Speakers
Inga Deakin
Jonathan Tobin
Oliver Lyth
Prashant Shah
Danny Bosch
Julia Hawkins
Filippo Dal Ben
Chloe Zhang
Sally Epstein
Roundtable
We have brought together a number of investors in the sector to share their perspective and to help you better understand the financial landscape and how to navigate it. Each will host a table on a particular topic, and you will be able to choose 3 topics during the course of the session.
Inga brings hands-on investment experience in life sciences and digital health, working with ventures spun out of leading UK universities. Her career has also included time in the US, where she gained international industry and healthcare expertise as Chief of Staff at a commercial-stage genetic molecular diagnostics company, and as Entrepreneur in Residence at Duke University.
Her scientific foundation includes a DPhil and MSc in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford, complemented by a BA from the University of Cambridge. This blend of academic rigor and industry insight fuels her enthusiasm for supporting innovators who are advancing the future of healthcare.
Jonathan is a Partner based in Brandon’s London office and serves on the boards of Pheon Therapeutics, Myricx Bio, AstronautX, Salvina, Catalym, and Cincera. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Arix Bioscience, where he built the team and portfolio, sitting on boards including Artios Pharma and VelosBio (acquired by Merck for $2.75bn). Before Arix, Jonathan was a Principal at Touchstone Innovations, helping build biotech spin-outs like Inivata (acquired for $415m).
Jonathan holds a first-class degree in Biology from Oxford University, a PhD in Molecular Medicine from UCL, and an MBA from Imperial College. He conducted postdoctoral research on cancer cell signalling at Cancer Research UK, publishing in Nature Genetics and NEJM. He is a trustee of the Autism Centre for Excellence, investor-in-residence at Cancer Research Horizons, and part of the KHAN drug discovery fund investment advisory committee.
o2h Ventures was co-founded by Sunil and Prashant Shah in 2013. In the last 3-4 years, they have co-founded four companies with UK-based academics and entrepreneurs, provided consultancy services to five companies, held Chairman or Director level positions in nine companies, built up a portfolio of twenty early-stage investments, and executed early-stage drug discovery research projects for fifteen different companies. In 2013, bucking a pattern of UK Science going to the USA for funding, Sunil and Prashant acted quickly to lead an academic spin out from the USA with promising data in brain cancer and proceeded to run, externally fund and locate that company, Opal Oncology, in the UK. It provided direct hands-on experience of making the scientific decisions and managing the operations of a therapeutics company.
Danny Bosch, Ph.D., MBA is an Investor-Operator and the Founder of DGB Strategy, where he provides strategic commercial and fundraising advisory to Seed and Series A ventures. Specialising in venture architecture, Danny helps founders translate complex scientific innovation into scalable, bankable commercial reality for institutional investors.
He is deeply embedded in the UK health and venture ecosystem as a Health Executive in Residence at UCL, a venture-backed advisor, and a mentor for several top-tier accelerators. Danny brings deep institutional insight to his advisory work from his ongoing role as Director of Business Development at Maudsley Enterprise (SLaM NHS FT), as well as his past leadership in architecting data-monetisation models for the London Secure Data Environment (SDE). By combining his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with an Executive MBA, Danny bridges the gap between rigorous clinical evidence and private-sector capital strategy.
Filippo is Investment Manager at The Pioneer Group, the largest investor and operator of life sciences campuses across the UK and Ireland. In this role, he leads the sourcing and due diligence of innovative companies in drug discovery, medical devices, diagnostics, digital health, and therapeutic platforms. To date, he has successfully facilitated over £6.8m in fundraising across MedTech and Advanced Therapies.
Previously, he was a founding team member at a start-up focused on diagnostics for blood cancers and infectious diseases and served as a strategic consultant to pharmaceutical companies in the mRNA vaccine sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chloe is Investor Relationships Manager of CPI Enterprises, based in London to expand the deep tech investor community, and to engage with academia and SMEs to explore potential investment and partnership opportunities.
Prior to joining CPI, Chloe has 9 years significant experience of the early-stage investment ecosystem. She was partner at China's first and largest Entrepreneurship educational platform and incubator before co-founding a US-China-based micro-VC and accelerator, which she later exited successfully. She then launched the UK entity of a family office and CVC, G5 Capital before joining CPI in 2022. Chloe started her career in media and consulting. She holds an MBA from Imperial College Business School and a MSc in Financial Journalism from City University London.
Sally is an AI and science strategist.
Before joining CIC, Sally served as Chief Innovation Officer at Cambridge Consultants, where she led the deep tech incubator and guided investments in quantum technologies, human–machine understanding, and photonics. She also served as a subject matter expert at Darktrace.
Sally holds a PhD from King’s College London and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Oxford.
