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 Oxfordshire 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.
Mayank Banerjee
Co-Founder and CEO of Even
Mayank Banerjee joined Even Healthcare as Co-Founder in 2020.
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About Even: Even is a health-tech company and healthcare provider that partners directly with the top hospitals in the country.
Matthew Goodman
Founder & Chief Medical Officer of Mapmyhealth
Matthew Goodman Chief Medical Officer Matthew studied medicine in the UK, qualifying as a doctor and becoming a general surgeon before specialising in endocrinology and pharmaceutical medicine. He began his career in industry by joining Sanofi, soon moving to Global positions with Novartis in both Switzerland and the US. In 2009 he returned to the UK to lead the Clinical Research programs of Prosidion, an Oxford-based biotechnology company breaking new ground in the treatment of diabetes and obesity. During his time as a research physician, along with his team, he was credited with the successful development of several cardiovascular and diabetes medicines today being used to successfully treat millions of patients worldwide. In 2012, Matthew founded Mapmyhealth, a company dedicated to the use of innovative technologies in the treatment of long-term conditions, from diabetes to cancer. Mapmyhealth now deliver their digital therapeutics to thousands of patients across the NHS and beyond, helping to advance care, improve disease management, prevent complications and reduce patient distress.
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About Mapmyhealth: Mapmyhealth design and develop technology enabled care services.
Connor Campbell
Founder and CEO of Osler Diagnostics
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About Osler Diagnostics: Lab-quality diagnostics for anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Paulo R. Bueno
Co-Founder of Osler Diagnostics
Paulo R. Bueno is the coordinator of the Nanobionics research group (www.nanobionics.pro.br) at São Paulo State University, UNESP. He published over 180 papers related to fundaments and applications of electric and electrochemistry time-dependent (including gravimetric and optical impedance) spectroscopic methods (h index 42, > 6500 citations with an average citation of higher than 25 per article, Google Scholar). His main scientific interest is focused on the fundaments and technological applications associated with electron charge transfer, transport and storage occurring at molecular and nanoscale structures. Under his guidance Nanobionics group develops synthetic structures and surfaces that mimic molecular and biological structures aiming applications in highly-relevant diagnostic devices. The Nanobionics group developed a totally new label-free diagnostic assay based on an electroanalytical spectroscopic methodology supported on the use of the electrochemistry capacitance, i.e. a capacitance proportional to the electrochemical density of states that intrinsically exists in mesoscopic structures comprised of redox-active molecules when attached over an electrode. These impedance-derived assays are able to detect target protein at femtomolar levels allowing the early detection of clinically relevant targets that are better than those currently commercial. They are potentially cheap and can be multiplexed. Other relevant aspects of his groups’ activities are the synthesis of self-assembled redox-tagged peptides and its applications in redox capacitive biosensors. The advantages of constructing a peptide-based receptive surface containing electrochemical tags are that peptides can be easily manipulated and optimized for applications containing complex biological environments. This tailoring ability avoids fouling and concomitantly can substitute antibodies by peptide or DNA aptamers as receptors with equivalent or superior affinity as well as specificity. Since 2008 Professor Bueno is engaged with tech transfer initiatives involving public-private start-up tech transfer projects with Scientific and Technological Parks in Sao Paulo. Because of such initiatives, Professor Bueno was invited to a plenary conference in the USA – Washington in 2009 by the US National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer in which Brazilian Tech Transfer context was introduced and discussed with the US and European Tech Transfer related agents and agencies. He is also engaged with UNESP internationalization program. Finally, he acted as academic and researcher visitor several times in European universities such as Universities of Valence and Jaume I (Spain), University of Paris (France) and University of Oxford. His collaborative work has been the subject of two significant awards from The Royal Society in the UK (a Brian Mercer Award in 2013 and a Newton Fellowship in 2015). His is currently administrating a Fellowship of Royal Society (Research Fellows Director, https://royalsociety.org/people/paulo-roberto-bueno-12682/). He is Fellows of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in the UK and member of American Chemical Society (ACS) in the USA. Also, he is a member of The Electrochemical Society (ECS) and International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE). Professor Bueno is the co-founder of Osler Diagnostics (http://oslerdiagnostics.com/), a start-up company from the University of Oxford.
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About Osler Diagnostics: Lab-quality diagnostics for anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Andrew Barker
Co-Founder & Director of Intelligent Ultrasound
Andrew Barker is the Chairman at Oxford Brain Diagnostics .
