TechBio UK

Philippe Marc

Chief of Staff and Head of the Data & Digital Office, Novartis Biomedical Research

Philippe Marc is Chief of Staff and Head of the Data & Digital Office at Novartis Biomedical Research. He shapes and drives the company’s AI research strategy, aligning scientific priorities with enterprise goals to accelerate innovation in drug discovery. He leads the translation of strategy into high-impact programs, governance frameworks, and investment priorities, enabling scalable adoption of AI across Research. With over 25 years in life sciences, he brings deep expertise in bioinformatics, data science, and R&D transformation.

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Claire Bloomfield

Principal, Strategy and Operations, Isomorphic Labs

Dr. Claire Bloomfield is a highly accomplished senior leader in life sciences, renowned for her deep expertise in real-world data and AI. With a proven track record of attracting over half a billion in investment, she excels at fostering cross-sector collaborations to drive transformative change and build complex health data infrastructure. Currently, she leads strategic initiatives at Isomorphic Labs to accelerate precision medicine drug discovery. Her career also includes significant leadership roles at NHS England, where she directed the Centre for Improving Data Collaboration and oversaw the £185M Data for R&D Programme, and as CEO of the National Consortium of Intelligent Medical Imaging (NCIMI) at the University of Oxford. Claire holds a DPhil in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford and is a frequent global speaker and advisor on health data and AI.

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Beverley Carr

Chief Business Officer, Amphista Therapeutics

Beverley's most recent position was at Amphista Therapeutics, where she served as Interim Chief Executive Officer and previously as Chief Business and Operating Officer, leading a strategic review of the business and executing two major partnerships. Before joining Amphista, Beverley’s career spanned over a decade at GSK where she was VP Business Development for the Immuno-inflammation Therapy Area, and she has held senior roles at other leading biotechnology companies, including Cambridge Antibody Technology prior to its acquisition by AstraZeneca.

She holds an MA in Chemistry and a DPhil in Organic Chemistry from the University of Oxford, and an MBA from the University of Cambridge.

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Ankur Chaurasia

Founder and CEO, AssureDrop

Ankur Chaurasia is the Founder and CEO of AssureDrop, a biotechnology company developing a microfluidic platform that helps researchers learn more from scarce but valuable patient-derived samples by enabling up to 10× more drug-response measurements from each sample. He is focused on building the infrastructure needed to scale patient-derived drug discovery, helping researchers prioritise the most promising therapies with greater confidence.

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Marta Ciechonska

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Salient Bio

Marta's academic training at Dalhousie University and Imperial College London gave her a rare combination of molecular microbiology and large-scale automation, the technical foundation that underpins how Salient Bio builds and scales its platforms. She co-founded Salient Bio to advance the applications of automation in diagnostics, and to bridge the gap between R&D and real-world clinical applications, translating microbiome science into wellness and diagnostic tools that can meaningfully change patient outcomes.

She heads up Salient's strategy, partnerships, and commercial functions, driven by a conviction that preventative healthcare and access to at-home, non-invasive diagnostics have the potential to greatly improve patient outcomes.

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William Deacon

Senior Director, Transactions, Business Development, AstraZeneca

William Deacon is a Senior Transaction Director in AstraZeneca’s Business Development Operations group, covering licensing, M&A and collaborations across the company’s core therapy areas. As part of this role, he also is the group’s lead for AI transactions. He previously worked as a Life Sciences Specialist at L.E.K. Consulting and holds a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Cambridge.

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Lee Dunham

CBO and Co-Founder, Houdini Bio

No bio provided

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Helena Fraser

Vice President, Life Sciences & Healthcare, HSBC Innovation Banking

Helena is a banking professional with over 17 years of experience within the Financial Services sector. In 2016 Helena joined the Life Sciences and Healthcare team at HSBC Innovation Banking. In her current role as VP, Helena works with a pioneering group of clients who strive to make scientific advancements across the BioTech, Diagnostic and Tools ecosystem. This includes supporting clients throughout their growth journey from seed stage through to IPO.

HSBC Innovation Banking is the financial partner of choice to the innovation economy, providing tailored financial solutions designed to meet the needs of the most innovative founders and investors.

Helena was born and raised in Hackney and holds an MSc in Psychology with an active interest in researching subjects that are often stigmatised including the menstrual cycle. During her spare time Helena enjoys Pilates, creating art and experiencing different cuisines. 

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Rebecca Godfrey

COO, ExpressionEdits

Rebecca brings to ExEd 20 years’ experience in roles across healthtech, pharma, biotech and academic research. As COO, Rebecca provides leadership and strategic direction to all business, financial and operations aspects of the organisation, including all commercial partnership activities.

