3.45pm – 4.45pm BST, 22 May 2025 ‐ 1 hour
Roundtables
Investment Director, Calculus Capital
Head of Innovation and Venture Development, Discovery Park
Renos has experience on both sides of the investment deal table, both with Discovery Park Ventures in scouting and diligence and as a successfully exited tech inventor/ co-founder with Domainex, among other life science stealth startup plays.
He developed and convened the Bio-business programme for University of London postgraduates,
which inspired and guided business minded students and postdocs to follow their personal star as startup founders, and into ecosystem specialist roles.
Renos has recently devised the DPV investment thesis as principal for the next phase of the fund.
Renos now leverages his insights and connections as a mentor to founders and adviser to startups, at Discovery Park and via his external venture builder affiliations.
Through network enabling programmes and series, he empowers entrepreneurial tech founders at Discovery Park: Delivering both the Discovery Spark programme, and, with the Kent Barclays Eagle Labs the Greenhouse incubator for CoLaB based founders. These initiatives emphasise insightful ecosystem driven commercial sustainability mindsets to enable investment readiness and visibility to DPV and its partners.
Investor
Andy is an entrepreneur and investor with an established track record in founding and scaling up innovative Life-science, Biotechnology and Digital Health companies in the UK. He is currently Chairman of Congenica, Closed Loop Medicine, Arecor Therapeutics plc, Ieso Digital Health and Owlstone Medical. He is a director of Cancer Research Horizons (the commercial board of CR-UK) and the Scale-Up institute and is an advisor to several investment funds, including Cambridge Innovation Capital, the UCL Technology Fund, and the CRUK Seed Fund. He is a council member of the UKRI MRC.
Andy is a Cambridge Graduate with a PhD in Chemistry and an early career spanning positions with ICI (now AstraZeneca) and PA Technology. He was a founder and executive director of Chiroscience plc until its merger with Celltech in 1999 and since that time he has founded, invested in and helped to scale more than 30 innovative ventures including companies such as Vectura, Arakis, Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd and Geneservice. Andy is also a founder member of the Cambridge Angels.
Andy is passionate about science and the translation of science to do good for society. The Life-sciences and Healthcare sectors provide the perfect arena for translating science into technology that can help people around the world. He received a CBE for services to investment in life-sciences in 2015.
Co-Founder, NG Bio
Besides co-leading the company's operations, Jason heads the strategic arm of NG Bio. He defines the venture builder's business development and investment strategy, including previous angel investments in Cellesce (bioprocessing), HexagonFab (biosensors) and LightOx (oncology).
Jason has worked with entrepreneurs across the life sciences as an advisor and angel investor for over five years. Before starting NG Bio, he helped founders in the biotech and mental health space go from ideation to funding and beyond. Prior to his entrepreneurial experience, Jason worked for EY in London and Tokyo, supporting Japanese biotechs and pharmaceutical companies with restructuring and M&A.
Jason holds an MBA from London Business School and is a Chartered Accountant. He graduated with a first-class bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Loughborough University.
Investment Principle, LifeArc Ventures
Jonathan joined LifeArc as an Investment Principal at LifeArc Ventures in 2024. He is responsible for new investments and managing existing portfolio companies.
Prior to joining LifeArc, Jon was an Associate with the Biotechnology team at M Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Merck KGaA, where he was responsible for new investments and existing portfolio companies with a focus on therapeutics and life sciences. Prior to this, he was an Associate at UBS in the Healthcare Investment Banking Group in London, as well as a Life Science Specialist at L.E.K. Consulting.
Jon started his career as a doctor in London and holds Degrees in Medicine and Neuroscience from Imperial College London.
Senior Analyst, SV Health Investors
Lennart joined SV in 2024 as a Senior Analyst in the DDF team. Prior to joining SV, Lennart was as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, alongside project work at Syncona Partners, Start Codon, and Cambridge Enterprise.
During his Postdoc, Lennart was a research lead in the lab of Dr Caroline Williams-Gray & Prof Roger Barker, where he investigated peripheral versus central inflammation and neurotransmitter system dysregulation as drivers of proteinopathy and disease progression in Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. He received his PhD in Clinical Neurosciences and has published in high impact journals (PNAS, Brain, Neurocritical Care, Neuroimage). During his studies at Cambridge he co-founded the Queens’ College Entrepreneurship Centre.
In his free time, Lennart enjoys playing the bagpipes, hiking off-grid, taking (bad) film photographs, and reviving classic cars.
Investor
Oliver Colville currently works with a US specialist hedge fund that invests only in small and mid size biotech companies at clinical or commercial stage. Previously he was an Associate at the Apeiron Investment Group, focussing on early-stage biotech building and investing in the UK and US. Additionally, he has also spent time in life science VC at Fountain Healthcare Partners. Previously, Oliver was at Torreya, a boutique Investment Bank, working on M&A/licensing transactions and equity raises for biotech/pharma clients. He has degrees from Imperial College London and Newcastle University where he studied Cancer Biology and Pharmacology.Investment Director, Future Planet Capital
Oliver is an Investment Director at UKI2S. Specialising in life science investments he has managed the enlarged £33m engineering biology sub-fund since its inception in 2014. He has invested in a broad range of companies in sectors as diverse as therapeutic, agritech and clean biotech.
He sits on multiple boards and has overseen exits including the £85m sale of Quethera to Astellas. He is also a member of the Future Planet Capital ESG steering group.
Prior to joining UKI2S, Oliver worked at the venture fund Imperial Innovations as well as other roles in the industry. He has a background in strategy analysis and consultancy including roles in New York and has a masters from the University of Bristol and commenced a PhD in bioremediation at the University of Nottingham.
Associate Director, Ventures, Cancer Research Horizons
Phil has a BSc in Cell Biology from the University of Essex, and a PhD in Virology from the University of Cambridge. After a post-doc position at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in London, Phil spent a number of years managing R&D programmes in the biotech industry.
He moved into technology transfer in 2003 when he joined Cancer Research Horizons (formerly called Cancer Research Technology). Since that time, he has built up extensive experience of managing and commercialising healthcare technologies from academic origins, focusing in recent years on the creation of innovative and transformative oncology ventures, from ideation to launch.
He has served as a Board Director or Observer for a range of start-up companies including Artios Pharma, Monte Rosa Therapeutics, Infinitopes, MyT BIO, Elaitra and Oncodrug.
CEO and CO-Founder, o2h Group
A serial entrepreneur having begun a career with the Strategy group of at Accenture followed by co-founding two companies in the technology and life sciences sector. The second of these companies focused on drug discovery was acquired by a public company. Prashant co-founded o2h Ventures which is involved in seeding, incubating and investing in early stage life science and technology companies. Prashant has a BEng, MSc and an MPhil in Management.Managing Partner, LQD
Santiago directs the day-to-day activities at LQD, drawing on his experience as an executive, angel investor and founder, as well as a product and strategy consultant. He works with entrepreneurs to understand their ambitions and provides support across the various stages of venture-building.
Prior to founding LQD, Santiago held a range of operational and consultative roles in companies including IBM, IDEO, Method Design, AVG Technologies. He is happiest at the intersection of technology, business, and design, and is passionate about deep tech’s promise to improve the world.
Santiago has held or holds various NED and board seats at early-stage companies in the UK and in charities based in his native country, Ecuador.
Ventures Senior Portfolio Manager, Foresight Group
James is a Ventures Senior Portfolio Manager based in Foresight Group's London office, where he leads the portfolio management of venture-backed healthcare and life sciences companies.
Prior to Foresight, James worked at Oxford Science Enterprises and Mercia Asset Management. James holds an MPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Cambridge.