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About Anchard Associates, Brainomix, Intelligent Ultrasound, Oxford Brain Diagnostics: Intelligent Ultrasound develops software that improves the quality, reliability, and diagnostic power of medical ultrasound.
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.
Andrew Hopkins
Co-Founder and CEO of Exscientia
Andrew spent 10 years at Pfizer, where he was responsible for establishing new research foci including the concepts of druggability and network pharmacology. Andrew has raised a total of $50 million for academic and commercial research activities in his continuing role as Chair of Medicinal Informatics at the University of Dundee. He is the author of some of the most highly cited papers in modern drug discovery.
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About Exscientia, Kinetic Discovery Ltd.: Exscientia is a pharmatech company that uses an end-to-end AI platform to design and discover new drugs.
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
Patrick Albers
Co-Founder and Head of Technology of BioMe Oxford
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About BioMe Oxford, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute: Unlocking your gut microbiome by developing a medical device for targeted and non-invasive sampling
George Busby
CSO and Co-Founder of Allelica
George is a geneticist and a writer. He has been a researcher at the University of Oxford for more than 5 years and his scientific work has been published in Nature and Science. He was always fascinated by the possibility of using the information contained in our DNA to reconstruct the evolutionary history of human beings. He now leads the Allelica scientific team, bringing the predictive genomic accuracy of the Polygenic approach to the market for the first time.
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About Allelica: Allelica is a genomics software company driving the transition of Polygenic Risk Score from Genomic research to clinical application.
Edward Green
Founder & Chief Executive of CHAIN Biotechnology
Edward is a serial biotech entrepreneur, having founded Green Biologics and built it into a world leader for butanol fermentation. He is a microbiologist with over 25 years’ experience with anaerobic bacteria, obtaining a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He has pioneered technical improvements in microbial strain improvement and fermentation process development for industrial biotechnology applications contributing to numerous scientific publications and patents. He recently founded CHAIN Biotech, a microbiome Company focused on development and commercialisation of microbial technology for the production and delivery of biotherapeutics. Edward participates in the IB Leadership Forum, several NIBB management boards; C1NET and LBNET and BBSRC advisory panels for Bioenergy and Industrial Biotechnology.
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About CHAIN Biotechnology, Green Biologics: CHAIN Biotechnology is a microbiome therapeutics company with a novel drug development platform targeting chronic gut-related diseases.
Chris Spencer
Co-Founder and Head of Innovation of Genomics
Chris Spencer is Founder of Genomics PLC and serves as its Director. Chris Spencer’s collect, curate, analyse and interpret very large amounts of genetic data to help understand human diseases. His career has happily coincided with an era of collaboration it made major inroads into understanding of human genetics. He has played a lead analytical role in the International HapMap project and the Wellcome Trust Cases Controls Consortium. As a young scientist, his early work in large scale human data was awarded the Corcoran Memorial Prize from the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford, which is awarded every two years for outstanding graduate work. His works are Cell-Mediated Immune Mechanisms, Visceral Leishmaniasis and Large Vessel Ischemic Stroke.
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About Genomics: Genomics plc aiming to lead the genomic transformation of healthcare.
Gil McVean
Co Founder & Director of Genomics
Gil McVean is Professor of Statistical Genetics at the University of Oxford and Head of Bioinformatics and Statistical Genetics at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. After an undergraduate training in Zoology, he obtained a PhD with Laurence Hurst in Cambridge and worked with Brian and Deborah Charlesworth in Edinburgh before joining Oxford in 2000. His research focuses on understanding the molecular and evolutionary processes that shape genetic variation in populations and the relationship between genetic variation and phenotype. He has made contributions to our understanding of areas including recombination hotspots, historical patterns of natural selection, the male mutation rate, human genetic variation, the role of HLA in complex disease and genealogical processes. He has played a leading role in the HapMap and 1000 Genomes Projects and currently works on organisms from HIV to malaria.
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About Genomics: Genomics plc aiming to lead the genomic transformation of healthcare.
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.
Oliver Kessler
Founder, Medical Director and Chief Medical Officer of Orthox Ltd.
Oliver Kessler is a practising knee surgeon based in Zurich with a strong track record of biomaterials research and a focus on meniscal and cartilage repair systems and joint kinematics. He spent 6 years at Stryker Orthopaedics as Director of Orthobiologics supervising a major meniscal tissue engineering programme. He has extensive contacts within both the orthopaedic industry and the surgical community and is responsible for overseeing clinical development of Orthox’s product pipeline.
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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.
