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 Founder operating in the Health Care 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.
Michael Anstey
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Proteorex Therapeutics Inc.
Michael Anstey is an Investment Director specialising in healthcare investments. Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Toronto office. Michael has experience in advising multinational healthcare businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, new launches, R&D and medical strategy, and M&A. Michael was co-founder and COO of an early stage biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target protein-protein interactions implicated in disease. Prior to BCG, Michael worked in venture capital, where he focused on investing in early stage healthcare and life science businesses. Michael earned his DPhil in Zoology in the field of neurobiology, jointly supervised by professors at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. Michael sits on the board of Bicycle Therapeutics.
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About Cambridge Innovation Capital, Proteorex Therapeutics Inc.: Expanding horizons to find cures
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.
Emil Hewage
Co-Founder & CEO of BIOS
Emil’s academic background is as a PhD researcher in computational neuroscience and machine learning. He brings knowledge of neural signalling and signal processing with over 7 year’s industrial & academic R&D experience. He has previously developed medical devices with Siemens Healthcare and Sphere Medical as well as having held roles in finance and medical and cleantech startups.
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About BIOS: A full-stack neural interface platform, that uses AI to decode and encode the signals from to the body, to treat chronic health conditions.
Oliver Armitage
Co-Founder & CSO of BIOS
Oliver Armitage is Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at BIOS, a leading neural engineering startup. Oliver has always had a vision that the human body could be repaired or made better through augmentative technology and how that can be used to improve people’s lives. He studied for his PhD at the University of Cambridge in Bioengineering, working in the world-renowned Nanoscience Centre. He specializes in tissue interfaces and engineering to allow technology to be fused with the body. Oliver was recently named to Forbes 30 Under 30 2018.
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About BIOS: A full-stack neural interface platform, that uses AI to decode and encode the signals from to the body, to treat chronic health conditions.
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.
Laurence Bargery
Co Founder & CTO of AccuRx
Laurence Bargery is a Co-founder & CTO at accuRx.
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About AccuRx: AccuRx is on a mission to bring patients and their healthcare teams together.
Jennifer Hersch
Co-Founder & Director of Ethos
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About Ethos: ETHOS is the ultimate yoga fitness hybrid experience with all one needs.
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
Wei Li
Co-Founder of Morphogen-IX
Wei Li, Co-Founder at MORPHOGEN-IX LIMITED.
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About Morphogen-IX: MORPHOGEN-IX Limited is a drug discovery company founded in 2015 by Index Ventures to develop bone morphogenetic proteins
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.
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.
Tim Robinson
Founder of Biochemica Water
Robinson has a PhD in Environmental Biotechnology and over 13 years solid experience in water treatment. With over 20 published research articles and book chapters from his time in academia, he has specific experience in the chemistry, microbiology and process technology of industrial wastewater treatment systems. Starting his career in academia, Robinson initially developed novel methods and technologies for the treatment of industrial textile dye effluents before expanding his skill base into other areas of water treatment and beyond. Robinson is an internationally published and peer reviewed author in subjects ranging from fermentation technology, membrane bioreactors (MBRs), odour treatments, enzymatic and molecular microbiology, remediation and process technologies. He was also part of Cranfield University’s prestigious MBR and Odour research groups during his tenure as post-doctoral researcher. During his time working in the industrial sector, Robinson developed his skills in speciality chemicals and their application, as well as sales and commercial acumen. From this grew supply chain development, business strategy and company start-up skills which ultimately led to the formation of Biochemica Water Ltd with Ruddy. Robinson has a wealth of experience within the field of wastewater treatment and has a keen interest in tackling issues relating to anaerobic digestion. More recently, he spearheaded Biochemica’s environmentally-friendly division, Ecochemica. Together, Ruddy and Robinson have grown Biochemica from a fledgling business to an award-winning and nationwide operation, with interests and experience in a host of industries from food and beverage, municipal, aggregates, power generation, chemical, pharmaceutical, paper, manufacturing and more.
