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The BIA’s Board is drawn from a wide range of member companies. The Board currently comprises 11 Members, each of whom has been elected for a three-year term, after which they are invited to put themselves forward for re-election.
Board Members
Chair of the Board
Dr Dan Mahony
Dan was appointed as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Evotec (UK) Limited in October 2021. Prior to joining Evotec, Dan was Co-Head of Healthcare at Polar Capital where he launched the healthcare business in 2007 growing it to over $4 billion of assets under management. Dan was formerly head of European healthcare research at Morgan Stanley, an analyst at ING Barings Furman Selz in New York and a research scientist including at Schering Plough, CA. He has over 25 years of experience within global healthcare covering biotechnology, medical technology and healthcare services. Dan chairs the board of the BioIndustry Association (BIA), the industry trade association for UK life sciences, and holds non-executive directorships at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Trellus Health (an LSE-listed digital health company), Celmatix (a privately held, preclinical-stage women’s health biotech in NY focused on ovarian biology), Keepabl (a UK-based, privately owned provider of SaaS solutions for GDPR compliance), Apian (a privately held healthcare drone startup, founded by NHS doctors in training), and also acts as a mentor for the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Training Programme, which aims to support junior doctors and health professionals in developing their entrepreneurial aspirations during clinical training.
Corporate Members
Lisa Anson
Lisa Anson is Chief Executive Officer of Redx Pharma plc, appointed 1 June 2018. Lisa has been President of AstraZeneca UK since 2012 and has significant leadership experience in pharmaceuticals. Over a 20 year career at AstraZeneca plc, Lisa has held a number of senior management roles in both the US and the UK including Global Vice President, Oncology and as Vice President of emerging brands where she worked closely with the Research and Development teams. Lisa holds an MBA (awarded with distinction) from INSEAD, France and a First Class honours degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University in the UK. Upon graduating she joined KPMG in London as a management consultant and then moved to California where she worked for Salick Health Care (now Aptium), a California based cancer disease management company, prior to joining Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (USA) in 1998 as a business development manager. Lisa was President of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) a position from which she will stepped down in July 2018. She has been a Board member of the ABPI since 2012 where she has chaired a number of UK industry committees and worked closely with Government and a wide range of industry stakeholders.
David Atkins
David is an experienced CEO having led a range of clinical services and digital health business. He was most recently CEO of Congenica and oversaw the development of the business’ high-quality software and data platform designed to provide clinical insight using complex genomic data. David led the business through several financing rounds and took Congenica from a start-up to a global scale-up business. He is also currently a Board Member of the UK Bioindustry Association (BIA) and SME representative on the UK National Genomics Board. Prior to joining Congenica, Dr Atkins has over 25 years of experience in a range of small, medium and large healthcare businesses. David was with Johnson & Johnson for over 20 years based in Australia, US, Canada, and UK in a broad range of national, regional and global roles across the pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostics sectors. 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 a BSc and PhD in the fields of cellular and molecular biology, a graduate diploma in pharmacology and an MBA.
Charlotte Casebourne
Charlotte believes in equitable access to effective therapies. She is the CEO and Co-founder of Theolytics - a pre-clinical biotech company harnessing viruses to fight cancer - and has been a BIA Board Member since January 2019. This has included audit committee responsibilities, and the ongoing role of Vice Chair of the BIA's Skills, People and Talent Working Party. Previously Co-founder and Director of New Medicine Partners, Charlotte has worked with organisations spanning three continents to support the early translation of novel life science technologies. She has taken leadership roles including Curator of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers network, Managing Director of HealthTech Women London, and HelloTomorrow’s London Chair for Healthcare and Medical Technologies. Charlotte graduated as a University of Cambridge Bioscience Enterprise M.Phil Scholar and was a shortlisted finalist for Cambridge Entrepreneur of the Year. She was most recently named one of Forbes 30 Under 30, and In Vivo’s 30 Rising Leaders in Life Sciences.
Olivia Cavlan
Olivia is a biotechnology executive and former academic clinician experienced in supporting international pharmaceutical, biotech and med tech companies across strategic, business and operational activities. Olivia heads up business at Alchemab Therapeutics, an advanced-analytics enabled therapeutics company which she helped to build from inception having been a Principal at SV Health Investors. Prior to that, she was a Partner at McKinsey where she led healthcare private equity and global R&D restructuring efforts, and a Partner at QuantumBlack, focused on advanced-analytics projects for pharmacos. Olivia is also a Non-Executive Director at the BIA and a member of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Seed investment committee. She's passionate about innovation and regularly advises start-ups on company creation and financing topics.
