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 Cambridge based Founder operating in the Life Science 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.
Geraldine Harriman
CSO & Co-Founder of HotSpot Therapeutics
Geraldine Harriman is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of HotSpot Therapeutics.
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About HotSpot Therapeutics: HotSpot Therapeutics is a developer of a therapy platform designed to discover medicines and provide proper treatment.
Nick Davis
Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Theonys
Nick Davis is the Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Theonys — a therapeutics company developing new small-molecule medicines to selectively stop the translation of disease-causing proteins in cancer, chronic inflammation and other serious human diseases.
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About Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Theonys: Theonys is harnessing the power of tRNA to pioneer an entirely new class of genomic medicines.
Venky Soundararajan
Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer of nference
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About nference: nference.inc, provides an AI based software platform that synthesizes siloed biomedical knowledge for insights and makes it computable.
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.
Winston Yan
Co-Founder of Arbor Biotechnologies
Winston is a biotechnologist discovering and developing applications for novel molecular technologies. Prior to co-founding Arbor, Winston worked in the laboratory of Feng Zhang at MIT and the Broad Institute, where he focused on addressing challenges that limit the in vivo therapeutic applications of CRISPR-Cas nucleases. This included developing smaller orthologs of Cas9 for better packaging into the most therapeutically promising viral vectors for gene therapy, building assays that enhance off-target detection to evaluate the genomic safety of CRISPR-Cas enzymes, and additionally searching for new enzyme systems to power genome engineering capabilities beyond nucleases. Winston graduated magna cum laude with a BS in Physics from Harvard College, and PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University as a part of the Harvard-MIT MD/PhD program. Recognition for his research and entrepreneurship has included the Sir Peter Mansfield Research Fellowship, Herchel Smith Undergraduate Research Fellowship, Olken Brothers’ Award for Entrepreneurial Spirit, Harvard I3 Innovation Challenge Winner, Micron Science & Technology Scholarship Top Awardee, and the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship.
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About Arbor Biotechnologies: Arbor Biotechnologies is an operator of a bio-discovery company intended to provide human diagnostic development services.
David Scott
Co-Founder, Head of Innovation of Arbor Biotechnologies
David works at the intersection of computer science and biology, leveraging emerging data streams to create exciting new biotechnologies. Prior to co-founding Arbor, David completed his PhD in the laboratory of Feng Zhang at MIT and the Broad Institute, where he contributed to the early development of CRISPR-Cas systems for mammalian genome editing applications. As part of this work, David created experimental and computational techniques to enhance the precision of CRISPR-Cas applications and discover novel CRISPR gene editing systems. David is the recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Henry E. Singleton Fellowship, and the Angus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He received his BS in Cognitive Science from the University of California San Diego, where he co-authored several research studies illuminating the early progression of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
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About Arbor Biotechnologies: Arbor Biotechnologies is an operator of a bio-discovery company intended to provide human diagnostic development services.
Steven Paul
Co-Founder of Voyager Therapeutics
Steven Paul is our Interim President of R&D, a member of the Board of Directors and a Venture Partner at Third Rock Ventures. Steven Paul has had a distinguished career in neuroscience with an extensive track record in CNS drug discovery and development. He joined Third Rock in 2010, where he serves as a senior advisor to the firm and participates in the ideation and development of new companies. Steven Paul also currently leads the Appel Alzheimer’s Disease Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College. Preceding his appointment at Weill Cornell, Steven Paul spent 17 years at Eli Lilly, during which time he held several key leadership roles, including President of the Lilly Research Laboratories, and Vice President of Discovery Research and Neuroscience Research. As President of the Lilly Research Laboratories, he was responsible for the company’s overall R&D strategy, expanding its efforts in oncology and biotechnology and resulting in a pipeline of approximately 70 new molecular entities. Prior to Lilly, Steven Paul served as Scientific Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. He has also served as Medical Director in the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service. Steven Paul has authored or co-authored more than 500 papers and book chapters. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He currently serves on the board or as a trustee of several organizations, including Sage Therapeutics, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the Sigma Aldrich Company and the Foundation for the NIH. Steven Paul holds a B.A. in biology and psychology from Tulane University and an M.S. and M.D. from the Tulane University School of Medicine.
