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 London based CFO’ operating in the Biotechnology space. If you think a CFO’ 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.
James Abell
Partner and CFO of Abingworth
Jams has more than 14 years of venture capital experience and three years of operational experience in life science companies. His directorships have included Chroma Therapeutics, Clinical Designs and Syntaxin. He joined Abingworth as CFO in 1998, prior to which he was CFO of Prolifix from 1995 to 1998. He trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG. He holds a degree in Biology with Chemistry from the University of Southampton. James handles Abingworth’s finance and administration as well as investment matters, focusing on start-up companies.
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About Abingworth: Abingworth is an international investment group dedicated to collaborating with life sciences entrepreneurs.
Neil Cooper
Chief Financial Officer of Abingworth
Neil is responsible for finance, administration, and investor relations. Before joining Kennet, he was the Financial Controller at Robert W. Baird Group. Prior to that he worked at Advent Venture Partners. He began his career at KPMG where he gained experience in both Audit and Transaction Services. Neil is a qualified Chartered Accountant and holds a BSc. in Biochemistry from the University of Warwick.
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About Abingworth: Abingworth is an international investment group dedicated to collaborating with life sciences entrepreneurs.
Alex Asquith
General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer of Abingworth
Alex joined Abingworth in 2005 having previously been a member of the UK legal team at The BOC Group plc, where she was responsible for providing legal advice on a wide range of issues to one of BOC’s lines of business. Alex trained as a solicitor at the London offices of Slaughter and May and was an assistant solicitor in the corporate and commercial department from 1994-1999. Alex’s role at Abingworth is to assist the General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer as well as to provide legal support to the life sciences team
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About Abingworth: Abingworth is an international investment group dedicated to collaborating with life sciences entrepreneurs.
James Rawlingson
Chief Financial Officer of Arix Bioscience
James has substantial experience at board and senior management level gained over 20 years of involvement in financial services and UK public companies. James’ former role was Group CFO of Charles Stanley plc, a leading wealth manager with over £20 billion of funds under management and administration. Previously, James was Group CFO for Coutts Bank, where he was responsible for the global finance function and held a key role in setting strategy. Before this James spent two years at UBS Wealth Management based in Zurich after promotion from his role as CFO of UBS Wealth UK.
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About Arix Bioscience: Arix Bioscience is a healthcare and life science company.
Keith Lovell
CFO of Antidote.me
Keith Lovell brings over 15 years’ experience gained from commercial, financial and management positions in a range of blue-chip, entrepreneurial and start-up organisations. Prior to Shazam at Extreme Mobile, Keith played an integral role in formulating commercial and financial plans for an MNVO venture with Vodafone. Previously, he was also responsible for all major network operator and supplier relationships at DX Communications Ltd and played a key role in negotiating the sale of the UK retail business to BT Cellnet, now 02.
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About Antidote.me: Antidote is a digital health company that accelerates and improves medical research by combining technologies, data, and business models.
Anne Hyland
Chief Financial Officer & Company Secretary of Kymab
Hyland has a strong track record within the biopharma sector, bringing with her over 25 years of financial experience with both public and private companies. Most recently, she served as Chief Financial Officer of BBI Diagnostics Group Ltd and FTSE-listed Vectura Group plc (LSE: VEC). Ms Hyland currently serves as Non-executive Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of the global pharmaceutical and services company, Clinigen Group plc (AIM:CLIN). Prior to Vectura, she held a number of senior finance position, including Director of Corporate Finance at the then FTSE 100 Celltech Group plc, Medeva plc and KPMG. Ms Hyland is a Chartered Accountant (FCA), a Corporate Tax Adviser (CTA–AITI) and holds a degree in business studies from Trinity College, Dublin.
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About Kymab: Kymab is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing fully human monoclonal antibody therapeutics.
Fiona Stewart
Chief Financial Officer of Cambridge Epigenetix
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About Cambridge Epigenetix, Fusion Global Capital: Cambridge Epigenetix is using epigenetics to reduce several routine & important diagnostic tests for common cancers to a simple blood draw.
Barry Knight
CFO of Edinburgh Molecular Imaging
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About Domainex, Edinburgh Molecular Imaging: Edinburgh Molecular Imaging is a developer of optical molecular imaging technology.
Andrew McMeeking
CFO of Prescient Healthcare Group
Andrew joined Prescient’s team in 2012 after holding finance director positions in marketing services companies such as Publicis and Gyro. He is a qualified chartered accountant and holds an honors degree in accountancy from Dundee University. He manages Prescient’s finances and is the company secretary. He was heavily involved in setting up the shared resources service center in the UK and arranging Prescient’s de-merger/MBO in 2014.
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About Prescient Healthcare Group: Prescient Healthcare Group was founded in London in 1995, originally specializing in competitive insights.
Anjum Ahmad
CFO of Touchlight Genetics
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About Touchlight Genetics: Touchlight Genetics, a British bio-pharmaceutical company founded in 2007.
Jayesh Pankhania
Chief Financial Officer of Horizon Discovery
Jayesh joined Xtera in February 2017 with over 25 years’ senior finance experience having started his career with PwC. He has since held senior roles in public quoted and privately owned companies, rising rapidly to the CFO role in his latest two positions, most recently with the HOC Group, a $150M privately owned construction group. Prior to that he was with Asia Resource Minerals PLC (Group Turnover >$1B) as Deputy CFO. Jayesh was responsible for improving corporate governance and financial controls in both cases. Jayesh attended the University of East Anglia studying Accountancy, holds an MBA from the London Business School and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
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About Horizon Discovery: Horizon is a gene editing company that designs & engineers genetically-modified cells, applying them to advance human health.
Peter Worrall
CFO of Rex Bionics
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About Rex Bionics: REX is a hands-free, self supporting, independently controlled, robotic mobility device.
Raymond Spencer
CFO of OxStem
Raymond Spencer, CFO has over 30 years’ experience as a senior financial officer in biotech. For 12 years he was the CFO of LSE listed Antisoma plc. Whilst at Antisoma he was instrumental in completing the IPO in 1998, several fund-raising rounds that totalled over £100 million, the acquisition of two private US biotech companies and the closing of three licensing deals with big pharma with total upfront licence fees exceeding £100m. Raymond was CFO for AIM listed Summit plc for 5 years to July 2014 having completed a restructuring of the company, raised over £20m in equity financing and the acquisition of the Oxford University spin-out MuOx Ltd. Raymond is currently part-time founder, Director and CFO of MGB-Biopharma Ltd, which has raised over £6m from angel investors, Scottish Enterprise and won a Biomedical Catalyst award from Innovate UK to progress drugs for treatment of anti-microbial resistance. He has also established his own consultancy company, Bio-CFO Ltd providing services to biotech and cleantech companies. Raymond qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG in 1979.
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About MGB Biopharma, OxStem: OxStem is a drug discovery company.
