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 Oxford based CEO’ operating in the Medical 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.
James Noble
Founder & CEO of Adaptimmune
James Noble has served as our full-time Chief Executive Officer since March 2014 and part-time CEO from July 2008 to March 2014 and is one of our co-founders. From July 2008 until March 2014, Mr. Noble was also part-time CEO of Immunocore. Mr. Noble has 24 years of experience in the biotech industry. He has held numerous non-executive director positions, including at CuraGen Corporation, PowderJect Pharmaceuticals plc, Oxford GlycoSciences plc, MediGene AG, and Advanced Medical Solutions plc. Mr. Noble is also Deputy Chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals plc and a non-executive director of Immunocore Limited. Mr. Noble is qualified as a chartered accountant with Pricewaterhouse Coopers and spent seven years at the investment bank Kleinwort Benson Limited, where he became a director in 1990. He then joined British Biotech plc as Chief Financial Officer from 1990 to 1997. Mr. Noble was previously Chief Executive Officer of Avidex Limited, a privately held biotechnology company that was our predecessor, from 2000 to 2006. Mr. Noble holds an MA from the University of Oxford.
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About Adaptimmune, Advanced Medical Solutions, Curagen Corporation, MediGene, Oxford GlycoSciences, PowderJect Pharmaceuticals: Adaptimmune develops T cell therapies to treat cancer, human immunodeficiency virus, and infectious diseases.
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Michalis Papadakis
CEO & Co-Founder of Brainomix
Dr Michalis Papadakis is the CEO and co-founder of Brainomix. He leads the management team, commercial strategy, fund raising, and corporate partnerships. He has grown the company from the ground up, building the company’s global presence and has raised over £15 million of private investment and public funding. When he founded Brainomix he was the Scientific Director of the preclinical stroke lab at the University of Oxford. He has a BSc Honours in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD in neurosciences from UCL School of Pharmacy. He has been an invited speaker at international scientific and innovation conferences
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About Brainomix: Brainomix specializes in the creation of AI-powered imaging biomarkers that enable precision medicine for better treatment decisions
Ian Nicholson
Chief Executive Officer of F2G
Ian joined Advent in 2012 from Chroma Therapeutics Limited, a privately held oncology-focussed R&D company, where he served as Chief Executive Officer for eight years. Prior to joining Chroma, Ian was Senior Vice President, Business Development at Celltech Group plc, then the UK’s largest biotechnology company. He has extensive experience in licensing, mergers and acquisitions, and market development in the UK, Europe and the US. Ian has held a variety of senior commercial positions with Oxford Asymmetry International plc, Lonza AG and Amersham International plc and currently sits on the Boards of Consort Medical plc, Clinigen Group plc and is Non-Executive Chairman of Bioventix plc. Ian holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree from University College London and an MBA from Boston University. Ian is CEO of F2G Ltd and an advisor to NeRRe Therapeutics.
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About Advent Life Sciences, Amersham International, F2G: F2G discovers and develops novel drugs for the treatment of life-threatening fungal diseases.
Soren Krogsgaard Thomsen
Co-Founder, CEO and Managing Director of BioMe Oxford
Soren is a medical scientist at the University of Oxford, with a background in the natural sciences and genetics research. He previously worked as a consultant for pharma and OBR consulting, and has published on his experiences as an academic entrepreneur. Soren’s current research is focused on translating large-scale genetic data into mechanisms for disease to inform new therapeutic strategies. He dreams of one day enabling similar population-wide microbiome studies using the platform technology under development at BioMe Oxford Ltd.
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About BioMe Oxford, Vertex Pharmaceuticals: Unlocking your gut microbiome by developing a medical device for targeted and non-invasive sampling
Harry lamble
CEO of Sense Biodetection
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About Sense Biodetection: Sense Biodetection Limited is a molecular diagnostics company .