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
Charalambos Antoniades
Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Caristo Diagnostics
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About Caristo Diagnostics: Caristo Diagnostics utilises standard CT scans to identify potentially heart-stopping plaques
Mikhail Shchepinov
Founder and CSO of Retrotope
did postdoctoral research in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, UK, from 1995 to 2000, focusing on the overlap of bioorganic, combinatorial and surface chemistries. From 2000 to 2002 (San Diego, USA), and from 2002 to 2006 (UK) he worked in the biotech industry developing chemical tools for genomics and proteomics. At Retrotope, Dr. Shchepinov has focused on the use of stable isotopes as a fortification of essential nutrients to protect against diseases of aging and age-related oxidative stress. Dr. Shchepinov received his MS in chemistry and biotechnology from the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology, Moscow, USSR, and a PhD in bioorganic chemistry from the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow, in 1994.
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About Retrotope: Retrotope is a developer of a new category of drug platform to preserve and restore mitochondrial health in degenerative diseases.
Stuart Grice
Co-Founder and CSO of FitnessGenes
Stuart is a co-founder of FitnessGenes, and also a published scientist who adds current and cutting edge expertise to the science team. After a short plunge into the world of finance, he decided scientific enlightenment was where it’s at. Having studied subjects as diverse as neuromuscular disorders and autism, he continues to work on understanding how the variations in both genetics and metabolism impact on human health.
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About FitnessGenes: FitnessGenes is pioneering the field of genetic data analysis to produce personalized fitness and diet recommendations.
Samantha Decombel
Co-Founder & CEO of FitnessGenes
A co-founder of FitnessGenes, with a PhD in genetics and a passion for science communication, Sam is responsible for product development and management of the science team. Fascinated by genetics from an early age, she studied the subject for her PhD at the University of Birmingham, UK, where she has also lectured on Evolutionary and Conservation Genetics. Sam is an enthusiastic sportswoman, and particularly enjoys playing football and running when she is not in the gym trying to improve on her squat PB of 165lb.
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About FitnessGenes, InnovationXchange, Play DNA: FitnessGenes is pioneering the field of genetic data analysis to produce personalized fitness and diet recommendations.
Matthew South
Co-Founder of DEONTICS
Matthew South is a Co-Founder at DEONTICS.
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About DEONTICS: Deontics was set up to commercialise Clinical Quality and Clinical Decision Support Technologies
Matthew Robson
Founder & Chief Technology Officer of Perspectum
Matt Robson is Perspectum’s Chief Technical Officer (CTO), co-founder and company director. He is responsible for overseeing development and implementation of our image acquisition and image analysis pipelines. Matt has over 25 years of experience working with MRI initially through his PhD at Cambridge in “Automated Analysis of MRI Images” that followed from a Natural Science (Physics and Theoretical Physics) also in Cambridge. He followed this with Research positions at Yale University and industrial roles with GEC, Surrey Medical Systems, Picker International and Marconi Medical before returning to academia with Oxford University where he pioneered the technologies that underpin Perspectum’s products.
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About Perspectum: Healthcare, Medical Technology, SaaS
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
Robin Marriott
Co-Founder and Executive Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development of PowderMed
PowderMed at Co-Founder.
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About PowderMed: PowderMed developed the Particle Mediated Epidermal Delivery (PMED) technology.
Roger Noble
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Zegami
Roger Noble is a Software Developer and Data Visualisation expert with a passion for building new and innovative technologies that help people see the world in a new way.
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About Zegami: Delivering explainable AI faster and more accurately. Zegami are end-to-end imaging AI specialists combining unique tools and ML services
Stephen Taylor
Founder & CSO of Zegami
Stephen is the Head of the Computational Biology Research Group for the Weatherall Institute at Oxford University and Chief Scientific Officer for Zegami. Stephen did his B.Sc. in Microbiology and holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science. He started using PivotViewer in 2010 to visualise large genomics datasets and microscopy data. To overcome its limitations he worked with Roger Noble to develop and publish HTML5 PivotViewer. As the CSO, Stephen is focused on Zegami’s contribution to research and ensuring that the platform contributes to making new discoveries that will change and improve the world we live in.
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About Zegami: Delivering explainable AI faster and more accurately. Zegami are end-to-end imaging AI specialists combining unique tools and ML services
David Cole
Co Founder of Thinking of oscar
David Cole is the Co-founder of Children’s Charity thinkingofoscar.
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About Thinking of oscar: Thinking of oscar provides Charity dedicated to improving the quality of life for children & their families whilst in hospital care.
