bioProcessUK Conference

Abby Clark

Manufacturing Programme Manager, BIA

What does your role at BIA involve?  

Abby leads BIA’s manufacturing policy work and supports the Manufacturing Advisory Committee. She represents BIA on the Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnership (MMIP) and is secretariate for the High Potential Modalities MMIP workstream. Abby collaborates with the bioprocessing sector with a focus on complex medicines and sustainability within medicine manufacturing.  

Previous experience and achievements  

Abby began her career at CPI, where she successfully completed a Degree Level Apprenticeship in Biotechnology. She then advanced to the role of Downstream Scientist, specialising in RNA process development, automation, and continuous processing. Passionate about advancing the sector, Abby also volunteers her time as ATMP Manufacturing Community (AMC) Director, contributing to the advanced therapies sector and gaining valuable cross-modality insights. 

If you could invite any scientist or entrepreneur to dinner, who would it be and why?  

I’d love to have dinner with Rosalind Franklin, a brilliant scientist whose pivotal work on X-ray crystallography was instrumental in uncovering the structure of DNA. Her contributions, overshadowed by sexism, denied her the recognition shared by Crick and Watson. We would talk about the challenges she faced to provide insights into her resilience, intellect, and the untold stories of women in science that continue to shape our sector (and the Watson Crick Franklin model).

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John Clarke

Global Head of Government Affairs and Policy, Cytiva

John Clarke is the Global Head of Government Affairs and Policy at Cytiva, where he leads strategic engagement with governments and stakeholders across the healthcare and life sciences sectors. With deep expertise in public affairs, strategic communications, and market access, John advises global organizations on navigating complex policy environments and shaping effective advocacy strategies. His career spans advising health and social care providers, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and investment firms at UK, regional, and global levels. John has a proven track record of delivering impactful campaigns in collaboration with patient organizations, policymakers, industry leaders, health systems, and academia. His work is grounded in a nuanced understanding of the evolving healthcare landscape and a commitment to advancing innovation and access in life sciences. 

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Dereck Eliison

Vice President, Biologics Services Europe, Pharmaron

Derek is a seasoned biopharmaceutical executive with over 25 years of leadership, technical, and commercial experience across biologics development and manufacturing. He currently serves as Vice President of Biologics Services in Europe for Pharmaron, where he also leads the Liverpool site. Derek has held senior roles at Allergan, Actavis, and Watson, and has led major strategic business and global R&D programs. In addition to large pharma, Derek has been a co-founder of a successful biotech venture, Eden Biodesign, which grew to operate the UK National Biomanufacturing Centre. He combines technical expertise with strategic and operational acumen. Derek holds a PhD in Protein Biochemistry from the University of Liverpool and a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Warwick. 

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Kit Erlebach

Senior Director, Engineering & BIA MAC Chair, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies

Kit is responsible for Engineering and EHS at FUJIFILM Biotechnologies in the UK. Kit has also worked as a Biochemical Engineer for 20 years and holds a Lean Six Sigma leader Master Black Belt qualification. He has applied LSS to quality, engineering and manufacturing in the course of leading laboratory construction projects totalling more than £100M. Kit has a first degree from Nottingham University in Chemical Engineering and a PhD from Cambridge University in Chemical Engineering and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers. He an MBA from the Open University as part of the ATAC programme.

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Suzy Farid

Head of Department for Biochemical Engineering, University College London

Suzanne joined UCL as a Lecturer in 2001. She obtained her Bachelor’s and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemical Engineering from UCL.

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Brendan Fish

Director of Biologics & RNA Centre of Excellence, CPI

Dr. Brendan Fish is a distinguished leader in the biopharmaceutical industry with over 30 years of experience spanning biologics development, manufacturing, and regulatory strategy.  He currently serves as Director of the Biologics and RNA Centre of Excellence at CPI, where he leads a multidisciplinary team and oversees state-of-the-art facilities supporting end-to-end biopharmaceutical development—from strain characterisation to GMP production.

Brendan has held senior leadership roles at GSK and MedImmune, where he was instrumental in the development, scale-up, and commercialisation of numerous biologics, including monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins, and oligonucleotides.  His expertise encompasses process development, formulation, analytical sciences, and regulatory submissions, with a proven track record of successful product launches and regulatory inspections, including FDA and MHRA.

He is a trusted advisor across industry and government, currently serving on the MHRA’s Commission on Human Medicines’ Cancer Vaccines Expert Working Group, and contributing to multiple national and academic advisory boards.  Brendan is also a published scientist and patent holder, with a strong commitment to mentoring and advancing the next generation of biopharmaceutical professionals.

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Lucy Foley

Chief Executive Officer, eXmoor Pharma

Lucy joined eXmoor after eight years at the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) with her final position as Director of Biologics and COVID response. She recently led the establishment of the UK’s RNA Centre of excellence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a member of the UK Vaccines Taskforce. In 2013, as the Lead Biopharmaceutical Engineer at CPI, Lucy collaborated with eXmoor on the concept design of the organisation’s Darlington-based National Biologics Manufacturing Centre. Previously, she was an academic at Newcastle University in both the Business School and Chemical Engineering Departments where she worked with Professors Lyddiatt and Whitaker to understand the route to widespread adoption and process industrialisation of advanced therapies. Lucy ins a founding member and director of the ATMP Manufacturing Community. 