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About Biochemica Water: Biochemica Water is the largest independently owned water treatment company,
Eric Miska
Co-Founder of Storm Therapeutics
Eric is the Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Genetics and a Senior Group Leader at the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge. He has an appointment as associated faculty at the Cambridge Systems Biology Centre and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute. Eric was an EMBO Young Investigator and is a full member of EMBO since 2012. Eric is the 2013 recipient of the Hooke Medal awarded by the British Society of Cell Biology. He joined the faculty of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton in 2014 and is a Senior Investigator of the Wellcome Trust. Eric studied mathematics, physics and biology at Heidelberg, Berlin and Mainz and holds a BA in Biochemistry from Trinity College, Dublin. He received his PhD in Pathology from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2000, working with Professor Tony Kouzarides, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Bob Horvitz at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA from 2000 to 2004. He started his own research group at the Gurdon Institute in 2005.
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About Storm Therapeutics, University of Cambridge: Targeting pathways that modify RNA to deliver novel cancer therapeutics
Shankar Balasubramian
Co-Founder and Director of Cambridge Epigenetix
Sir Shankar is Founder of two companies and the principal inventor of the leading next generation human genome sequencing technology core to all Illumina sequencing platforms, estimated to be worth >$30BN. Sir Shankar’s technology has made routine, accurate, low-cost sequencing of human genomes a reality, has revolutionised biology and accelerated the development of genomic personalised medicine. Sir Shankar is the Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. His awards include the Royal Medal (2018), the RoyalSociety Mullard Award (2009), The BBSRC Innovator of the year (2010) and the Tetrahedron Prize (2013). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and a member of EMBO.
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About Ahren Innovation Capital, Cambridge Epigenetix: Cambridge Epigenetix is using epigenetics to reduce several routine & important diagnostic tests for common cancers to a simple blood draw.
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.
Julian Gough
Co-Founder and Director of Genetrainer
Julian is a biotech entrepreneur and world expert in bioinformatics. He graduated his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Cambridge and was a research fellow at Stanford University. He is now a Programme Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and Professor of Bioinformatics at the University of Bristol. He has successfully started a number of biotech companies.
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About Genetrainer, Mogrify: Genetrainer is a website that provides a personalized fitness plan for users based on their genes.
Andy Fraser
Co-Founder of Camena Bioscience
Andy Fraser is the co-founder of Camena Bioscience. He is also a professor of Molecular Genetics at The University of Toronto. He was a faculty member at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and performed training at the University of Cambridge and Cold Spring Harbor. Andy received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. from University College London.
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About Camena Bioscience: Camena Bioscience is a synthetic biology company that develops tools to engineer new synthetic biology applications.
Derek Stemple
CTO and Co-Founder of Camena Bioscience
Derek Stemple is the CTO and co-founder of Camena Bioscience. He previously held senior positions at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and was a lab head at the National Institute for Medical Research. Derek holds a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.
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About Camena Bioscience: Camena Bioscience is a synthetic biology company that develops tools to engineer new synthetic biology applications.
Jenny Tillotson
Founder & Creative Director of eScent
Jenny Tillotson is the creator and driving force behind eScent, an enabling platform technology and delivery device that emits precise doses of fragrances at the right time, in the right place, depending on context. This is highly scalable technology for sensing and dispensing scent and liquids, providing a new sensory awareness with wide‐ranging applications in fashion, fragrances for luxury brands, wellbeing, digital health, AR/VR, retail, sports, entertainment, learning and adult industry. Jenny spent 14 years at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London developing her award-winning eScent research and was made a Reader in Sensory Fashion in 2013. More recently Jenny has moved to commercialise her research. She formed a company that works at the intersection of fashion, fragrance, smell and wearable technology, co-founded with Professor Andreas Manz, a pioneer of lab-on-a-chip and winner of the EU ‘lifetime achievement’ inventor award for patents on microchip technology for chemical applications. Jenny’s involvement over the past year has specifically been in the area of fine fragrance for the fashion industry and digital health for stress and sleep disorders with a particular focus on leveraging disparate data sources to discover more accurate health-related correlations. The company holds 4 granted patents and 1 pending patent that creates an exclusive market position on wearable sensory data collection related to the sense of smell, pharma and insect control. Jenny has a degree in Fashion Communication from Central Saint Martins and a PhD in interactive olfactory surfaces (Printed Textiles) from the Royal College of Art. She has been a Fellow of the of the Royal Society of Arts since 2009, a Fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust since 2013 and an Associate of the British Society of Perfumers since 2005. Jenny is also a Visiting Scholar in the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge and a STEM Ambassador. Prior to her academic work she was a fashion stylist in the media and worked as a Sensory Designer for Charmed Technology (MIT Media Lab spin-off). She has exhibited internationally, published in science and design journals, consulted for NIKE, Unilever, INTEL, Qualcomm, Toyota and worked with Philips, Cambridge Consultants, The North Face, Adeline André and International Flavours & Fragrances.