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About Karuna Therapeutics, SAGE Therapeutics, Third Rock Ventures, Voyager Therapeutics, Voyager Therapeutics: Voyager Therapeutics is a gene therapy company developing treatments for fatal and debilitating diseases of the central nervous system
Cullen Buie
Co-Founder of Kytopen
Cullen R. Buie, Ph.D. is a Tenured Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and co-inventor of the high-throughput genetic modification technology. He brings expertise in the areas of microfluidics, microfabrication, and experimental fluid mechanics to Kytopen.
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About Kytopen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Kytopen developer of a cell therapy platform for non-viral delivery of molecules into hard-to-transfect immune cells.
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.
Richie Bavasso
Founder and CEO of nQ Medical
Mr. Bavasso is one of the early pioneers of use of digital media, devices and the web as tools to support pharmaceutical sales and marketing strategies and tactics. Since 1999, he has worked with top 25 Pharma clients globally to introduce the Closed Loop Marketing (CLM) function. He has set procedure and precedent in the areas of sales force effectiveness, business-rule driven content management, multichannel marketing, and mobile technology. A frequent speaker at industry conferences and events, Mr. Bavasso serves as an advocate for the industry in promoting digital conversation as integral to the various enterprise functions within pharma and the medical community. Prior to his seven years as co-founder and President of Exploria SPS, Mr. Bavasso served for sixteen years as CEO of Pharmedica Holdings, LLC, and President of its INFLUENT Division, at the time one of the largest medical education companies in the world. He built Pharmedica holdings from its start as a meetings planning company in 1992, doubling its revenues each year until its sale in 2001. This growth included an ACCME accredited entity (Center for Medical Education, LLC), a digital content division (Influent, LLC), and a call center (ContextMedicus, LLC). He opened offices in California, Connecticut, Illinois, and North Carolina. After his three-year earn out, Bavasso partnered to co-found Exploria SPS, LLC, as the mobile devices division of Exploria, Inc. Within three years, Exploria SPS became the market leader for CLM with offices in Connecticut and France and currently licenses software in 33 countries and 18 languages. Mr. Bavasso’s introduction of CLM and subsequent influence over the growth and expansion of CLM globally led to his recognition in 2007, by PharmaVoice magazine as one of the top 100 most influential people in pharma. Foreseeing the trends in Pharma that have impacted its selling model and the changing influence dynamic of payors on prescribing, Mr. Bavasso incubated a new and disruptive concept meant to serve as the transaction-fed, new marketplace for healthcare. This led to the incorporation of RIMEDIO, Inc. in October 2012 intent on reshaping the dynamic of how healthcare interacts and transacts to achieve mutual stakeholder objectives. RIMEDIO leverages the power of social utilities with eCommerce, content management and communications tools to consummate transactions between healthcare stakeholders. He is currently co-founder and CEO of nQ Medical, Inc., a machine learning computational biomarker company leveraging keyboard data to manage neuromotor diseases. Everyone has a unique typing signature. Research has revealed that the way we interact with computers and mobile devices can reveal with startling accuracy the presence of certain neuro-motor diseases. This Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered/Michael J. Fox Foundation validated artificial intelligence tool (neuroQWERTY) has opened a broad opportunity to better diagnose diseases, track disease progression, and monitor medication effectiveness and symptoms. Mr. Bavasso is also a licensed hospital administrator having served from 1981 to 1992 leading two health care systems in New England. A graduate of Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, he received his MBA in health care management and finance from Bryant University, Smithfield, RI.
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About nQ Medical: nQ Medical is a neurotechnology company allowing Data Defined Disease Management via digital biomarkers using AI.
Eoin McKinney
Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder of PredictImmune
Eoin is a Wellcome-Beit intermediate Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and an honorary consultant in nephrology and transplantation in Cambridge University NHS hospitals Foundation Trust. He obtained a first-class degree in pre-clinical medicine from Keble College, Oxford University in 1999 and graduated in clinical medicine with honours from Edinburgh University in 2002. His primary interest is the use of systems immunology approaches to translate high throughput analyses of autoimmune disease datasets into clinical practice.
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About PredictImmune: Providing tools to physicians in the treatment of patients with immune-mediated disease, through prediction of long term clinical prognosis.
Kenneth Smith
Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer of PredictImmune
Professor Ken Smith is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He trained in nephrology (FRACP, FRCP) and clinical immunology (FRCPA) and completed a PhD at the WEHI in Melbourne. His laboratory runs a translational programme in autoimmune disease (particularly inflammatory bowel disease, vasculitis and SLE) that has led to the discovery of a novel prognosis-predicting biomarker currently in clinical trials and the identification of genes and pathways involved in disease pathogenesis.