Since completing her PhD at The Babraham Institute (University of Cambridge), Rebecca has held roles ranging from Company Director of a pharmaceutical consultancy to Global Head and Global Director roles in two of the world's top 10 pharma companies, Roche and AbbVie.

Rebecca’s extensive track record of building highly successful organizations, teams, and systems, covers all stages of the product lifecycle, across a wide variety of therapeutic modalities and in all regions worldwide, including emerging markets.

Rebecca’s most recent roles include COO at healthtech start-up, OKKO Health, and Research Chief of Staff for the clinical-stage gene therapy biotech, Freeline Therapeutics.

Alongside her role at ExEd, Rebecca serves as Chair of the Board of Teens Unite fighting cancer, as a member of the Board at Beacon for Rare Diseases and is author of the best-selling book ‘The Leadership Vaccine: Drive innovation, increase efficiency and build resilience in highly regulated industries.

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Bram Goorden

CEO, IXICO

Bram has over 20 years of leadership in BioPharma and precision medicine. He held C-level roles at Eagle Genomics and SOPHiA Genetics, enhancing platform innovation and US presence. As VP at Foundation Medicine, he expanded its global precision medicine platform. As CEO of Prometheus Laboratories, he integrated it into Nestlé Health Science and served as Head of Brain Health. Earlier, he held senior roles at UCB Pharma and Eli Lilly, launching CNS medicines globally. Bram’s board experience includes Mantis Photonics and Cerecin Inc. He is passionate about patient care and values diverse teams. His strategic vision and leadership have consistently driven growth and shareholder value.

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Glen Gowers

CEO and Co-Founder, Basecamp Research

Glen Gowers is Co-founder and CEO of Basecamp Research, which he started in 2019 with Oliver Vince following the first fully off-grid DNA sequencing expedition across a polar icecap. Basecamp has since built the Trillion Gene Atlas, the largest genomics database of its kind, and EDEN, a family of biology-native foundation models built at the scale of GPT-4. Together they are being used to establish scaling laws in biology and move toward generalisable biological intelligence, with EDEN's antibiotic and vaccine-design models now available through Anthropic's Claude Science. This work underpins a pipeline of programmable therapeutics, spanning AI-designed gene insertion for cell therapy and orally active cardiometabolic peptides. Glen completed his PhD in synthetic genomics at Imperial College London with GSK. 

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Peter Hamley

CEO and Founder, Scripta Therapeutics

Peter Hamley is founder and CEO of Scripta Therapeutics, a new techbio based in Oxford. Scripta is flipping the script on drug discovery by implementing a novel approach involving multiomics, imaging, computer vision and target identification to modulate transcription factors. The output is a portfolio of disease modifying therapeutics for neurodegeneration. 

Hugely experienced in the pharma and biotech world, Peter was previously CSO at Samsara Therapeutics, building a team at the intersection of neuroscience and ageing biology. While at Sanofi, he led global departments in drug discovery and business development, advancing multiple programs across numerous disease areas. His earlier roles include positions at AstraZeneca and the University of Pennsylvania.

He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, an MBA from the University of Bath, and a BSc in Chemistry from Imperial College London. He has authored over 60 patents and publications.

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Alex Ide

General Manager, SaaS and DaaS, Genomics

Alex joined Genomics in 2025 as General Manager for SaaS and DaaS. He leads GTM strategy and execution, customer engagement, and data partnerships for the Life Sciences business.

His expertise spans the full lifecycle of genomic and clinical data infrastructure, from technical architecture to commercial strategy, ensuring that data platforms are not just functional, but transformative for drug discovery and clinical research.

Alex previously held leadership roles at BC Platforms, Prospection, and IQVIA, and started his career at ZS, after graduating from The Queen’s College, Oxford with a degree in Chemistry.

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Melanie Ivarsson

CEO, Health Data Research Service (HDRS)

Dr Melanie Ivarsson, OBE, was appointed the CEO the Health Data Research Service (HDRS) in January 2026. HDRS is the new organisation backed by the UK government and Wellcome that will revolutionise how we use our uniquely deep and diverse UK healthcare data for research. With a background in industry and academia, Mel's career spans research, clinical drug development and commercial acumen. At Moderna, Mel led the development of their mRNA vaccine against Covid-19. Prior to this, Melanie held senior roles at Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Shire and Takeda, working across all phases of clinical drug development. She holds a PhD in Neurophysiology from the University of Bristol and started her career as a neuroscience researcher at Lund University and New York University. More recently, she earned her Executive MBA from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2022, she was awarded an OBE for services to public health.

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Angie Ma

Co-Founder, Faculty

Angie Ma is co-founder of Faculty, Europe's leading applied AI firm, acquired by Accenture in January 2026 in one of the UK's largest private AI deals. Faculty has spent over a decade at the coalface of applied AI – helping some of the world's most important organisations move from experimentation to real-world impact, across sectors from the NHS and Home Office to financial services and global pharma.

