BIA Networking Lunch - Cambridge

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.

Kevin Lin

President, Tuspark , UK

Mr. Lin graduated with a Master’s degree in Public Administration from School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University. He used to work in financial sector in China for more than ten years, and accumulated deep understanding of Chinese financial system, practices and regulations. He joined Tus S&T Service Group in 2016, the leading industrial investor and science and technology service provider in China, as Vice-President in charge of international investment and collaborations. With establishment of two science parks in the UK, he is currently managing the TusPark UK team, who is making great effort to promote Sino-UK technology businesses communications, and investment in technology-based areas of health care, new energy/materials, AI and high-end manufacture.

Joe Foster

COO, Mogrify

Joe, COO at Mogrify, began his career at Horizon Discovery Group plc working within the corporate development team gaining experience in business planning, licensing, technology evaluation and M&A analysis, before becoming Dr. Jonathan Milner’s (Co-founder of Abcam plc) Portfolio Manager where he built and managed a complex portfolio of more than 40 early-stage life science companies. Joe holds a degree in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Bath and an MPhil in business management from the University of Cambridge.

Hitesh Sanganee

Head of Emerging Innovations, AstraZeneca

Hitesh is currently a Head of the Emerging Innovations group in AstraZeneca. The group is involved in three main areas. Execution of the open innovation strategy, externalisation and internalisation of repurposed assets. Promotion of Entrepreneurial activity within and outside of AZ and bringing emerging innovations into AZ. Previously his role was in the science function within the AstraZeneca. His main role was as a chemistry cluster lead inputting into external and internal drug repositioning projects and potential in-licensing projects. Other roles also have included CDL (candidate drug leader) working on regenerative medicine, and a Team Leader in the respiratory & inflammation therapeutic area. He originally received his BA and DPhil from Oxford University in chemistry and subsequently held a postdoctoral research position at Florida State University. He joined AstraZeneca as a Medicinal Chemist in 1999 conducting research within respiratory & inflammation related disease areas and has led teams to successful milestone transitions in all phases of drug discovery. He recently obtained an MBA from Cambridge University.

Jill Reckless

CEO, RxCelerate

Jill is CEO of RxCelerate, an out-sourced drug development company, delivering complete preclinical drug development programmes and project management for virtual and semi-virtual companies. Services include routine animal models of human diseases, toxicology and ADME studies. RxCelerate offers innovative experimental designs (combining efficacy, toxicology and pharmacokinetic end-points in one study or using multivariate statistical frameworks to examine multiple end-points in a single study design) coupled with more than 20 years experience of drug discovery and development. RxCelerate delivers cutting-edge development capability at the same time as cutting costs and timelines to client companies large and small.