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 United Kingdom based COO’ operating in the Life Science space. If you think a COO’ 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.
Sebastian Brunemeier
Founder & COO of Samsara Therapeutics
Sebastian Brunemeier is the Founder and COO of Samsara Therapeutics.
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About Cyclone Therapeutics, Samsara Therapeutics, U.S. Department of State, University of Oxford: Samsara Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company that aims to discover therapeutics to treat rare genetic and neurodegenerative disease.
Andrew Webster
COO of Polymateria
Andrew Webster is the Chief Operating Officer of Polymateria.
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About Polymateria: Polymateria is a London-based startup advancing science to help nature deal with plastic pollution.
Thomas Fleming
Co-Founder & COO of Arctoris
Thomas Fleming is an award-winning chemist, cancer researcher, and SME Leader of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Tom is the Co-Founder & COO at Arctoris.
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About Arctoris: Arctoris is a tech-enabled platform company in biotechnology, combining robotics & data science to accelerate drug discovery.
Sacha Carton
Co-Founder & COO of Airfinity
Sacha is co-founder & COO at Airfinity – a science information and analytics company. He is a data, tech and media entrepreneur who previously co-founded ad pepper media (FRA: APM), Adbrain (sold to NSDQ: TTD), Scala Ventures and advisory firm Ogmenta and has been an investor, advisor and director in multiple media, data, adtech, PE and M&A companies in Europe and the US.
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About Airfinity, Scala Ventures: Airfinity is a science information and analytics company
Katherine Willetts
COO of DynamX Medical
After graduating from the University of Warwick in 2011 with a BSc. in Biochemistry Katie became interested in translational medicine and biophysics. She went on to complete her PhD at UCL in 2015 in the technical development of infrared spectroscopy for biomedical applications. She has published several papers relating to the handling and analysis of biological samples in infrared spectroscopy research. Several aspects of her research have proven key in the development of the BeamLine algorithm. Katie co-founded BeamLine Diagnostics in March 2015 and continues to work on technical development and data analysis.
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About DynamX Medical, Oxford Pharmagenesis: DynamX Medical has developed a diagnostic system for cancer and pre-cancer.
Tauhid Ali
COO & Director of JATT Acquisition
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About JATT Acquisition: JATT Acquisition provides fund assistance to businesses from the life sciences sector.
Fiona du Monceau
COO of ExeVir Bio
Fiona du Monceau is the Chief Operating Officer of ExeVir Bio.
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About ExeVir Bio: ExeVir Bio is a Belgium-based company that develops single-domain antibody-based therapies that help patients ward off viral infections.
Sybil Wong
COO of Sparrho
Sybil completed her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Nottingham and Barts Cancer Institute, QMUL. Prior to joining Sparrho, Sybil was SVP Business Development & Director of OneStart, the world’s largest biotech and healthcare startup accelerator, at the Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable. Through OneStart, Sybil supported 70 budding biotech and healthcare startups from across Europe, North America and Asia, and managed partnerships with top pharma and venture firms, including SR One/GSK, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca/MedImmune.
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About Sparrho, Synthace: Sparrho lead the world in democratising science using augmented intelligence.
Cameron Shaw
Founder and COO of Virax Biolabs
Cameron Shaw is the founder and Chief Operations Officer at Virax Biolabs.
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About Virax Biolabs: Virax Biolabs is an innovative Biotechnology company focused on the prevention, detection and diagnosis of viral diseases
Sally Burton-Graham
COO of Crowd.Science
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About Crowd.Science: Crowd.Science is a crowdfunding platform that supports scientists build a community of funders for their research.
Rory Cameron
Chief Operating Officer of Gendius
Rory has a proven track record in starting up Pharmaceutical businesses in many different specialised sectors. Rory’s most recent role was as SVP and GM at InterMune UK&I where he set up the UK and Irish businesses over a 4 year period until their successful acquisition by Roche. Rory’s background is in Sales and Marketing and he has a passion for ensuring we improve the delivery of care to patients.
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About Gendius: Gendius is a diabetes management platform helping its consumers check and level diabetes.
Simon Tyler
Chief Operating Officer of CatSci
Simon obtained an MA in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) from Hertford College, Oxford in 1995 and earned a PhD in 1998 after research on asymmetric synthesis in the group of Prof. Laurence M. Harwood. Then followed a two-year post-doctoral stint with Prof. Barry M. Trost at Stanford University, studying the catalysis of the Claisen rearrangement. In 2001, Simon returned to the UK to join Process R&D in AstraZeneca, gaining experience and understanding of the multi-disciplinary needs of drug development to lead significant process development projects ranging from candidate selection to Phase III, therein establishing a record of exploiting innovative synthetic and catalytic chemistry for the manufacture of drug candidates. After ten years in big pharma, Simon played a pivotal role as a co-founder of CatSci Ltd, negotiating the financial terms for the asset transfer and service agreement with AstraZeneca. After an initial operational role during the establishment of the new start-up, he subsequently took on commercial responsibility for the company, overseeing growth to a multi-million pound business. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer, focused on unleashing the talents of staff across the organisation to exceed the expectations of customers. As a dynamic leader, he is committed to the development of others through vision, participation and affiliation.
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About CatSci: CatSci provides innovative process research and development services to emerging, mid-sized and large pharma.
Alex Warnock
COO of Gooch & Housego
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About Gooch & Housego: Gooch & Housego is a global leader in photonics technology.
