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 Cambridgeshire based CEO’ operating in the Biotechnology space. If you think a CEO’ 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.
Kevin Lee
Chief Executive Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics
Kevin Lee, Ph.D., MBA, is chief executive officer of Bicycle Therapeutics. Kevin joined Bicycle Therapeutics from Pfizer, where he served as senior vice president and chief scientific officer of the Rare Disease Research Unit. In that role, he held responsibility for more than 20 novel programmes across the full spectrum of research and development, established Pfizer’s rare disease strategy, conceptualized and implemented the company’s gene therapy strategy with the creation of the Genetic Medicine Institute and founded the Rare Disease Research Consortium. Prior to joining Pfizer, Kevin worked at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and, in addition to leading the formation of multiple strategic commercial and academic partnerships, he led epigenetics research and was responsible for the creation of the EpiNova Discovery Performance Unit. Before joining GSK, he lectured at Warwick University Medical School and founded Cambridge Biotechnology (acquired by Biovitrum) and Neurosolutions. Kevin studied pharmaceutical sciences at Nottingham University followed by a Ph.D. in pharmacology at Cambridge University. He undertook postdoctoral training as a Wellcome Trust International Prize Fellow before joining the Parke Davis Research Unit in Cambridge, U.K. Kevin is an author on over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, has an MBA from Warwick Business School and has been awarded an honorary Chair in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of Warwick.
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About Bicycle Therapeutics: Bicycle Therapeutics is developing a technology for the creation of new generation biotherapeutics.
Tom Simmons
Founder & CEO of Supplant
Tom has over 10 years of experience in carbohydrate biochemistry. He formerly held fellowships at the University of Cambridge and at the World Economic Forum and has advocated sugar reduction initiatives through Sky News and Channel 4 television appearances.
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About Cambridge Judge Business School, Supplant: Supplant is a biotechnology platform that makes sugar substitutes.
Mark Kotter
Founder/CEO of bit.bio
Mark Kotter is the founder and CEO of bit.bio.
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About bit.bio: Bit.bio specializes in the fields of coding and biology that determine the identity of every human cell.
Tom Henley
Founder and CEO of Empyrean Therapeutics
Tom Henley is the founder and CEO of Empyrean Therapeutics.
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About Empyrean Therapeutics: Empyrean Therapeutics develops next generation cell therapies to enable global and affordable cures for diseases.
Hannah Sore
Founder and CEO of PharmEnable
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About PharmEnable: PharmEnable has developed a rapid and cost effective way to identify better chemical starting points to drive the discovery.
Paulina Chilarska
CEO & Founder of Cambridge Biolabs
Chilarska’s cutting-edge work at the University of Cambridge was funded by the prestigious 4-Year Wellcome Trust PhD award in Stem Cell Biology. Already at the age of 21 she worked with the Nobel Prize winner Sir Professor Paul Nurse on the cell cycle thus investigating the mechanisms underlying carcinogenesis. Dr Chilarska is an expert in the molecular basis of ageing and strongly believes that ageing is a disease which can be prevented and treated. She is currently wirting a book describing her revolutionary approach to Ageing Prevention and Ageing Reversal. She is fluent in five languages and has international consulting experience.
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About Cambridge Biolabs: Biotech-meets-tech startup developing personalised skincare solutions
Paulo Garcia
CEO & Co-Founder of Kytopen
Dr. Paulo A. Garcia co-invented the Flowfect™ technology while he was a Research Scientist at MIT. He is currently leading the development and commercialization efforts of the proprietary cell engineering platform for therapeutic and biotechnology applications.
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About Kytopen: Kytopen developer of a cell therapy platform for non-viral delivery of molecules into hard-to-transfect immune cells.
Nick Morrell
CEO and co-Founder of Morphogen-IX
Nick is the British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiopulmonary Medicine at the University of Cambridge, based in the Department of Medicine. He has 25 years of experience working in the field of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and is the Research Director of the National Pulmonary Hypertension Service at Papworth Hospital. His research spans clinical translational studies, experimental medicine, genetics, cell and molecular biology and preclinical models of disease. He has published over 200 papers in this field and is an internationally recognised authority on the pathobiology of PAH.
