Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top Oxford based Founder operating in the Biopharma space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Sebastian Brunemeier
Founder & COO of Samsara Therapeutics
Sebastian Brunemeier is the Founder and COO of Samsara Therapeutics.
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About Cyclone Therapeutics, Samsara Therapeutics, U.S. Department of State, University of Oxford: Samsara Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company that aims to discover therapeutics to treat rare genetic and neurodegenerative disease.
James Noble
Founder & CEO of Adaptimmune
James Noble has served as our full-time Chief Executive Officer since March 2014 and part-time CEO from July 2008 to March 2014 and is one of our co-founders. From July 2008 until March 2014, Mr. Noble was also part-time CEO of Immunocore. Mr. Noble has 24 years of experience in the biotech industry. He has held numerous non-executive director positions, including at CuraGen Corporation, PowderJect Pharmaceuticals plc, Oxford GlycoSciences plc, MediGene AG, and Advanced Medical Solutions plc. Mr. Noble is also Deputy Chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals plc and a non-executive director of Immunocore Limited. Mr. Noble is qualified as a chartered accountant with Pricewaterhouse Coopers and spent seven years at the investment bank Kleinwort Benson Limited, where he became a director in 1990. He then joined British Biotech plc as Chief Financial Officer from 1990 to 1997. Mr. Noble was previously Chief Executive Officer of Avidex Limited, a privately held biotechnology company that was our predecessor, from 2000 to 2006. Mr. Noble holds an MA from the University of Oxford.
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About Adaptimmune, Advanced Medical Solutions, Curagen Corporation, MediGene, Oxford GlycoSciences, PowderJect Pharmaceuticals: Adaptimmune develops T cell therapies to treat cancer, human immunodeficiency virus, and infectious diseases.
Martin-Immanuel Bittner
Co-Founder & CEO of Arctoris
Martin-Immanuel Bittner MD DPhil is a clinician-scientist and life sciences entrepreneur. He is a Rhodes scholar, an active member of several leading cancer research organisations, and an elected member of the Young Academy of the German National Academy of Sciences. Martin is a Co-Founder & CEO of Arctoris, the world’s first fully automated drug discovery platform.
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About Arctoris: Arctoris is a tech-enabled platform company in biotechnology, combining robotics & data science to accelerate drug discovery.
Thomas Fleming
Co-Founder & COO of Arctoris
Thomas Fleming is an award-winning chemist, cancer researcher, and SME Leader of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Tom is the Co-Founder & COO at Arctoris.
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About Arctoris: Arctoris is a tech-enabled platform company in biotechnology, combining robotics & data science to accelerate drug discovery.
Chris Spencer
Co-Founder and Head of Innovation of Genomics
Chris Spencer is Founder of Genomics PLC and serves as its Director. Chris Spencer’s collect, curate, analyse and interpret very large amounts of genetic data to help understand human diseases. His career has happily coincided with an era of collaboration it made major inroads into understanding of human genetics. He has played a lead analytical role in the International HapMap project and the Wellcome Trust Cases Controls Consortium. As a young scientist, his early work in large scale human data was awarded the Corcoran Memorial Prize from the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford, which is awarded every two years for outstanding graduate work. His works are Cell-Mediated Immune Mechanisms, Visceral Leishmaniasis and Large Vessel Ischemic Stroke.
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About Genomics: Genomics plc aiming to lead the genomic transformation of healthcare.
Gil McVean
Co Founder & Director of Genomics
Gil McVean is Professor of Statistical Genetics at the University of Oxford and Head of Bioinformatics and Statistical Genetics at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. After an undergraduate training in Zoology, he obtained a PhD with Laurence Hurst in Cambridge and worked with Brian and Deborah Charlesworth in Edinburgh before joining Oxford in 2000. His research focuses on understanding the molecular and evolutionary processes that shape genetic variation in populations and the relationship between genetic variation and phenotype. He has made contributions to our understanding of areas including recombination hotspots, historical patterns of natural selection, the male mutation rate, human genetic variation, the role of HLA in complex disease and genealogical processes. He has played a leading role in the HapMap and 1000 Genomes Projects and currently works on organisms from HIV to malaria.
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About Genomics: Genomics plc aiming to lead the genomic transformation of healthcare.
Charalambos Antoniades
Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Caristo Diagnostics
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About Caristo Diagnostics: Caristo Diagnostics utilises standard CT scans to identify potentially heart-stopping plaques