Nicole Farmer
Nicole is currently the General Manager for UK & Ireland Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty business unit of Sanofi. She has over 30 years of experience of working in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sector. Nicole joined Sanofi Genzyme in 2016 as Head of MS for the UK & Ireland franchise, where she continued to build on the success and develop Sanofi’s MS franchise. She then moved on to lead the MS franchise for Europe for two years before returning to the UK & Ireland business in her new role, in May 2020. Before joining Sanofi Genzyme, Nicole spent 2 years with Baxter, where she led the spin-out of the bioscience business to form Baxalta, where she was the UK Managing Director. Prior to this Nicole spent 26 years at Bayer (formally Schering Health Care) where she had roles ranging for sales representative for fertility care to UK Divisional Head, leading the radiological business for capital equipment, software and contrast media. Nicole has a biochemistry degree and an MBA from Aston Business School. Nicole has a passion for supporting others. She is a listening volunteer for Samaritans, an organization supporting people in crisis or suicidal, and mentors’ new volunteers. She has led teams of “non-sporty” people to complete triathlons and multi-day triathlons, and adventure races, with the strong conviction we can all do so much more than we imagine.
Prof Jackie Hunter
Benevolent Bio and BenevolentAI use AI to augment the research capabilities of drug scientists, radically changing the way R&D is done. She has over thirty years of experience in the bioscience research sector, working across academia and industry including leading neurology and gastrointestinal drug discovery and early clinical development for GlaxoSmithKline. In that role she oversaw the entry of over 20 compounds into clinical studies and the conduct of 17 Proofs of Concept. She has served on numerous academic, industry and government Boards and panels in both Europe and America e.g. in the establishment of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a 2B euro public-private partnership between the pharmaceutical industry and the European Commission. She served on the IMI Board and was Chair of the EFPIA Research Directors Group. She founded OI Pharma Partners in 2010 to support the life science sector in harnessing the power of open innovation working with a variety of organizations, including the establishment of an Open Innovation Strategy for the Cyprus Presidency of the EU. For 3 years she was the CEO of the BBSRC which distributes approximately £500M p.a for bioscience research and its translation. She holds a personal chair from St George's Hospital Medical School, which was awarded in recognition of her contribution to bioscience research. She was also awarded a CBE in 2010 for Services to the Pharmaceutical Industry.
Ian McCubbin CBE
Chair of RoslinCT and Chair of Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult; Chair of Manufacturing Advisory Group for IUK Industrial Challenge Fund; Member of the UK Government Vaccines Task Force. Ian retired from his role as SVP North America, Japan & Global Pharma Supply, GSK in April 2017. He joined GSK in 2006, his second spell with the company and was responsible for 17 factories and 7,000 employees globally whose role within GSK was to supply the New Product pipeline and the majority of GSK's pharmaceutical sales. Ian chaired the Advanced Therapy Manufacturing Task Force originally co-chaired with George Freeman, Minister for Life Sciences and the group published its Action Plan to 'anchor' commercial scale manufacturing in the UK. The Action Plan has subsequently been adopted in full as part of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy. He led the manufacturing work stream of the UK Vaccines Task Force between March 2020 and May 2021. Ian is a pharmacist with 40 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical industry working for GSK, Merck Generics and IVAX. His core capability is in the field of manufacturing and supply chain leadership and new product introduction. His passion is cell and gene therapies due to their transformational medical benefits and the opportunity they create for UK economic benefit.
Deborah O'Neil
A biotechnologist with over three decades of experience in the field of research & drug development. Deborah founded NovaBiotics in 2004. She trained as an immunologist in internationally acclaimed laboratories (University College London, UC San Diego, University of Ghent) before moving to Aberdeen and developing the clinical and commercial potential of her antimicrobial technologies, spinning NovaBiotics out of the University of Aberdeen’s Rowett Research Institute. Deborah is a Board member of the UK’s BioIndustry Association, a Director and founding member of the BEAM Alliance (Biotechs of Europe innovating in Anti-Microbial Resistance), was a member of the Scottish Life Sciences Industry Leadership Group. She is a Board member of the Scottish Life Sciences Association and Chair of Opportunity North East Life Science and BioAberdeen. Deborah also Chairs the UK’s Medicines Discovery Catapult-Cystic fibrosis (CF) AMR Syndicate. Deborah was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2018 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. Named as one of the 20 women leaders in European biotech in 2019 and one of the 30 top female leaders in UK Healthcare in 2018. In 2020, Deborah was made OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, for services to biotechnology, industry and charity.