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Helena Francis

Chief of Staff, Constructive Bio

Helena is Chief of Staff at Constructive Bio: a Cambridge-based engineering biology spin-out that rewrites genomes to build the biomolecules of the future. Grounded in pioneering research of Professor Jason Chin, the company unlocks biology beyond the 20 canonical amino acids. At Constructive, Helena acts as advisor and problem solver to the CEO, shaping the firm’s funding, strategy and corporate development. In 2024, Helena supported the company’s $58 million Series A fundraise and secured the company’s first Innovate UK funding with CPI. 

Helena has a master’s in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Genetics from the University of Oxford. Helena trained as a Management Consultant at Oliver Wyman before transitioning into biotech as Head of Business Development at London-based Bactobio Ltd. Here she led six successful Innovate UK applications; supported two seed rounds totalling £9M and supported the company through 5x team growth. 

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Nick Gardiner

Chief Operating Officer, BioIndustry Association

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.

: nick-gardiner-47a41818

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Cath Green

Associate Professor, Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford

Catherine Green OBE is an Associate Professor in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. She heads the Clinical BioManufacturing Facility (CBF), the University’s GMP manufacturing facility for sterile biologics, where her mission is to translate innovative academic ideas into real world treatments.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic Professor Green led on the initial GMP manufacturing delivering the Oxford–AstraZeneca adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine in record time. As well as SARS-CoV2, the CBF has made novel vaccines against other pathogens of global importance, including Malaria, Zika, Ebola, MERS, Rabies, Plague, Flu and TB, and they continue to develop vaccines and therapeutics for emerging pathogens, potential pandemic threats, bacterial pathogens, and cancer. 

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Laura Griffiths

Innovation Lead, Innovate UK

Laura joined the Transforming Medicines Manufacturing Team at Innovate UK in January 2021. As an Innovation Lead, Laura manages government funded projects, and engages with different organisations within the sector, to understand manufacturing challenges and the innovation needed to grow the UK’s medicines manufacturing economy. Laura is passionate that by working together, sharing knowledge, and driving innovation, the medicines manufacturing community can have a greater overall impact. Prior to joining Innovate UK Laura spent 7 years working for Eli Lilly and Elanco, as a technical and manufacturing leader, and 3 years working for a biologics contract manufacturing organisation, Eden Biodesign (currently Pharmaron). Laura has a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry, and a PhD in Biotechnology, both from The University of Manchester. Laura’s technical scientific background is within upstream bioprocessing, with expertise in both mammalian and microbial cultures.

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Jonathan Haigh

Head of UK Sites, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies

Jonathan Haigh has been active in the biopharmaceutical industry for almost twenty years, working in both the Life Science technology vendor and end-user sectors, holding positions in both the US and UK. He completed a Ph.D. in antibody purification from the University of Cambridge, and an MBA from Durham University Business School. Jonathan has fulfilled a number of global technical, management and leadership roles encompassing biopharmaceutical innovation, process development, GMP operations, and merger & acquisition activities.

Jonathan has worked for FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies for the last twelve years in roles of increasing responsibility. He previously acted as Vice President of Process Development, leading a team of over 350 process scientists and engineers across Mammalian, Microbial and Advanced Therapy modalities. He currently holds the role of Head of UK Sites, leading all aspects of the business across three UK sites. Jonathan holds a number of patents and publications pertinent to the bioprocessing field.

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Jason Jones

Head of Global Business Development, Cellular Origins

Over twenty-one years’ experience in Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) and the technology involved in the processing and manufacturing.   

Eighteen years at Miltenyi Biotec, initially running their bone marrow transplant and cell therapy business, technically and commercially.  Looking back, this means playing a very small part in progressing products and processes in the clinic that have now had companies grow up around them, such as Autolus, Adaptimmune, Orchard, Quell, Resolution and more.   

Going on to run Miltenyi’s strategic partnerships with such partners as Autolus and GSK.  Central to the Prodigy launch and Miltenyi’s widening cell therapy and analytics portfolios and placing them in the industry, actually selling and placing the first Prodigys in the field and part of the first clinical use of the Prodigy for CAR T manufacturing, thus leading Miltenyi’s way into acadaemia, the clinic and bioindustry.  

Going on to gain deep experience as a founding member of Ori Biotech (and first employee) as their Chief Business Officer, developing a purpose-built manufacturing cell processing technology more amenable to scale.  Experience in building a technology, building a company, building partnerships and collaborations and supporting investor interest and a total of $150M raised.   