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About Morphogen-IX, Papworth Hospital, University of Cambridge: MORPHOGEN-IX Limited is a drug discovery company founded in 2015 by Index Ventures to develop bone morphogenetic proteins
Benedikt von Thungen
CEO of Sanome
I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Sanome, thanks for stopping by. My academic background is in biosciences. Along with experience in building software companies, I am so excited about the interface of the two fields and how they will change the healthcare industry. I started my entrepreneurial journey during my undergraduate degree and have since built multiple companies across renewable energy, enterprise software, AI, drug discovery, and healthcare. I love building and scaling winning teams in exceptional companies. My long-term vision is to build a human digital twin (a virtual representation of everyone’s biology & health) that allows us to predict any changes to someone’s health before they actually occur, thus enabling true preventative healthcare.
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About Sanome: Transforming diagnostics for all
Chris Torrance
Co-Founder and CEO of PhoreMost
Chris has significant oncology research and development experience, including six years as a senior manager at Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company, Vernalis. His principle expertise lies in cancer cell biology and drug discovery. In this field, he has led project teams taking drug targets from inception through to hit identification, lead optimisation and into preclinical studies. Chris holds a PhD from East Carolina University and completed a Post-Doctoral position in the world renowned oncology laboratory of Professor Bert Vogelstein (Johns Hopkins University) where he pioneered the use of X-MAN™ cancer models in high-throughput screening and drug discovery.
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About PhoreMost: PhoreMost is a new-model drug discovery company based in Cambridge, UK.
Thomas Weaver
Founder & CEO of PetMedix
Tom holds a PhD in Experimental Oncology and has served in a variety of research, technology development and commercial roles. He has a proven track record of creating value in highly successful start-up companies applying genome-based technologies and contract services for fundamental research, clinical, and drug discovery purposes. He has also led large infrastructure programs in genomics and animal model genetics, serving as a Director at the Medical Research Council (Oxford, UK). He trained at the University of Cambridge and MRC Lab for Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK), and the University of Wisconsin Medical School, (Madison, USA).
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About PetMedix: PetMedix is a pet therapeutics startup.
Jason Mellad
CEO of Start Codon
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About Start Codon: Translating disruptive research into successful start-ups, the Cambridge way
Alexander Patto
Chief Executive Officer of Waterscope
Alexander Patto and Tianheng Zhao founded Waterscope in 2015, since which Alexander has been serving as its chief executive officer.
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About Waterscope: Waterscope is a not-for-profit impact-defined company based in Cambridge.
Ruchi Sharma
Founder and CEO of Stemnovate
Ruchi Sharma is driven by her passion for taking the benefits of research, and applying them to products and technology in order to make a significant and positive difference in the real world. Alongside over ten years experience in stem cell research, physiology, and biotechnology, Ruchi Sharma obtained a PhD from the world-renowned Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a post-doctorate in the exciting field of cellular reprogramming at the University of Cambridge.
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About Stemnovate: Drug Screening and Safety Testing Platforms
George Foot
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Sixfold Bioscience
George Foot is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Sixfold Bioscience.
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About Sixfold Bioscience: Sixfold Bioscience develops and researches on biotechnology advances for RNA therapies.
Patrick Short
CEO & Co-Founder of Sano Genetics
Co-Founder and CEO of Heterogeneous, a genetic data sharing platform dedicated to providing researchers with access to high-quality and dynamic genetic and medical data while empowering users to own and control their own data. https://www.heterogeneous.co.uk/
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About Sano Genetics: Sano Genetics is a personalised medicine research platform with data privacy and transparency at its core.
Tim Cheeseright
Chief Executive Officer of Torx Software
Tim Cheeseright is the director of product at Cresset Biomolecular Discovery.
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About Cresset, Torx Software: Torx Software is a platform for small molecule discovery chemistry.