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About PredictImmune: Providing tools to physicians in the treatment of patients with immune-mediated disease, through prediction of long term clinical prognosis.
Paul Lyons
Vice President of Platform Delivery & Co-Founder of PredictImmune
Paul is a Principal Research Associate in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He has over 25 years of experience in molecular and cellular biology including Senior Scientist positions in the Dept. Medical Genetics, University of Cambridge, Dept. Surgery, University of Oxford and the Rosalind Franklin Centre for Genomics Research. His primary research interest is the application of high throughput genomic approaches to better understand the genetic and molecular basis of autoimmune disease.
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About PredictImmune: Providing tools to physicians in the treatment of patients with immune-mediated disease, through prediction of long term clinical prognosis.
Tuomas Knowles
Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Fluidic Analytics
Professor Tuomas Knowles holds a personal Professorship in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and is also a Fellow of St John’s College Cambridge. Tuomas received his PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge, and has held positions in Engineering in Cambridge and Harvard University before returning to Cambridge as a University Lecturer in 2010, Reader in 2013 and then Professor in 2015. His current research interests are focused on using physical approaches to study the self-assembly of protein molecules both in the context of disease and for the synthesis of novel functional biomaterials. Tuomas has received a number of distinguished awards, most recently from the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Newman Foundation and the European Research Council, and has co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed scientific articles.
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About Fluidic Analytics, Transition Bio: Fluidic Analytics designs, develops and manufactures tools that seek to revolutionise the way proteins are characterised.
Kiran Musunuru
Co-Founder of Verve Therapeutics
Kiran Musunuru is an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine and genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has made outstanding research contributions in the use of gene editing to study and treat cardiovascular disease. He was honored with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the White House in 2016, the American Heart Association’s Award of Meritorious Achievement in 2016, and the American Philosophical Society’s Judson Daland Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Investigation in 2018. Dr. Musunuru received his M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College, his Ph.D. from the Rockefeller University, and his MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Before joining Penn Medicine in 2016, Dr. Musunuru trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and cardiovascular medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by postdoctoral work at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute.
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About Verve Therapeutics: Verve is focused on discovering and developing therapies that safely edit the genomes of adults to confer protection against coronary.
Issi Rozen
Co-Founder of Verve Therapeutics
Issi Rozen is the Chief Business Officer at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, where he is responsible developing innovative scientific and business collaborations with life sciences companies, technology companies and venture investors. He is also responsible for initiating and establishing new ventures around novel technologies and for overseeing strategy and licensing of the institute’s intellectual property portfolio. Issi joined the Broad in 2011 after a career in the biotech industry, where he led strategy and business development efforts at a number of venture-backed start-ups. Before that, he headed the business analysis group at a large biotech where he was responsible for evaluations in-licensing and M&A opportunities as well as commercial analytics and forecasting for pipeline and commercial products. Issi is also a co-founder of a number of start-ups and is an accomplished jazz guitarist and former professor at Berklee College of Music. He earned his MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
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About Verve Therapeutics: Verve is focused on discovering and developing therapies that safely edit the genomes of adults to confer protection against coronary.
Burt Adelman
Co-Founder of Verve Therapeutics
Burt Adelman, MD is Chairman and a co-founder of Clear Creek Bio. Burt was born in New York City and graduated Cornell University Medical College in 1976. He served as House Officer and Medical Resident at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital from where he completed his hematology fellowship. Burt was a full time faculty member for 10 years – first at Harvard Medical School and then the Medical College of Virginia. In 1991, he joined Biogen, including as Executive Vice President of Research and Development and Executive Vice President for Portfolio Strategy and led development efforts for Angiomax (bivalarudin) for anticoagulation during angioplasty, Avonex (interferon beta) for multiple sclerosis, Amevive (alefecept) for psoriasis, and Tysabri (natalizumab) for multiple sclerosis. Burt retired from Biogen in 2007 and was most recently Executive Vice President Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Dyax Corp where he led the successful development of lanadelumab, a breakthrough drug for the prevention of acute attacks of hereditary angioedema. Dyax was sold to Shire in 2016 for $6.5 billion. Burt is a board member for Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, Sirona-med (a private cardiac device company) and Syntimmune (aquired by Alexion), and a senior advisor to Novo Ventures. He serves on the Board of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and is a member of the investment committee of the Partners Innovation Fund (Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals). Burt is a generous mentor to select physician-scientists and students in the Harvard – MIT ecosystem where he regularly lectures on life sciences innovation and drug development.
