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
Lucia BioZoë 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.
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
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 to disrupt inflammatory pathways.
In 2019 Jenny became Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ferryx. 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.
Graham Ball
Director and CSO of Intelligent OMICSProf Graham Ball is founder-CSO of Intelligent Omics. Prof Ball specializes in the application of innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to the analysis of complex data in the biomolecular, biomedical, and pharmacological domains.
For the last 20 years, Prof Ball has led the development and validation of discovery and modelling algorithms. He has published over 200 journal papers and has an H-Index of 50 in this area. His current research focuses on innovative computational methods that allow the identification of molecular drivers of disease and druggable biology through the development of digital twins and network biology
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.
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.
Valeria Chichagova
Director of Technology at Newcells
Bharat Chudasama
Vice President, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Syneos Health
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).
Andrew Craig
Founder of Plain English Finance
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.
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.
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.
William Finch
CEO of Oxford Vacmedix UKAfter graduating from Oxford in Biochemistry William has over 34 years experience in the Biotech sector with a particular focus on leading SMEs.
Previous companies include R&D Systems, Amersham International, British Biotech and Beckman Coulter alongside small start-ups following outsourcing strategies where relevant.
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.
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
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.
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 >28 years and has broad international executive and R&D experience. Previous to Scarlet, he was Chief Business Officer at Kuros Biosciences AG, a public Swiss biotech company, and 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.
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.
Chloé Leprêtre
Global Head, 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.
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.
Michael Malecki
President & CEO of Apex Market Access
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.
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 Ipsen
Lynne Murray
Venture Partner at SR One Capital Management
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
Jon Rees
Co-Founder & Senior Discovery Scientist of MitoRx Therapeutics
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
Nadia Shivji-Brown
Senior Business Development Manager at UK Health Security Agency
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.
Zsolt Szelecki
Head of People Advisory Services at BDO
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.
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.
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.
Mihriban Tuna
CEO of ImmutrinMihriban is an executive leader with over 20 years’ experience in biologics drug development across biotech and pharma. She is currently CEO of Immutrin and Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge Innovation Capital.
Previously, Mihriban was Chief Scientific Officer at Adaptate Biotherapeutics (acquired by Takeda), Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at F-star Therapeutics and an early employee at Domantis (acquired by GSK).
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 Futures
David Weinkove
CSO at Magnitude BiosciencesDavid Weinkove has worked in the field of ageing for over 25 years and is the Chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing. He is also a Professor in the Department of Biosciences at Durham University, where he researches how bacteria impact ageing using the nematode worm C. elegans as a fast-ageing in vivo model. In 2018, David co-founded Magnitude Biosciences to apply to the power of the C. elegans and automated imaging technology to industrial drug discovery. As Chief Scientific Officer, David helps clients find solutions to their drug discovery challenges using C. elegans where possible.
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.