BioLeaders

Operating Partner, Advent Life Sciences LLP (April 2024) Ian has over thirty-five years of international experience in management and transactions within the life sciences sector. He is currently Chairman of Bioventix plc, a Board Trustee of LifeArc, a leading UK medical research charity. Ian is also an Operating Partner at London-based Advent Life Sciences LLP, a leading life science venture investor. Ian previously spent eight years as CEO of the privately held antifungal drug development company F2G Limited and before that was CEO of the oncology R&D company, Chroma Therapeutics Limited. Prior to that he was Senior Vice President, Business [...]

CBO & MD, 20Med Therapeutics (March 2024) Hugo Fry is Chief Business Officer and Managing Director of 20Med Therapeutics and Chief Commercial Officer at Imbria. 20Med is establishing a polymeric nanoparticles (PNP) platform that stands as a leading alternative to LNPs in the delivery of mRNA vaccines, especially for seasonal influenza. Imbria is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing new treatments for cardiometabolic disorders. Hugo was previously CEO of RQ Biotechnology, a discovery company dedicated to developing treatments and preventative therapies based on potent broad-spectrum mAbs. Hugo has almost 30 years of senior management and executive experience in the pharmaceutical [...]

Founder of Think-10.com, former CEO of LifeArc (March 2024) A seasoned Executive and Non-Executive Director across Pharma and Medtech companies, including FTSE 100 biotech, large public and small venture backed boards. Melanie has a strong background in corporate development of strategy in public and private companies to their next phase of growth and is widely connected across the global healthcare sector. She now focuses on a portfolio career concentrating on new technologies and innovation to transform the opportunities for human health and wellbeing. Melanie’s most recent NED appointment is with privately owned, Portuguese based, BIAL where she is particularly engaged [...]

Operating Partner, Lundbeck Foundation & CEO, Vesper Bio (February 2024) Paul Little is Operating Partner at Lundbeckfonden BioCapital and CEO of Vesper Bio. Paul has a PhD in organic chemistry, he undertook postdoctoral research into the synthesis of natural product phorboxazole before moving to industry as a medicinal chemist. Paul later moved into development, CMC, toxicology and early clinical trials at various biotech companies over the last 20+ years including approaching a decade in management and investing. Vesper is a clinical stage biotech and world leader in sortilin receptor biology. Its lead programme uses a sortilin inhibitor to rebalance levels [...]

Chief Scientific Offer, Juvenescence (November 2023) Gillian (Gill) Dines is a highly accomplished pharmaceutical executive with 30+ years of experience in research, development, approval, and commercialization of new medicines in both “Big Pharma” and as an entrepreneur in the Biotech environment. She has led the successful development and global approval of medicines and devices in a number of therapeutic areas including neuroscience, oncology, immunology, respiratory and rare diseases. Before joining Juvenescence she was Senior Vice President and Head of Research and Early Development at Jazz Pharmaceuticals. In this role she led integration and organisational restructuring to build a novel pipeline [...]

Chief Executive Offer, Imophoron (November 2023) Richard was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Imophoron in November 2022. Formerly, he was Chief Executive Officer of AIM-listed Diurnal Group plc, where he led the sale of the company to Neurocrine Biosciences in October 2023. He has over 25 years’ experience in senior roles in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, including as CFO & COO at Mereo Biopharma and CEO of Chroma Therapeutics. Richard has been involved in fundraisings totalling over $250 million, along with the negotiation and execution of multiple business development deals. He also has extensive experience of taking novel [...]

Cell & Gene Therapy Specialist and Board Member (October 2023) Dr Sven Kili, is Principal at Sven Kili Consulting Ltd. where he provides specialist strategic consulting services to innovative Cell & Gene Therapy companies. His clients include small and medium sized companies from creation through to clinical development and commercialisation, as well as investors. He has deep experience in all stages of Cell & Gene Therapy development, including previous roles as CEO of Antion Biosciences, where he built an academic team into a financed, development company focussed on engineered CAR-T therapies; he was also Head of Development for the [...]

Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Draupnir Bio, Co-founder of Teitur Trophics and Muna Therapeutics (September 2023) Simon Glerup is CSO, co-founder and board member of Draupnir Bio, co-founder of Teitur Trophics, and co-founder of Muna Therapeutics. He is also associate professor at Aarhus University and committee member at the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Prior to spinning out Draupnir, Muna and Teitur from his Aarhus University laboratory in the period between 2017-2020, Simon was leading a research team focused on studying a particular class of membrane proteins involved in neurological and metabolic disorders. The scientific work formed the basis of [...]

Serial Entrepreneur and Value Creator for European Life Science (September 2023) Serial entrepreneur and value creator in European life science companies. As CEO built two businesses (Oxford Asymmetry International plc and Ablynx nv), led their successful IPOs on the LSE, EuroNext and NASDAQ and raised over €500M in equity and debt financing. Was responsible for developing the business plans and implementing them. Ran the sales process for each company generating values of £316M (Evotec) and €3.9Bn (Sanofi) respectively. Expertise in high value service provision to the pharmaceutical industry and in drug discovery and development. At Ablynx, oversaw the whole [...]

Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Gene Technology (August 2023) Adrian Smith is the CEO of Oxford Gene Technology, a Genomic testing company working in the areas of cancer and hereditary disease. Prior to joining Oxford Gene Technology, Adrian spent 8 years at Hologic initially as the head of Hologic’s UK&I In vitro Diagnostics Division and latterly as General Manager/ Managing Director of the Hologic Divisions including medical imaging and surgery alongside IVD. From 2010 to 2014 Adrian was EMEA Marketing Director for Women’s Health and cancer screening at QIAGEN. From 2003 to 2010 Adrian held various commercial roles at Roche [...]