Jennifer Barnett
CEO of Monument Therapeutics
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About Cambridge Cognition, Monument Therapeutics: Monument Therapeutics develops products to treat serious diseases of the central nervous system.
Michael Chen
Co-founder and CEO of Nuclera
Michael Chen is the Co-founder and CEO at Nuclera.
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About Nuclera: Nuclera makes biology accessible through desktop enzymatic protein and gene synthesis.
Ben Pellegrini
Chief Executive Officer of Intellegens
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About Intellegens: Cambridge spin out using Deep Learning to train on big, incomplete data. Currently working in drug discovery and material design.
Rod Richards
Founder, CEO of VHSquared
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About VHSquared: VHsquared is dedicated to the development of novel antibody domains engineered to be stable in the GI tract.
Antony Rix
CEO of Granta Innovation
An entrepreneur with an engineering background, Antony has spent over 20 years working in telecommunications, wireless technology, medical devices and product development. He started his career at a major telecoms research laboratory, then co-founded Psytechnics, a spin-out commercialising network quality assessment and monitoring technology. He then spent more than a decade at TTP, the leading technology and product development consultancy, before joining 8power as co-founder and CEO. He is currently founder and CEO at Lucida Medical, developing AI for cancer screening using MRI.
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About Lucida Medical: Research, consulting and development of AI and ML applications in business and healthcare
Huw Jones
Chief Executive Officer & Executive Chairman of Chronos Therapeutics
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About Chronos Therapeutics, Evgen Pharma: Chronos Therapeutics is a drug development company focused on the development of drugs for the treatment of age-related diseases.
Frank F. Craig
CEO of Sphere Fluidics
Dr Frank F. Craig has around 15 years of international, general management experience gained from GlaxoSmithKline, Amersham Biosciences (as a Vice-President of R&D) and several start-up firms. He was responsible for managing product development of Green Fluorescent Protein (first identified by the 2008 Nobel Prize Winners for Chemistry) and many other cell-based products and services for the Life Sciences industry. Frank was a (co)-Founder of Aurora Biosciences (San Diego, USA), which had a peak market cap. of £1.8 billion and was acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for £420 million. He was also a co-Founder and CEO of Smart Holograms (Cambridge, UK) – named as the UK’s Fastest Growing Company. Frank has raised £22 million in Private Equity, £25 million via an IPO on NASDAQ and has delivered many commercial partnerships with global Life Sciences and Energy firms – resulting in recorded deal values of £180 million. He has been a Board Director of Smart Holograms and TekCel (Hopkinton, USA), and helped form Sphere Fluidics before becoming its CEO in May 2010. He has a PhD in Cell Biology and Microbiology from Glasgow University and an MBA from Warwick Business School.
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About BioChannel Partners, Sphere Fluidics: Sphere Fluidics develops products for use in single cell analysis and characterization, and provides associated collaborative R&D services.
Ben Shaw
CEO of Swift Molecular Diagnostics
Benjamin completed his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford. He was then accepted onto the prestigious Wellcome Trust PhD Studentship for Developmental Biology at the University of Cambridge. He is now strengthening his business knowledge through active engagement with the Accelerate Programme at the Cambridge Judge Business School. This makes him an ideal candidate to communicate the science and the business to potential investors and buyers, in addition to his scientific role within the company.
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About Swift Molecular Diagnostics: Swift Molecular Diagnostics is developing a rapid, easy-to-use, cost effective genetic “yes or no” test.
Andrew Baker Campbell
CEO of LEX Diagnostics
Andrew Baker-Campbell is the CEO of LEX Diagnostics.
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About LEX Diagnostics: LEX Diagnostics is a medical device company that specializes in molecular diagnostics for primary care.
Andrew Baker Campbell
CEO of LEX Diagnostics
Andrew Baker-Campbell is the CEO of LEX Diagnostics.
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About LEX Diagnostics: LEX Diagnostics is a medical device company that specializes in molecular diagnostics for primary care.