Colin Story
Co-Founder & CEO of OxSonics Therapeutics
Colin Story brings over 20 years of medical technology and life sciences industrial experience, the majority held in commercial roles. After graduating with a BSc degree in Biological Sciences and a PhD in Molecular Biology he started his career at Amersham plc (now GE Healthcare) in 1997. Initially he held Product Development and Project Management roles in R&D and then latterly held a commercial role where he managed a £20m product portfolio. In 2005 he joined Isis Innovation Ltd, where he initiated, led and concluded a range of multi-£m transactions. In 2008 he went on to recruit and direct a Business Development team that managed over 200 medical science innovations emanating from Oxford University. In 2011 he joined OrganOx Ltd as Operations Director where he handled all operational and contractual aspects of the business that saw the company take a class III medical device from prototype into, and successfully through, first in man clinical trials. In January 2014 he became Co-Founder, Executive Director and the Chief Executive Officer of OxSonics® Ltd.
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About OrthoSon, OxSonics Therapeutics: OxSonics® Therapeutics’ proprietary drug delivery platform technology, SonoTran®
Lukas Lange
CEO and Co-Founder of Probably Genetic
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About Probably Genetic: Probably Genetic helps rare genetic disease patients.
Peter Donnelly
Chief Executive Officer of Genomics
Peter Donnelly is Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Oxford, and a founder and director of Genomics plc, a fast-growing company in the genome analytics space. He has played a leading role in many of the major projects and developments at the interface between genetics, healthcare, and clinical medicine, including the HapMap project, the Wellcome Trust Case Control consortia, and WGS500, one of the studies pioneering whole genome sequencing in clinical medicine.
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About Genomics, University of Oxford: Genomics plc aiming to lead the genomic transformation of healthcare.
Mike Karim
CEO and Co-founder of Oxford Endovascular
Over 20 years of international experience in medical devices including endovascular products. Leadership roles in general management, sales & marketing and mentoring. Success in fund raising, driving business growth in large corporations, SMEs and start ups, developing and bringing new products to market.
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About Oxford Endovascular: Oxford Endovascular are developing a novel treatment for treating brain aneurysms.
Nick Skaer
Founder and CEO of Orthox Ltd.
Nick Skaer has over 20 years experience in life science and materials research, and 10 years as a medtech CEO raising over £10m to fund development of FibroFix™ technology. In 2008 he founded Orthox with Prof. Oliver Kessler, securing a Translation Award from Wellcome Trust. Since then he has led the scientific and commercial programmes at Orthox, with further awards from the Technology Strategy Board, Wellcome Trust, and NIHR. Before this he was CSO, then CEO of Oxford Biomaterials from 2004 to 2009 where he developed the FibroFix™ technology and implemented the medical device programme. During this period he co-authored 5 patents, including the three assigned to Orthox, secured over £2 million in public grants and private investment and formed 3 spin out companies from Oxford Biomaterials to commercialise biomaterial technologies. Between 1992 and 2003 he studied Molecular Biology at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Strasbourg France, where he obtained his PhD.
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About Orthox Ltd.: Orthox develops tissue regenerative implants that address large injuries to cartilage tissues in which early osteoarthritis may be present.
Ann Kramer
CEO of The Electrospinning Company
Ann Kramer is CEO of The Electrospinning Company: a biomaterial platform company with applications in regenerative medicine and medical device markets.
Ann graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences and joined ICI Agrochemicals. Over almost 20 years with ICI, Zeneca and Syngenta she gained experience across the business including in research, sales, business development and M&A, with roles in the UK, USA and Switzerland. She managed the development of genetically modified food business streams in fresh produce crops. Since 2006 she has worked in the SME sector in the UK as Head of Business development for Oxitec Ltd. (acquired by Intrexon in 2015), COO of Immunocore Ltd. and CEO of Biosyntha Ltd. She joined The Electrospinning Company as CEO in 2012.
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About The Electrospinning Company: The Electrospinning Company is a provider of electrospun nanofibre innovations, developing solutions to industrial challenges.
Mark Larkin
CEO and Founder of Vitaccess
Mark Larkin founded Vitaccess in 2017, after more than 15 years in consultancy, with the aims of harnessing the power of digital technology to better represent the voice of patients in drug development and market access. Mark has a BA, MA and PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK.
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About Vitaccess: Digital healthcare company providing biopharma clients with real-time insights into patients’ lives via innovative global studies
Ross Upton
CEO of Ultromics
Ross is specialised in utilising computational technologies to build diagnostic algorithms within cardiovascular imaging. Ross has a strong academic background within the medical sciences and has undertaken two MSc degrees and a DPhil, receiving multiple grants for technology innovation and being selected as finalist for the 2015 Young Investigator Award in Lisbon. Together with Professor Leeson, Ross founded Ultromics’ underlying technology and as CEO, he drives all aspects of the company from technology development to business strategy.
