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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Mark Austin

CTO, IXICO

Mark's expertise lies at the intersection of technology and neuroscience, with extensive experience in software development and AI focused on image management and analysis solutions. Mark graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Engineering and holds a PhD in Information Engineering also from Oxford University, where he worked in the Wolfson Medical Visions Lab focused on computer vision, artificial intelligence and software development. Since joining IXICO in 2008, Mark has held various technology and development roles, playing a pivotal part in the development and evolution of the company's AI-driven platform, TrialTracker™. He leads technology strategy and initiatives to accelerate the scalability of IXICO’s Platform.

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Ewan Birney

Director, EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)

Ewan Birney is the Director of EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), which manages the world's most comprehensive suite of open molecular data resources. He also leads a research group working on inter-individual variation in humans and Medaka fish, as well as novel algorithmic methods for genomics.

Between 2020 and 2025, Ewan held key leadership roles at EMBL. He has been Director of EMBL-EBI since 2015 and was Associate Director from 2012 to 2015. Before that, he was the Head of Nucleotide Data at EMBL-EBI (2000-2015).

Ewan led the analysis of the Human Genome gene set, mouse and chicken genomes and the ENCODE project, focusing on non-coding elements of the human genome. His main areas of research include functional genomics, DNA algorithms, statistical methods to analyse genomic information, and use of images for chromatin structure.

A non-executive Director of Genomics England and the UK’s Health Data Research Service, Ewan is also a consultant and advisor to a number of companies, including Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Cantata Bio.

He was elected an EMBO member in 2012, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015. Ewan was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019. He was also elected as a member of The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2024.

In 2019, Ewan became a Board Member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Ewan serves on a number of Scientific Advisory Boards, including for the Wellcome Genome Campus, DKFZ, the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), Institute Pasteur, Riken Institute, Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), the Norwegian Centre for Molecular Biosciences and Medicine (NCMBM), and the Research Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) in Vienna.

He has received a number of awards, including the 2003 Francis Crick Award from the Royal Society, the 2005 Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology, and the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Award for contributions in Open Source Bioinformatics.

Ewan completed his PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute with Richard Durbin. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Tartu in Estonia and Birkbeck College at the University of London, UK.

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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, Charm Therapeutics

Her 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 CEO, 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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Timothé Cynober

Head of Business Development & Licensing, WhiteLab Genomics

Timothé Cynober is a Head of Business Development & Licensing at Whitelab Genomics and Chairman of the Techbio France initiative. Prior to joining WLG, Timothé held various positions in open innovation, technology transfer, and licensing at Institut Curie, where he worked as a Business Manager for four years, and at Novartis France, where he served as an Open Innovation Manager for two years. Timothé also has experience in regulatory affairs consulting, having worked at Voisin Consulting Life Science. He holds a Doctorate in Pharmacy and a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and Innovative Therapies from Université Paris-Saclay.

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Mathilda Davidson

Partner, Osborne Clarke

Mathilda Davidson is an experienced life sciences and intellectual property licensing and transactional lawyer at Osborne Clarke. She advises on research collaborations, licensing, and IP transactional issues in the life sciences and wider IP industries. Mathilda has a particular focus on strategic research and development, collaboration, and licensing deals in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

Mathilda advises life sciences business throughout the ecosystem, from multinational biopharma businesses to UK and European biotech companies, and has particular experience in market-leading, high-value complex collaborations, partnering deals and marketed product acquisitions/disposals. She has also previously spent time on in-house secondment at Cancer Research Horizons (part of Cancer Research UK), advising on R&D partnerships with the UK and international research communities and commercialisation deals with industry.

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Ella Donegan

Partner, Cooley

Ella advises clients on corporate matters across the business life cycle, with a particular focus on transactions at the intersection of the tech and life sciences sectors, including in the digital health space. Her experience includes advising investors and companies, from startups to high-growth companies, on projects including venture capital financings, M&A and general corporate transactions.

Before beginning her law career, Ella worked as a medical doctor in the National Health Service.