Nerida Scott
Nerida Scott is the Regional Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, EMEA, located at the Innovation Centre in London. Nerida oversees the EMEA portfolio of co-investments and collaborations to construct, prioritise and advance the early external innovation portfolio of J&J, which includes pharmaceuticals, medtech and consumer health, exploring new models to support external R&D collaboration and grow early-stage innovation networks. Nerida has been an integral part of the J&J Innovation team since 2015, and before that, she was in the UK Biotech sector for 15 years as Director for Business Development & Licensing and Executive Team member at Vernalis PLC and at RiboTargets. Previously she was in the UK Healthcare team at the Boston Consulting Group. Nerida brings 25 years of diverse business and transaction experience to the BIA board. She represents innovation on the UK government’s Life Sciences Council particularly focusing on: strengthening the UK clinical trials infrastructure; the generation of and access to high quality data within the NHS for research; the need for functional genomics capability; and advocating strongly that the UK needs to not only value the life sciences sector for inward investment, but needs to develop and deploy the sector’s innovation across the NHS to generate improvements in the nation’s health, wellbeing and productivity. Professional Achievements & Organizations • Member of the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council as the Industry Innovation Lead • Board member of the UK BioIndustry Association • Member of the Johnson & Johnson UK Leadership Council • Board member of Johnson & Johnson Innovation Ltd. Education • Biochemistry B.Sc (Hons), University of Sydney, Australia • PhD in Biochemistry as the Prince of Wales’ scholar, Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK
Sunil Shah
Sunil has now served on the Board of the BIA for more than 2 years, and worked with other board colleagues to support the Executive team navigate the challenges of COVID and served to strengthen the biotechnology ecosystem. Sunil is a serial entrepreneur having begun his career in the Life Sciences team at PA Consulting group followed by co-founding Oxygen Healthcare Ltd which was fully acquired by Piramal Enterprises Ltd (BSE: PEL) in 2013. Since this time, Sunil has co-founded the o2h Group and is CEO of o2h Ventures which are building an ecosystem to support early-stage Biotech Therapeutic companies. Sunil is highly passionate about building and investing into early stage biotechnology. For more than two decades, he has been focused on building the o2h biotech ecosystem to support fledgling biotech innovations through investing, mentoring and providing discovery support to pre-seed and seed stage biotech companies. Sunil absolutely loves connecting people and supporting the biotech ecosystem, during lockdown when we were not allowed to meet each other in person Sunil led a series called o2h ChaiTimes in which he assembled a panel of experts (globally) to discuss various topics of interest to other Biotechies on an online platform, this was for free for anyone to join. Post the lockdown when we were able to meet each other again, he has been hosting biotech bikers events from o2h’s new site in Cambridge for Biotechies to get some exercise and talk science. Sunil has won the UKBAA Angel Investor of the year award in 2019 as well as the OBN Special Recognition Award for his significant contribution in the Life Sciences Industry. Most recently, Sunil won the CEO of the Year award at Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards. o2h Group includes o2h Ventures, an HMRC approved Knowledge Intensive EIS fund that provides pre-seed and seed funding to Biotech Therapeutics & AI, the fund has now invested into 28 British biotech companies.