A long road in cell and gene therapy manufacturing that now seems always to have been leading to Cellular Origins.  As Head of Global Business Development and Marketing at Cellular Origins, personal passions and vision are aligned in making a difference and dragging manufacturing technology by the ears up to where it needs to be and to put real substance and realisation to the word that is too often said but seldom meant, ‘Automation’, now full automation and bringing robotics to our maturing industry.  Developing and maintaining current partnerships, discovering and securing new partnerships and progressing key industry collaborations with other technology providers, as manufacturing advanced therapies at scale is a challenge that can only be surmounted with in partnership.  To best place Cellular Origins to disrupt and evolve CGT manufacturing and to bridge the gap between the need and the ability to scale and to make a positive difference to the lives of as many patients as can benefit from the promise of CGT.   

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Rosie Lindup

Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager, BioIndustry Association

What does your role at BIA involve?
Rosie leads the BIA’s policy work on access to medicines, rare diseases, cell and gene therapies and antimicrobial resistance. This involves providing the secretariat for the BIA’s Cell and Gene Therapy Advisory Committee (CGTAC) and Rare Disease Industry Group (RDIG). She is also responsible for organising the BIA’s annual Parliament Day, which brings CEOs and senior representatives from BIA member companies to Westminster to meet with politicians and policymakers.

Previous experience
Previously, Rosie worked as a Senior Research Consultant at a Westminster-based public affairs agency, where she supported clients from a range of sectors, including pharmaceuticals, technology and financial services. Prior to that, Rosie worked as a Management Consultant at KPMG, where she assisted on financial and regulatory projects with large corporate clients. She has a BA in Human, Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

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Emilie Louvet

Director of Digital for Regulatory Affairs, AstraZeneca

Emilie Louvet is Director of Digital for Regulatory Affairs at AstraZeneca. She has been with AstraZeneca for 9 years holding a variety of roles with focus in generating insights from data; digital transformation and implementing AI solutions for drug development, clinical trial design and now regulatory.

Emilie has a MSc and PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from Paris 5 University and Institut Jacques Monod (France), and an MBA in Business Management from the PowerMBA. Prior to moving to the industry, Emilie led her research at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and at Kyoto University (Japan). She then came back to Europe as head of digital pathology group at Gustave Roussy (France).

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Ian McCubbin

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.

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Asel Sartbaeva

CEO and Co-Founder, EnsiliTech

Asel Sartbaeva is a CEO and a co-founder of EnsiliTech and co-inventor of Ensilication™ technology. Asel got her Masters and PhD in Mineral Physics from the University of Cambridge in 2004, where she started working on silica-based materials. In 2010, at the University of Oxford, she won a Royal Society Fellowship to become an independent researcher. From 2012 at Bath, she started working on thermal stabilisation of vaccines using silica, leading to the invention of the Ensilication™ method: a novel platform formulation technology for thermal stabilisation of biopharmaceuticals.

She is one of 175 Faces of Chemistry by the RSC, won an Emerging Technologies Competition by RSC in 2020, Hanson Medal in 2021, Enterprise Fellowship in 2021, a Woman of the Year award from FDM Everywoman in Tech in 2021, and more recently EntreConf Female CEO of the year in 2024, among other prestigious awards. 
 

 

 

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David Simpson

Chief Executive Officer, Iksuda Therapeutics Ltd

Dave founded Iksuda in 2012, now a clinical stage company which is focussed on the development of 1st/best in class ADCs by deploying a toolbox of chemistry and payload approaches to address the challenges of haematological and solid cancers. Iksuda’s operations in Newcastle, UK (Corporate HQ and Research) and Boston, US (Development) are committed to driving the differentiation of ADC therapies through innovation. 

The Company is actively recruiting patients for Ph1 trials for its IKS014 (Anti-Her2) and IKS03 (anti-CD19) programs and recently announced dosing of its first IKS014 patient. Iksuda anticipates initiating pre-clinical/clinical development of it’s first in class, Anti-CA242 (IKS04) ADC for the treatment of GI cancers in Q1 2024 and continues to deepen its research stage portfolio. 

Prior to Iksuda, Dave led Actavis’s biosimilar programmes and started his industrial career by joining Cobra Biologics before moving to Eden Biodesign, where he led its process development capabilities prior to its acquisition by Watson Pharma. 

In addition, Dave holds the positions of NED at Leaf Expression Systems, Chairperson at Daresbury Proteins and advises several biotech companies, investment groups and provides local support to Newcastle University’s MRC Confidence in Concept Fund. 

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Dave Tudor

Chief Executive Officer, Digital Technologies Group

"Dave brings over two decades of international experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing and supply chain strategy. During his 20+ year tenure at GSK, he held several senior leadership positions, including Vice President of Primary Supply chain and Vice President of Manufacturing Strategy.

Following his time at GSK, Dave served as Managing Director of the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre at CPI, where he led initiatives to accelerate innovation and collaboration across the industry.

He now serves as Chief Executive Officer of Digital Technologies Group (DTG), where he continues to advance innovation in pharmaceutical manufacturing through digital transformation and strategic leadership."

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