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Lee Dunham

CBO and Co-Founder, Houdini Bio

Lee Dunham is Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Houdini Bio, a synthetic biology and AI company developing technologies to improve the performance of engineered DNA medicines. He has worked across molecular science, life sciences technology transfer, business development and cell and gene therapy, with a focus on translating emerging technologies into commercial partnerships and therapeutic applications. At Houdini Bio, Lee leads commercial strategy, partnerships, fundraising and operations.

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Tim Eyes

Founder / Director of Programs, Imperagen

Tim Eyes is Co-founder and Director of Programs at Imperagen. Imperagen’s closed-loop platform combines AI with physics-based simulation, advanced gene assembly and laboratory automation to accelerate the optimisation of high-performance enzymes for pharmaceutical, chemical and consumer applications.

As part of the founding team, Tim has helped develop the technology, secure over £10 million in combined investment and grant support, and build commercial traction. A bioengineer with over 20 years’ experience in protein engineering, he holds a PhD from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and an Enterprise Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is passionate about harnessing biology to enable more sustainable and efficient manufacturing, helping build a brighter future.

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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

Co-Founder and CEO, 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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Laura Haden-Smith

Director, Technology Business Development, GSK

Laura Haden-Smith is Director of Technology Business Development at GSK, based in London. The Technology Business Development team at GSK is responsible for identifying and acquiring platform technologies and tools that enable drug development from target discovery through clinical development. Laura's focus within the team is novel data generation, AI/ML foundation models, and target identification and discovery collaborations, where she leads the scoping, diligence, evaluation, negotiation and execution of these technology partnerships. Laura joined GSK in February 2024 and has worked alongside and in the Business Development team throughout, initially on competitive intelligence and deal intelligence support prior to becoming a deal lead. Prior to joining GSK, Laura worked in competitive intelligence and life sciences strategy. Laura received her MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge and a BSc(Eng) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town.

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Peter Hamley

Founder and CEO, 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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Trevor Howe

Co-Founder and Chief Partnerships Officer, Open Immune Foundation

Trevor has directed local and Worldwide groups in Computational Chemistry, Computational Biology, Structural Biology, Genetics and Genomics for Lilly, Novartis and Janssen/Johnson & Johnson. He has experience of multiple disease areas but principally in Neuroscience and Immunology seeing projects through from invention of the molecule to phase 2.

His first degree was in Chemistry from the University of Exter followed by MSc and PhD at University of East Anglia and a postdoc at SUNY Buffalo. When at Lilly he was simultaneously a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford with Prof Graham Richards. Before AI was AI Trevor helped develop Bayesian analysis methods and Markov models in the early 90’s.

Trevor has served on multiple UK Research Council scientific advisory bodies particularly in the area of genomics. He has been a visiting Industrial Fellow at Bristol University was a co-founder of the Phenotypic Discovery Initiative (http://npsc.ac.uk/consortia) which he established with the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh and Dundee. In 2019 he was the J&J scientific lead for a consortium which executed the world’s biggest whole genome sequencing project on the 500,000 samples in the UK BioBank. He was the scientific lead for J&J’s involvement in Our Future Health https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk.

He is co-founder and Chief Partnerships Officer of the not-for-profit Open Immune Foundation

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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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Davor Ivankovic

CTO, Biozeroc

Davor Ivankovic is co-founder and CTO of Biozeroc, a Cambridge-based industrial biocatalysis company building the reactor platform that enables engineered enzymes to run continuously in existing processes. At Biozeroc he leads a multidisciplinary technical team spanning biotechnology, chemical process engineering and systems engineering. He holds a PhD in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience from UCL and a degree in Neuroscience from Trinity College Dublin.

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Simon Kohl

Founder & CEO, Latent Labs

Simon previously co-led DeepMind’s protein design team, where he co-developed AlphaFold2 and created pLDDT, AlphaFold2’s widely used measure for predicting structural confidence. Before joining DeepMind, he completed his PhD at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, where he developed generative models for biomedical image segmentation.

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Rosemary Liu

Senior Director, Business Development, Nxera

Rosemary Liu is a Senior Director in Business Development at Nxera Pharma, covering licensing, research collaborations and newco creation across the company's GPCR-targeted pipeline and structure-based drug discovery platform. She previously held business development roles at Genomics Inc and Johnson & Johnson Innovation. Rosemary began her career as an investment banking analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. and subsequently as a Director on the Medical Devices equity research team at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. 

