is now Associate Professor at the Department of Biosciences, Durham University and Chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing.
David is passionate about applying the strength of C. elegans research to industrial application and he co founded Magnitude Biosciences to bring reliable automated technology together with experienced C. elegans scientists to bring increases in productivity to the whole field.
Joanna Wolak
President, CSO & Co-Founder of EndLyz Therapeutics
Adam Workman
Head of Investments and New Ventures at Oxford University Innovation (OUI)Adam Workman is Head of Investments and New Ventures at Oxford University Innovation. He has been supporting early stage businesses since 2000. His expertise is across a range of sectors including clean technology, engineer, software and consultancy services. Adam's experience includes venture capital investment and portfolio management for both private and public sector supported funds.