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 Director operating in the Pharmaceutical space. If you think a Director 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.
Paul Agapow
Health Informatics Director of AstraZeneca
Originally a labcoat-wearing biochemist and immunologist, Paul fell sideways into using computers for biology, at first for evolutionary biology and infectious disease. In more recent years, his work has focused on precision medicine and biomedical analytics.
Follow Paul Agapow:
About AstraZeneca: AstraZeneca is a global pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets prescription medicines.
Stefano Ragni
Director – Global Supply Chain Process Lead of GSK
Stefano Ragni is Global business process owner in GSK for Supply Chain Planning processes, including architecture, people’s roles & responsibilities, cross-functional integration and capability built to enable the business model. Stefano led similar programmes and held operational leadership roles for Integrated Business Planning and Demand Planning in other industries, such as FMCG (eg Heinz) and Automotive (eg Goodyear Dunlop). Beyond his integrated Supply Chain leadership skills, Stefano’s background includes roles in finance, capital engineering and systems implementation.
Follow Stefano Ragni:
About GSK: GSK Venture Fund is a Massachusetts-based venture capital fund focused on investments within the area of bioelectronics.
Elena Fernandez Kleinlein
Sr. Director Consumer Scientific Innovation of Johnson & Johnson
Elena is the Senior Director of Consumer Scientific Innovation at Johnson & Johnson Innovation. Her main responsibilities are scouting and evaluating early stage technologies and opportunities and managing external partnerships for the strategic areas within the Consumer Sector. Prior to this role, Elena was the Senior Director of R&D Global Topical Health Care for Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Products. In this position, she was responsible for seeking innovative products and claims pipelines within the franchise and oversaw the product development program for iconic brands such as Band-Aid Adhesive Bandages, Johnson & Johnson’s Red Cross and other regional brands like Compeed, Neosporin and Bengay. Elena has grown in the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, previously holding roles of Senior Director R&D EMEA Topical Health, performing as the Worldwide Director Women’s Health R&D, and Manager Baby & Kids R&D EMEA for Johnson & Johnson in Germany. These positions have provided her an in-depth knowledge in Research & Development across different groups as well as launch & commercialization experience of different product categories. She has filed several patents. Elena holds a BS and MS in Food Science & Technology from Technical University Munich, Germany.
Follow Elena Fernandez Kleinlein:
About Johnson & Johnson: Johnson & Johnson engages in the research and development, manufacture and sale of a range of products in the healthcare field.
Heresh Rezavandi
Ecosystem Strategic Intelligence Lead, Associate Director of UCB
Heresh Rezavandi is the associate director of ecosystem strategic alliance at [UCB Pharma](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ucb-pharma), a biopharmaceutical and specialty chemical company that develops therapeutics for central nervous system and immunological diseases.
Follow Heresh Rezavandi:
About UCB: UCB Pharma is a biopharmaceutical and specialty chemical company.
Anne Lenihan
Director Regulatory Affairs of Pfizer
Follow Anne Lenihan:
About Pfizer: Pfizer provides access to safe and effective and affordable medicines and health care services.
Jane Wiltshire
Senior Director, Business Technology – Collaboration Center of Excellence of Pfizer
Follow Jane Wiltshire:
About Pfizer: Pfizer provides access to safe and effective and affordable medicines and health care services.
Jane Wiltshire
Senior Director, Business Technology – Collaboration Center of Excellence of Pfizer
Follow Jane Wiltshire:
About Pfizer: Pfizer provides access to safe and effective and affordable medicines and health care services.
Simon Barter
Commercial Director of Proveca
Simon Barter is a commercial director at Proveca. Simon is an experienced pharmaceutical professional having held several significant senior level roles including the head of Global Marketing capability for AstraZeneca, the head of the Global Commercial Innovation function. He has a track record of delivery in global marketing, innovation, corporate and portfolio strategy and operating company delivery. He has broad therapeutic experience having led the commercial therapy areas for Pain, Anaesthesia, Infection and Oncology. Simon has lived and worked across several European countries in sales and marketing roles, amassing first hand experience of several healthcare systems. Simon has a BSc (Hons) from London University and a Masters in Science of Management from Boston University.
Follow Simon Barter:
About Proveca: Proveca Ltd is a UK based pharmaceutical company.