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About Clear Creek Bio, Verve Therapeutics: Verve is focused on discovering and developing therapies that safely edit the genomes of adults to confer protection against coronary.
Nick Plugis
Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Cellarity
Nicholas joined Flagship Pioneering as an associate after completing the VentureLabs Fellows Program. At Flagship, Nicholas conducts explorations to discover unexplored biological mechanisms and new biotechnologies. As part of a venture team of entrepreneurial scientists, he develops the science, intellectual property and business strategy that form the foundation of breakthrough startups. Prior to joining Flagship Pioneering, Nicholas earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at Stanford University in the laboratory of Professor Chaitan Khosla, where he developed novel chemical tools and animal models to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying celiac disease. During his graduate studies, Nicholas completed the Stanford Ignite Program at the Graduate School of Business; he and his team developed the commercialization strategy for a Stanford-based medical diagnostic startup. Nicholas also served as vice president of SCIMALS, a non-profit organization that provides scientific and market due diligence to early-stage life science investors and aspiring entrepreneurs. Nicholas received his B.A. in both chemistry and economics from Middlebury College, conducting research with Professor Jim Larrabee on the reaction mechanisms of metal-containing enzymes utilizing inorganic electron microscopy.
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About Cellarity, Flagship Pioneering: Cellarity’s platform digitizes the molecular information in cells to elucidate how they behave in health and disease.
Anthony Hyman
Co Founder of Dewpoint Therapeutics
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About Dewpoint Therapeutics: Dewpoint Therapeutics is a biotech company developing a drug platform that targets biomolecular condensates.
Rebecca Lambert
Founder & Executive Chairman of NED Biosystems
Rebecca Lambert, founder, has over 40 years of experience designing and executing strategies to solve complex issues confronting business, government, political, healthcare and financial entities. Since 2001 she has focused on development of NED lead candidate, NED-170, as a treatment for a wide range of cancer indications. Prior to founding NED, Ms. Lambert had significant commercial successes leading an investment fund of more than $1B for Shaker Investments, and successfully launching groundbreaking telecommunications and media companies. Her Federal Government experience includes senior positions in support of political campaigns and sponsoring government policy and programs in Washington, including roles at the US Departments of Commerce, and Energy. Ms. Lambert has a BA in political science from Simmons College and completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. For five years she served as the President of Bellevue Hospital’s Bellevue Association Board.
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About NED Biosystems: NED Biosystems Developing proprietary combination cancer therapy. Other IP includes diagnostics.
Magdeline Pokar
Founder, Managing Director of Asia Research News
Maggie is the managing director of Asia Research News, overseeing all aspects of this innovative startup.
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About Asia Research News: Asia Research News connects researchers with international media, policy makers, fellow collaborators and the science-hungry public.
Richard Gregory
Founder of Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, and Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Co-Director, HMS Initiative for RNA Medicine
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About Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics: Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics is a developer of microRNAs designed to target regulatory proteins.
Niluka Satharasinghe
Co-Founder & CTO of Sparrho
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About Sparrho: Sparrho lead the world in democratising science using augmented intelligence.
Erik Gatenholm
Co-Founder & CEO of Cellink
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About BICO, Cellink: Cellink is a biotechnology company optimized bench-top bioprinter for the ultimate bioprinting of human tissues.
Gordon McInroy
Founder and CTO of Nuclera
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About Nuclera: Nuclera makes biology accessible through desktop enzymatic protein and gene synthesis.
Olga Granaturova
Co-Founder, COO, and Director of Parthenon Therapeutics
Olga Granaturova is the Co-Founder, COO, and Director at Parthenon Therapeutics.
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About Parthenon Therapeutics: Parthenon Therapeutics is a biotech company inventing a novel class of anti-cancer therapies that reprogram the tumor microenvironment.
Stewart Newlove
Founder of Antibodies.com
Stewart Newlove is the Founder of Antibodies.
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About Antibodies.com: Antibodies.com is a leading supplier of protein research tools. Discover more from our range of distinct antibodies, proteins, and assays.