Claire Thompson
Claire is a multi-award winning entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, spanning large multi-nationals (GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer), virtual biotech and Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisations (CDMOs). She is the Founder and CEO of Agility Life Sciences, a formulation development CDMO which supports pharmaceutical and biotech companies developing formulations which give badly behaved molecules the best chance of success in preclinical studies, and allow them to be accelerated to clinic. Claire is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Cambridge where she helps academics translate their research into healthcare products and platforms. She also holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Nottingham. Named in the Medicine Maker Power List in 2022, and the inaugural recipient of the One Nucleus “Life Science Inspiration of the Year” award in 2021, Claire is passionate not just about the process of getting medicines to patients, but the people involved in the development. One of her mantras is “People and purpose over products and profits”. Claire was formerly Deputy Chief Scientist of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and Chief Scientist of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She has made appearances for the BBC (Health: Truth or Scare), ITV News and Channel 4 (Food Unwrapped) to illustrate the science behind medicines in a way which engages the public, and demonstrates to girls where science can take them. Claire is passionate about providing opportunities for women and girls to excel in whatever they do. She Chairs the global FIP WiSE (Women in Science and Education) initiative to engage, enable and empower girls and women, professionally or personally. As a former international footballer, Claire launched and fully funds the Girls In Football Teams (GIFT) Grants scheme, which currently supports more than 30 girls’ and women’s teams across the UK.
Melanie Toyne-Sewell
Melanie leads the healthcare and life sciences (HLS) team of the international business communications consultancy, Instinctif Partners. She has been deeply involved in the biopharma sector, providing financial and corporate communications advice to companies and organisations, including the BIA, for 25 years. She is a passionate advocate of the sector and believes her long experience in communications would be directly relevant to the BIA Board. At Instinctif Partners, she has been a key member of the HLS team for 12 years, leading the London team since 2019. Before then, she established the HLS practice at the Hogarth Partnership, was a partner in the Financial Dynamics (now FTI) Life Sciences team and a Director at Merlin Financial PR. She qualified as a chartered accountant at Price Waterhouse (now PwC). Melanie has a BA in Biochemistry from Oxford University. The majority of audiences targeted by the HLS sector are generalist and therefore, the high-tech language often used by companies can create a significant barrier to engagement. Melanie realised early on that she could bridge this gap and has specialised in advising HLS company executives communicate the business of their science in a way that resonates, without trivializing what often represents many years of research work. During her working career, Melanie has always been a member of the BIA, both individually and as a corporate member. She was also a member of the BIA Communications Committee for c.five years. In her view, the BIA is an essential advocate for the HLS sector, underlining the sector’s importance not only to the economy but also to the long-term welfare of the British people, especially during the pandemic. How it has communicated has been a key part of this and Melanie would therefore be keen to bring her experience to the Board.
Anna Williamson
I am an Executive Director in the Pharma Partnering Group at Roche, where I have 17 years of experience in Partnering and Alliance Management. In this role I have established collaborations with companies ranging from early-stage start-ups to large Pharma. Notable partnerships I’ve helped establish include Genentech’s personalized cancer vaccine clinical development collaboration with BioNTech, Genentech’s clinical collaboration with Abbvie which generated Venclexta, Genentech’s cell therapy collaboration with Adaptive Biotechnologies and Genentech’s preclinical discovery collaboration with Bicycle Therapeutics for bicyclic peptides. More recently, I led Roche’s negotiations to become a Founding Industry Member of Our Future Health, a UK-government supported consortia for early detection of disease. In addition to partnering, I have experience working with entrepreneurs and with academia. I am on the Board of Start Codon, a Cambridge-based life sciences accelerator in which Genentech is a founding partner. I support the London-based Cancer Tech Accelerator in which Roche is a founder. I am on the selection committee for the Oncology Development Programme at Alderley Park. With respect to experience with academia, I spent 3 years at the University of California Office of Technology Transfer prior to joining Genentech. I have a scientific background. I have a PhD and MA in Neuroscience from Cambridge University and I conducted post-doctoral studies at UCSF and the University of Colorado. After spending 20 years in the US I moved back to the UK in 2016 to establish a partnering presence for Roche in the UK. Since returning I have become passionate about helping the UK maintain its position as a world-leading life sciences sector. I believe this passion, together with my diverse background and the support I can bring from Roche, the world’s largest biotechnology company and a global leader in in vitro diagnostics, makes me an ideal candidate.