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About Ultromics: Ultromics clinicians and engineers working together to set new standards for world-class cardiovascular diagnostic tools.
Sumi Biswas
Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Scientific Officer of SpyBiotech
Sumi Biswas is the Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Scientific Officer of Spybiotech.
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About SpyBiotech: SpyBiotech Operators of a biotechnology platform intended to generate next-generation vaccines.
Charlotte Casebourne
CEO of Theolytics
Charlotte believes in equitable access to effective therapies. In addition to her role with Theolytics, she is a Board Member of the UK BioIndustry Association. She has also been recently named one of In Vivo‘s 30 Rising Leaders in Life Sciences.
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About Theolytics: Theolytics is a pre-clinical stage biotechnology company developing next-generation oncolytic viral therapies.
Jonathan Allis
Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Earth Diagnostics
Jonathan Allis is the founding CEO of Blue Earth Diagnostics. Prior to this role, Jonathan was the General Manager for PET at GE Healthcare Life Sciences, and had global responsibility for GE Healthcare’s PET agent and PET synthesis platforms business. He has previously held positions in R&D, Marketing and Product Development at GE Healthcare, Amersham plc., Siemens Medical Solutions and Oxford Magnet Technology, in the UK, USA and Germany. Jonathan has an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Cape Town and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Oxford.
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About Blue Earth Diagnostics: BlueEarth Diagnostics mission is to transform the clinical management of recurrent prostate cancer
Tristan Collins
CEO of GaitQ
Tristan Collins serves as the Chief Executive Officer at GaitQ.
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About GaitQ: GaitQ is a developer of a medical device used to help people living with Parkinson’s disease to overcome freezing of gait.
Rajarshi Banerjee
Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Perspectum
Rajarshi Banerjee is CEO of Perspectum, which he co-founded in 2012, and now employs over 100 people in Oxford, Singapore and San Francisco. Rajarshi has worked in the National Health Service since 2002, and trained in cardiology and internal medicine in London and Oxford. He developed the MR techniques for rapid non-invasive liver assessment in Oxford, and commercialized the method as LiverMultiScan, which is now FDA cleared and used in over 200 sites. He graduated in medicine from Oxford, and went on to complete a Masters in Public Health in London before returning to Oxford for his doctorate. Dr Banerjee continues to work as a Consultant Physician with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, with research into the phenotyping of liver disease at an individual and population level in adults and children. He has many years of experience in running clinical trials and working in multidisciplinary scientific teams to develop applications for cutting-edge imaging technology and is a keen advocate of smart trial design.
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About Perspectum: Healthcare, Medical Technology, SaaS
David Hughes
CEO of CN Bio Innovations
Dr Hughes joined CN Bio Innovations in 2010 as Head of Engineering, was promoted to Technical Director in 2013 with responsibility for the management of all in-house and collaborative research and development programmes and the contract research services business. Dr Hughes was subsequently promoted to Chief Technology Officer in July 2014 with responsibility for managing the technical programs with the company’s academic and industrial partners. and, in 2018, he was promoted to CEO. During his career at CN Bio, he has secured and overseen the successful delivery of government and pharmaceutical research contracts and research grants totalling more than £2Mi.
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About CN Bio Innovations: CN Bio develops human organ-on-a-chip platforms for the testing and development of therapeutics for serious human diseases.
David Hughes
CEO of CN Bio Innovations
Dr Hughes joined CN Bio Innovations in 2010 as Head of Engineering, was promoted to Technical Director in 2013 with responsibility for the management of all in-house and collaborative research and development programmes and the contract research services business. Dr Hughes was subsequently promoted to Chief Technology Officer in July 2014 with responsibility for managing the technical programs with the company’s academic and industrial partners. and, in 2018, he was promoted to CEO. During his career at CN Bio, he has secured and overseen the successful delivery of government and pharmaceutical research contracts and research grants totalling more than £2Mi.
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About CN Bio Innovations: CN Bio develops human organ-on-a-chip platforms for the testing and development of therapeutics for serious human diseases.
Vaclav Potesil
CEO of Optellum
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About Optellum: Optellum develops an imaging biomarker for smart lung cancer detection.
