Presentation
The projects presenting at the bioProcessUK Dragon’s Den session have been funded by Innovate UK’s Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation programme (SMMIP) – a flagship initiative supporting industry-led innovation towards more sustainable medicines manufacturing in the UK.
During this session, five standout SMMIP-funded projects will pitch their solutions and compete for the audience vote. These projects address key environmental challenges in pharmaceutical production, including waste reduction, emissions control and energy efficiency.
The SMMIP is part of the wider £400 million VPAG Investment Programme, a joint government-industry programme to strengthen the UK’s global competitiveness in health and life sciences and drive innovation-led growth.
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.
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.