Associate Members
Robert Tansley
I am a partner at the venture capital fund Cambridge Innovation Capital. We invest in early stage businesses that have the ambition to become category leading global businesses with a focus on life sciences and deep tech. In the last nine years we have invested in 38 businesses, the majority of which have their origins within UK academic research with a particular focus on the Cambridge (UK) ecosystem. During this time I have led CIC’s investments in a wide range of start-up and early stage companies including CMR Surgical (which has grown from 25 people to nearly 1,000 employees, a valuation >£2 billion and operations in 20 countries), Inivata (sold to NeoGenomics for $440 million), Microbiotica, Carrick Therapeutics, PetMedix, Morphogen-IX (sold to Centessa), Gyroscope Therapeutics (sold to Novartis for up to $1.5 billion), Exvastat, PetMedix and Pretzel Therapeutics. I had previously spent 20 years in drug development and commercialisation in both large pharma (Sanofi, Roche), the regulatory authorities (MHRA) and biotech including CMO at Arakis, CEO/Founder of Treague, founding CEO at the University spin-out Avilex Pharma and being part of the founding management team at KalVista (Nasdaq: KALV). Prior to joining industry I spent seven years as a hospital doctor in the UK and Australia training as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. I am passionate about translating UK cutting edge medical science into sector-leading commercial companies that can bring substantial societal benefits at scale and have a significant global impact on human health.
Clare Terlouw
Clare Terlouw is Head of LifeArc Ventures, responsible for LifeArc’s investments across the life science sector. She is the head of the investment team and a member of the Early Ventures Investment Committee. Clare oversees the Early Ventures strategy at LifeArc, which is a seed to Series A investment strategy, with the ability to further fund select companies into later rounds of funding. LifeArc’s investment strategy is to seek to generate positive impact on patients and financial returns by investing in early translational sciences and technologies in areas of high unmet patient need. Clare was previously at Syncona Investment Management Ltd, a FTSE250 healthcare investment trust, where she was Head of Corporate Development. Syncona founds and builds life sciences companies to deliver transformational treatments to patients. She has 15 years of biotech and healthcare financing experience as an investment banker in the City of London, previously a Managing Director at Numis Securities, with significant expertise in growth funding for innovative life sciences companies in the private and public markets. Clare is also a board member of the BioIndustry Association, a non-executive director of Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, and an investor director on a number of private venture backed companies.
Dr Peter Finan
Pete has more than 25 years of experience in both drug discovery across the pharmaceutical industry and in building early-stage therapeutics companies. Prior to joining Epidarex, Pete was Global Head of the Respiratory Disease Area and Site Head for the Novartis Institute of BioMedical Research in the UK. In this role, he had strategic and operational oversight for the respiratory portfolio from target discovery through to proof-of-concept trials in the clinic. Pete is a former Executive Director of the Novartis Developmental and Molecular Pathways Platform based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In this capacity, he led target discovery, validation and early drug discovery programs across a wide range of therapeutic areas including oncology, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, autoimmunity and inflammation. The approaches used have been extensively published in Nature and Cell. Pete’s experience from senior transatlantic industry roles to dealing with the day-to-day complexities of building venture-backed start-ups, ensures he is well qualified to join the BIA’s Board. He has an extensive global network of Pharma and Biotech contacts. Pete’s background in successfully funding innovative therapeutics start-ups is particularly relevant to the BIA’s goal of further establishing our industry as a global hub of drug discovery and development.
Ex-Officio
Steve Bates OBE
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.
Company Secretary
Nick Gardiner
What does your role at BIA involve?
Nick is responsible for overseeing the BIA’s operations, ensuring that all activities are professionally delivered to the highest standard and providing an organisation-wide operational perspective to and support for, activities and projects. He has specific responsibility for office management/facilities; financial systems/processes and credit control; the people, skills and talent workstream; company secretariat; human resources and IT/telecoms.
Previous experience & achievements
Nick has extensive industry and not-for-profit management experience. Prior to this role, he ran the Clinical Laboratory Division of Lab21. This involved providing specialist laboratory services to the healthcare, pharmaceutical and clinical trials markets. In that role, Nick had management responsibility for all operations, income, laboratory and customer services and client liaison across the Group. He also has specific and extensive experience of diagnostic testing within the HIV and HCV disease areas. This was gained through building Delphic Diagnostics into a one-stop shop for clinicians, enabling more effective patient monitoring and subsequent treatment options. Nick also has broad management experience within the not-for-profit and charity sector, working for a trade body representing and building the profile of the business communication industry and prior to that working for the world’s oldest active society devoted to natural history.
If you could invite any scientist or entrepreneur to dinner, who would it be?
Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator, independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection. He travelled the world and I would imagine had some excellent stories to tell.