Vibhor Gupta
Director and Founder of Pangaea Data
Vibhor is an entrepreneur in residence at Nexgen Capital Ventures where he is involved in deal flow and leading creative technological opportunties within Life Sciences following his breadth of experience in industry and academia over the last 16 years. Prior to this role, Vibhor has served in various positions ranging from technical bioinformatics roles, sales (of software technology products) and executive management. Vibhor started and built the European business for Quantum Secure, which was an enterprise software solutions provider and was successfully acquired in 2015. Most recently he served as a Senior Vice President at Seven Bridges Genomics which provides cloud (SaaS) based bioinformatics solutions for the Life Sciences industry. Vibhor has also worked as a management and technology consultant for Deloitte. His academic career focused on bioinformatics, epigenetics and molecular biology studies in oncology and infectious diseases. Vibhor has access to an extensive network in the industry and was recently honoured as an advisor to two prominent organisations, HealthEx and FrontLine Genomics. He was also a Technology Lead on ASIS’s UK committee, which is the largest professional body for CSOs and CISOs in the world.
Follow Vibhor Gupta:
About Pangaea Data: Pangaea Data provides a machine learning-based software solution making scientific and clinical data more meaningful.
Ozgur Tuncer
CEO & Executive Director of Stablepharma Ltd
Ozgur Tuncer CEO & Executive Director – two decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry including working for blue chip companies such as Pfizer, IQVIA and Pharmacia. Most recently, he was Global Vice President in IQVIA, and strategic adviser to life sciences investors. In addition to his role in Stablepharma, Özgür is an Investment Partner with Ascension Ventures.
Follow Ozgur Tuncer:
About Stablepharma Ltd: An innovative Biotech, developing a wide range of reformulated thermostable and fridge free StablevaX vaccines
Adam George
UK Managing Director of GW Pharmaceuticals
Adam George has served as our Managing Director – UK since March 2017. Mr. George also acts as our Company Secretary. Prior to taking on his current role, Mr. George served as our Chief Financial Officer since 2012 and Financial Controller since 2007. Mr. George has previously occupied several senior finance roles within both public and privately-owned companies, most recently as Finance Director from 2004 to 2007 and as Group Financial Controller from 2001 to 2004 of Believe It Group Limited (now 4Com plc), a telecommunications service provider. Mr. George holds an BSc. in Biology from Bristol University and is qualified as a chartered accountant.
Follow Adam George:
About GW Pharmaceuticals: GW Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing novel therapeutics.
Michael O’Neill
Co-Founder and Director R&D of Inflection Biosciences
Michael O’Neill has more than 20 years’ experience working in the pharmaceutical industry. He was a Senior Research Scientist and Portfolio Manager at Eli Lilly for much of this time where he was responsible for developing project plans for the selection of projects and for their progression from discovery through to important development milestones. He established his own consulting business, Eolas, to help early stage companies to organize their research along commercial lines, becoming accomplished at building highly streamlined development plans. He has built consortia of commercial and academic groups to apply for major EU grants. Previously Dr. O’Neill was Head of Laboratory at Almirall and a Research Neuroscientist at Merck. He has authored over 80 papers, book chapters, patents and abstracts and is Honorary Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex. He holds a BA Psychology from UCC and a PhD from QUB Belfast.
Follow Michael O’Neill:
About Inflection Biosciences: Inflection Biosciences is a company that develops small-molecule therapeutics for the treatment of cancer.
Charles Hindson
Non Executive Director of Diaceutics
Follow Charles Hindson:
About Diaceutics: Diaceutics Group leverages analytics, software, services and consulting.
Lesley Wise
Managing Director of Wise Pharmacovigilance & Risk Management
Lesley Wise has more than 15 years of experience in pharmacovigilance both in medicines regulation at at the MHRA, and in the pharmaceutical industry as vice-president and global head of Risk Management Centre of Excellence and Pharmacoepidemiology where she worked closely with colleagues to ensure a companywide approach to Benefit – Risk Management and to maintain compliance with regulatory requirements. Lesley has liaised regularly with regulators, including meetings with PRAC, CHMP and FDA.
Follow Lesley Wise:
About Wise Pharmacovigilance & Risk Management: Wise Pharmacovigilance and Risk Management Ltd is a consultancy service for all pharmaceutical companies.
Shaymaa Taieb
Associate Director, upstream Continious Manufacturing of WuXi Biologics
Follow Shaymaa Taieb:
About WuXi Biologics: WuXi Biologics is a open-access technology platform company offering end-to-end solutions to empower organizations to discover and develop.