Angie's career path has been anything but linear – from physics research in biomedical diagnostics, to law, to founding a tech startup in the early 2000s, before co-founding Faculty in 2014. She leads Faculty's AI capability and training, including its Fellowship programme: an elite AI talent initiative that has trained over 550 practitioners across eleven years.
She invests in and mentors deep tech startups, and serves as an advisor and trustee to various charities.

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Jason Mellad

Co-Founder and CEO, OtoImmune

Dr Jason Mellad is Co-founder and CEO of OtoImmune, a precision immunology company focused on revolutionising the early detection, management and treatment of autoimmune and other immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. Previously he was co-founder and CEO of life science venture builder fund, Start Codon, and epigenomic biomarker discovery pioneer, Cambridge Epigenetix (now Biomodal). Dr Mellad holds a PhD in Medicine from the University of Cambridge. 

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Chris Molloy

CEO, BIA

No bio provided

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Salpie Nowinski

CEO and Co-Founder, Hijack Bio

Salpie Nowinski is a Computational Biologist and Biotech founder reimagining disease treatment through the lens of evolutionary biology. Salpie is the CEO and co-founder of Hijack Bio, a synthetic biology startup in stealth, engineering a novel method to deliver biologics inside the body - replacing injections and cold-chain logistics with an oral platform. With a PhD in Computational Biology studying the evolution of cancers and a research background spanning ICR and Barts Cancer Institute, Salpie brings deep expertise at the intersection of genomics, evolution, and medicine.

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Hanna Roetschke

Co-Founder and CTO, decyte

Dr Hanna Roetschke is co-founder and CTO of decyte, an early-stage TechBio startup leveraging data science for the early detection of immune-related diseases.

Operating at the intersection of biomedicine and data science, Hanna has established a track record in cutting-edge immuno-oncology research, created a new platform for interdisciplinary scientists. Building on that experience, she is now developing a fundamentally new approach for disease detection at decyte.

She earned her PhD from King’s College London and the Francis Crick Institute as one of the youngest graduates in the university’s history.

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Joanna Soroka

Investment Partner, Hitachi Ventures

Joanna combines deep technical expertise in biotechnology with business acumen in strategy and innovation. As Investment Partner at Hitachi Ventures, she leads global healthcare investments across techbio, biotech, life sciences, platforms, data, AI, and automation.

Prior to Hitachi Ventures, Joanna was at PwC, where she advised pharma clients at the intersection of digital technologies and medicine. She also held strategy, R&D, and innovation roles in healthcare IT, diagnostics, and precision medicine at Konica Minolta.

Joanna holds an M.Sc. in Biology from Jagiellonian University, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biotechnology from the Technical University of Munich, and completed postdoctoral training in Genetics and Oncology at Cancer Research UK.

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Clare Terlouw

Head of LifeArc Ventures, LifeArc

Clare Terlouw is Head of LifeArc Ventures, responsible for LifeArc’s portfolio of direct and LP investments across the life sciences sector. The venture investment fund focuses on early stage life sciences companies at seed to Series A, with significant follow-on investment reserved for successful portfolio companies.

Clare has significant expertise in funding innovative life sciences companies in the private and public markets. She was previously Head of Corporate Development at Syncona Investment Management Ltd, a FTSE250 healthcare investment trust which builds and invests in life science companies, and has more than 15 years of biotech and healthcare financing experience as a UK investment banker at Nomura, Numis Securities and Peel Hunt. Clare was a physiotherapist in Canada prior to moving into finance.

Clare is a board member of the UK Biotechnology Industry Association and director of a number of venture-backed companies.

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Esther Wershof

Senior Scientist, Altos Labs

Dr Esther Wershof is a Senior Scientist in the Machine Learning group at Altos Labs, where she architects AI-driven platforms to model cell rejuvenation and reverse disease. Operating at the cutting edge of Lab-in-the-Loop engineering , she recently co-led the global team that won the prestigious $100k ARC Virtual Cell Challenge at NeurIPS 2025 and launched a pioneering open-source benchmarking platform that is setting new standards for perturbation prediction.

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Krzysztof B. Wicher

CSO, HERlab

Dr. Krzysztof B. Wicher is the CSO at HERlab, a Cambridge-based company mining microbial diversity with AI to solve the hardest protein expression problems. One thread runs through his career: getting difficult biologics made. As SVP of Drug Discovery and Development at Macomics, he built and led a first-in-class anti-LILRB monoclonal antibody programme through preclinical development, working at the frontier of functional genomics and immuno-oncology. At HERlab, that lens turns upstream — to the host itself — analysing, discovering and engineering non-conventional yeast into expression systems that produce monoclonal antibodies, offering an alternative where CHO is too expensive and too complex, or where standard yeasts don’t work.

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