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About eScent, The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA): Wearable technology and sensory data collection for preventative healthcare.
Gordon Wishart
Founder and Chief Medical Officer of CHECK4CANCER LTD
Gordon Wishart graduated MB ChB from the University of Edinburgh in 1983 followed by an MD in 1992 for a thesis entitled “Aspects of multidrug resistance in breast cancer”. Gordon Wishart received fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1987 and the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2001. Following his first consultant appointment in Sussex in 1995, Professor GC Wishart moved to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge in 1998 to take up the post of consultant breast & endocrine surgeon with a remit to develop and modernise breast cancer services. Professor Gordon C Wishart was Director of the Cambridge Breast Unit from 2005 to 2010 and was appointed as Visiting Professor of Cancer Surgery at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge in December 2008. Gordon Wishart has a national and international reputation in the field of breast cancer and has published widely in the field of breast cancer, including sentinel node biopsy, endocrine surgery and breast cancer. A full list of his publications is listed below and can also be found on the PubMed website by searching for Wishart GC. In some of his research articles he will be listed as GC Wishart. Gordon Wishart was instrumental in raising £2 million to build the Cambridge Breast Cancer Research Unit in 2008, a clinical and laboratory facility to support the clinical research programme. He is the lead or co-investigator on clinical trials that have attracted over £2 million in grant funding. He has recently been an advisor to the Department of Health as part of the cancer waiting times and national cancer survivorship initiatives. Gordon Wishart’s main areas of research interest include factors that lead to variation in breast cancer survival and the effect of screen-detection on survival. He recently led a team of clinicians and scientists to produce a new model, Predict, that estimates the survival and treatment benefits following surgery for invasive breast cancer (www.predict.nhs.uk). The second version of Predict, launched in July 2011, is the first clinical prognostication model for breast cancer to include HER2 and the benefit of trastuzumab (Herceptin).
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About Anglia Ruskin University, CHECK4CANCER LTD, CHECK4CANCER LTD: Check4Cancer offers corporate health screening for skin cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer
Anita Lee
Founder of IVF Insight
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About IVF Insight: IVF Insight creates a platform of trusted in-vitro fertilization locations.
Oriane Chausiaux
Founder Director – CSO, Serial Entrepreneur of Heartfelt Technologies
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About Heartfelt Technologies: Heartfelt Technologies are developing the only home-based heart failure monitor that does not require patient interaction or compliance.
Mohammad Al-Ubaydli
Founder & CEO of Patients Know Best
Mohammad is founder and CEO of Patients Know Best and has over 15 years of experience in medical software. He trained as a physician at the University of Cambridge; worked as a staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health; and was a management consultant to US hospitals at The Advisory Board Company. He is the author of seven books, including Personal health records: A guide for clinicians and Streamlining Hospital-Patient Communication: Developing High Impact Patient Portals. He is also an honourary senior research associate at UCL medical school for his research on patient-controlled medical records. In 2012 he was elected an Ashoka Fellow as a social entrepreneur for the contributions he has made to patient care.
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About Patients Know Best: Patients Know Best provide hospitals with personal health records software so that their patients can better manage their health.
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.
Lucy Jung
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Charco Neurotech
Lucy Jung is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Charco Neurotech.
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About Charco Neurotech: Charco Neurotech is a medical technology company that develops non-invasive wearable devices.
Floyd Pierres
Founder & Chief Medical Officer of Charco Neurotech
Floyd Pierres is the Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Charco Neurotech.
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About Charco Neurotech: Charco Neurotech is a medical technology company that develops non-invasive wearable devices.
Christopher Stanley
Co-Founder of Circular1 Health
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About Circular1 Health: Circular1 Health provides data testing services to operational and close contact companies.
Thomas Goijarts
Founder & CEO of Caro Health
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About Caro Health: Caro Health delivers a digital companion that provides relevant content, guidance and actionable notification to improve patient outcomes.
