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Steve Bates OBE

Chief Executive Officer

What does your role at BIA involve?

Steve Bates is the CEO of the UK Bioindustry Association, the UK’s Trade Association for innovative life science companies with over 550 members. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. He serves on the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council and the UK Biosecurity Leadership Council. Steve was a founder member of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce in the Covid crisis, sitting on its steering Board alongside Kate Bingham. He is active member and former chair the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a board member of EuropaBio since 2015.

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 is a driving force behind the scale up agenda, spearheading policy agenda to unlock UK pension fund capital into productive UK growth in life sciences. 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 joining the BIA in 2012, Steve worked for Genzyme and was advisor to the UK Government of Tony Blair working on NHS reform and the Northern Ireland peace process. He was made OBE for services to innovation in 2017 and became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science in 2020.

Dr Jane Osbourn OBE

Chair, Mogrify, CSO, Alchemab

Jane has over 30 years of experience in biologics discovery and development. Most recently, she was Vice President for R&D and Site Leader at MedImmune (AstraZeneca), formerly Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), where she contributed to the development of phage display technology. Jane is a scientific leader in the field of antibody engineering, and has made a significant contribution to the discovery and development of 8 marketed drugs and over 40 clinical candidates. Jane is passionate about science education and the development of the UK biotech sector and has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the BioIndustry Association for the past four years. She is currently a Director of Babraham Bioscience Technologies, and also a Director of Cambridge Enterprise. She was awarded Scrip’s Lifetime Achievement Award and an OBE in 2019 for services to drug discovery, development and biotechnology.

Emma Du Four B.Sc. (Hons), MBA, FTOPRA

Chariman and Head of International Regulatory Policy, BIA Regulatory Affairs Advisory Committee and AbbVie

Emma Du Four is Head of International Regulatory Policy at AbbVie. She leads a team providing strategic guidance on key regulatory policy issues and external advocacy in support of access for patients to innovative medicines. Emma has an honours degree in Biochemistry, a Masters degree in Business Administration and is a Fellow of the organisation for professionals in regulatory affairs. She partners with an extensive external network of industry, government, academic and healthcare system partners and has a broad range of experience across all aspects of innovative medicines development. Specific areas of expertise include regulatory policy & strategy development, clinical trials, biotechnology, real world evidence, pharmacovigilance and paediatric drug development. Emma regularly represents AbbVie and industry more broadly on scientific and technical issues. She is Chair of the BioIndustry Association Regulatory Affairs Advisory Committee and Vice-Chair of the European Regulatory Expert Group. She has been influential in shaping the current global regulatory environment.

Ian McCubbin CBE

Chair of RoslinCT, Chair of Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult

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.

Andy Richards

Investor

Andy is an entrepreneur and investor with an established track record in founding and scaling up innovative Life-science, Biotechnology and Digital Health companies in the UK. He is currently Chairman of Congenica, Closed Loop Medicine, Arecor Therapeutics plc, Ieso Digital Health and Owlstone Medical. He is a director of Cancer Research Horizons (the commercial board of CR-UK) and the Scale-Up institute and is an advisor to several investment funds, including Cambridge Innovation Capital, the UCL Technology Fund, and the CRUK Seed Fund. He is a council member of the UKRI MRC. Andy is a Cambridge Graduate with a PhD in Chemistry and an early career spanning positions with ICI (now AstraZeneca) and PA Technology. He was a founder and executive director of Chiroscience plc until its merger with Celltech in 1999 and since that time he has founded, invested in and helped to scale more than 30 innovative ventures including companies such as Vectura, Arakis, Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd and Geneservice. Andy is also a founder member of the Cambridge Angels. Andy is passionate about science and the translation of science to do good for society. The Life-sciences and Healthcare sectors provide the perfect arena for translating science into technology that can help people around the world. He received a CBE for services to investment in life-sciences in 2015.