Alek has a diverse background in drug development spanning more than thirty years. Trained as a pharmacist, he worked in regulatory affairs and clinical research roles for European and US-based multinational pharmaceutical companies in Australia, with responsibility across the Asia-Pacific. He subsequently founded Novotech, a Sydney-based contract research organisation working with hundreds of clinical stage biotech companies over a twenty-one year period. Alek holds a BPharm and an MBA from the University of Sydney.
Robert has a successful background in venture capital and Big Pharma, with companies such as GSK and Eli Lilly. He is a passionate startup entrepeneur with experience in university technology transfer. Robert holds a BSc in Physiology and a PhD in Neurophysiology.
Katie has a strong background in venture capital and the healthcare industry. She has held roles in Health Economics and Market Access and Account Management at Johnson & Johnson. She holds a BMedSc in Medical Science and an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from Cambridge University.
Daniel has a broad range of expertise in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. He has attended prestigious research-led institutions in the UK and Singapore, and he has extensive experience of developing ‘omics’ solutions within a successful biotech start-up company. Daniel holds a BSc in Biochemistry, an MSc in Bioinformatics and PhD in Computational Biochemistry.
Roy has over 30 years of industry experience in anti-inflammatory and oncology drug discovery and development. He is the founder and CSO at Orca Pharmaceuticals, a program licensed to AstraZeneca and has previously served as the research director at Atopix, which was sold to Chiesi in in 2016. He has also held senior R&D executive positions in biotech (Oxagen & AdoRx)and Pharma(Pfizer & Wellcome). Roy holds a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of London.
Mick has over 30 years biotech/pharmaceutical experience preclinical and clinical development. He has experience of the R&D process from concept to clinical development. He has managed process development and a GMP Biologics plantand overseen in excess of 20 clinical studies, most recently in inflammation indications. Mick held senior R&D executive positions at Atopix, Oxagen, British Biotech and as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Evotec. He was the CSO of Atopix, sold to Chiesi in 2016 and the founder and CEO of Orca Pharmaceuticals, whose ROR gamma program was licensed to AstraZeneca and to Brickell Biotech. Mick holds a PhD in Molecular Biology/Genetics from the University of Nottingham.
Mark has a 40 year background in applying protein engineering to drug discovery and development and is now a free-lance consultant providing advice to life-science start-up companies. He has previously held positions at Searle, PA Technology, British Biotech and was the founding Director at Oxagen. He holds a BA in Biochemistry and DPhil in bacterial gene expression from Oxford.
In a research career spanning 30 years, Michael has worked across academic, biotech and pharmaceutical industries, specialising in protein and antibody engineering. He was formerly Head of Lead Discovery and Director of Antibody Technologies within GSKs Biopharm R&D unit. Before this, he served in a senior role at Domantis Ltd and has also performed prominent roles for other biotech companies and organisations working in diverse areas such as immunodiagnostics and epigenetics.
Professor of Cancer Biology, Kings College London and Principal Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. He is an expert on oncogenes – the genes that drive cancer development and has played a vital role in identifying some of these genes, e.g. the transcription factor Myc, and revealing how they fuel the disease. Until May 2022 he was Sir William Dunn Professor and Head of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, and prior to that, he was a distinguished professor of cancer research at UCSF. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Royal Society.
Robert brings over 20 years of drug development experience. He is VP of product development at ILC therapeutics. He was previously the Senior Director of Preclinical at MiroBio. Before this, Robert worked at Oxford Biotherapeutics, where he was UK site head and Scientific Director leading the development of their therapeutic antibody programs in immune-oncology and oncology. Previously Rob has been a Group Leader and Scientific Investigator at the MRC Toxicology Unit and Oxford Glycosciences.
Namshik is the Head of Computational Research group at the University of Cambridge Milner Therapeutics Institute. The group develops and applies cutting-edge computational methods, to identify new or better therapies from the analysis of biological data. Prior to Cambridge, he was a postdoc in computational cancer genomics at the University of Manchester. He has also worked in software development for Samsung Electronics.
Jasmin is a Professor of Computational Biology at UCL. The Fisher Lab develops computational tools to study the evolution of cancer and its underlying mechanisms to identify personalised treatment. Prior to joing UCL Jasmin was a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge and an Associate Professor in Systems Biology at Cambridge University.
Jyoti is a Professor of Functional Proteomics at the Institute of Cancer Research. Her research focuses on developing and implementing novel mass spectrometry, and data analysis approaches for proteome discovery. She is also Head of the Proteomics Facility at the Institute of Cancer Research. Before joining the ICR, Jyoti was Head of Proteomic Mass Spectrometry Platform at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. She was a cofounder of Cellzome AG, which was spun out of GSK.