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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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Agata Nyga

CEO and Co-Founder, Mechanome Bio

Dr Agata Nyga is co-founder and CEO of Mechanome Bio, a Cambridge-based TechBio company applying AI to map and drug mechanical layer of disease - mechanome. At Mechanome, she combines spatial multi-omics, mechanomics and advanced disease model to turn mechano-associated pathways into therapeutic opportunities. She has over 15 years of experience driving innovative science and acts as a policy advisor for non-for-profit organisations.

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Hugh O'Brien

Founder, Lir Therapeutics

Hugh is an AI researcher and engineer building state-of-the-art models for biology. Before founding Lir, he was senior AI research engineer at Achilles Therapeutics, where he led development work on an EU Horizon-funded international collaboration developing immunogenicity prediction models. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from King's College London, focused on AI for medical imaging, and spent five years as a software engineer building commercial scientific software. His background that lets him move fluidly between cutting-edge ML research and production-grade engineering.

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Nikolas Pontikos

Co-Founder and CEO, Eye2Gene

Internationally recognised scientist in artificial intelligence for ophthalmology, with deep expertise in bioinformatics, machine learning, with over 10 years experience in the field of genetic eye diseases. Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and former Deputy Director of Data Science at the Moorfields Eye Hospital Clinical AI Lab, he brings a strong academic and translational research background, with a proven track record publishing over 200 papers and securing over £3M in grant funding. He leads Eye2Gene’s scientific strategy and external partnerships.

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Dave Powell

President, Drug Discovery, Relation Therapeutics

Dave Powell, PhD, is President of Drug Discovery at Relation, an end-to-end biotech developing transformational medicines, with technology at its core. At Relation, Dave leads experimental drug discovery efforts, including functional genomics, tissue profiling, and target validation, and plays a key role in shaping the company’s early pipeline and future modalities.

Dave is a seasoned R&D leader with more than 25 years of experience across GSK, Summit Therapeutics, and LifeArc, where he served as CSO and led a 150+ person team spanning biologics discovery, small molecule chemistry, diagnostics development, and data sciences. His career spans discovery through Phase 3 clinical trials, with particular strength in preclinical asset progression.

A progressive and collaborative leader, Dave is known for his ability to build and scale high-performing teams and for his laser focus on delivering science that makes a difference for patients.

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Toby Richardson

Senior Director, External Scientific Innovation, Johnson & Johnson

Toby is leading Search & Evaluation for the UK and the Nordics within Johnson & Johnson External Scientific Innovation. Before this, he led the identification, incubation, due diligence, negotiation, portfolio management and on-boarding of immunology innovation in EMEA, working in close partnership with the J&J's Immunology Therapeutic Area and Global Business Development. Prior to J&J, Toby was the Head of BD & Licensing at the Institute of Cancer Research, ranked as the leading higher education institute in the UK for research quality and impact. 

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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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Diana Roettger

Investment Principal, LifeArc Ventures

Diana joined LifeArc as Investment Principal at LifeArc Ventures in 2025. She is responsible for new investments and managing existing portfolio companies.

Diana is an experienced Health and Bio venture capitalist, with 8 years of operational experience in a medical software scale-up. She was a Principal at Apex Ventures focused on early-stage investments through their medical fund, specialising in opportunities at the intersection of technology, biology, and healthcare. She held six portfolio board positions providing supervision, guidance and support. Prior to this, Diana was Chief Scientific Alliance Officer for IAG (Image Analysis Group), a software scale-up specialising in AI imaging technology for biopharma.

Diana was a Research Observer at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, MA focused on software for medical diagnosis and surgical planning. She has a Ph.D in software for neuroimaging and a MSc. in medical computer science from the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany.

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Nicolas Stalder

Investment Principal, Debiopharm Innovation Fund

Nicolas Stalder is a Principal at the Debiopharm Innovation Fund, which he joined in 2022. Prior to joining Debiopharm, he held strategic innovation roles at GSK, leading disruptive digital transformation initiatives. At Debiopharm, Nicolas focuses on Seed to Series A investments in digital technologies reshaping drug development. In addition to his investment activities, he serves on Debiopharm’s Digital Committee and sits on the boards of several portfolio companies.

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Verena Stocker

Associate Vice President and Regional Head of Lilly Gateway Labs Europe, Lilly

Verena is Regional Head of Lilly Gateway Labs Europe, Korea and global lead of virtual Gateway Labs. Based in London, she connects Lilly with an entrepreneurial community that drives innovation and fosters deep scientific and drug development exchanges.

Prior to joining Lilly, Verena held dual national roles as Managing Director of the Accelerated Access Collaboration and Director of Innovation, Research and Life Sciences Strategy at NHS England, where she led cross-sector efforts with academia, industry, government and patient organizations to accelerate the adoption and spread of health innovation across England.

In these roles, Verena oversaw a broad and high-impact portfolio spanning clinical research, secure data environments, horizon scanning, strategic industry partnerships, digital therapeutics, and the adoption of innovative medicines and medtech. She also held national commissioning responsibility for key components of the NHS innovation ecosystem, including the Health Innovation Networks, Clinical Entrepreneur Programme and the NHS Innovation Accelerator.

Earlier in her career at NHS England, she held several senior leadership positions, including leading the Ministerially-commissioned review into digital transformation in the NHS; leading the NHS Transformation Strategy function; and driving system reform to establish Integrated Care Systems.

Verena has also worked with governments globally at the Tony Blair Institute, where she advised on health and life sciences strategies. She began her career as a health policy advisor in the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, before moving into healthcare management consulting in Australia and the UK, advising public and private sector clients on health system reform and service innovation. She is a graduate from the University of Sydney and the University of Oxford, and is a Non-Executive Director at Health Innovation East, a CW+ Trustee, and a Sciana Healthcare Fellow.

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Sam Taylor

Senior Innovation Advisory Partner, ForrestBrown

Sam is a Senior Innovation Advisory Partner at ForrestBrown, the UK's leading innovation incentives consultancy. He works with innovative businesses to drive growth and transformation through strategic advice on securing funding, commercialising intellectual property, and making informed investment decisions related to their R&D.

Prior to joining ForrestBrown, Sam was Head of Client Development and External Affairs a spin out of the University of Cambridge and qualitative research consultancy specialising in bringing patient and staff experience closer to the development of new products, processes, and policies. Earlier in his career, Sam held a variety of research management and strategy roles within Russell Group universities.

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Clare Terlouw

Managing Partner, 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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Lea Wenger

Co-Founder and CEO, Cyclana Bio

With a background in Veterinary Medicine and a PhD in Neuroscience from Cambridge University, Léa brings years of therapeutic research experience in both academia and industry to tackle the challenges faced in Endometriosis research.

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Esther Wershof

Senior Scientist, Machine Learning group , 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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Lilly Wollman

Co-Founder & CEO, Synteny

Lilly is the co-founder and CEO of Synteny.  Synteny combines high throughput experimental data generation with generative AI to design precision TCR-guided therapies.  The mission of the company is to generalisably decode the law of recognition of TCRs for antigens.

Lilly previously held a leadership position at the foremost sustainability investment firm as partner and co-head of the Growth Equity platform for Generation Investment Management, the $32 billion AUM investment firm founded by Al Gore and David Blood.  At Generation, she was responsible for the firm’s investments in early-stage technology companies which drive the transition to a sustainable economy. Lilly started her career at Goldman Sachs (Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities) and held leadership positions at Fortress Investment Group and the Baupost Group.

Lilly has been a member of the Board of Directors of Sophia Genetics, Andela, Cibo Technologies.

Lilly received her BA in Mathematics magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College, an MBA from INSEAD, an MSc Finance from London Business School and an MPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Cambridge (graduated with distinction). At Cambridge, she worked as a research associate in the CRUK Early Cancer Institute, in the lab of Synteny’s scientific co-founder, Jamie Blundell, and completed her thesis focused on generative models of TCR repertoires.

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