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 United Kingdom based COO’ operating in the Medical Device 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.
Michael Skynner
Chief Operating Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics
Mike Skynner, Ph.D., is vice president of operations at Bicycle Therapeutics.He joined Bicycle Therapeutics from Pfizer where he led rare disease efforts in Europe and founded and ran the Pfizer Rare Disease Consortium (RDC). The RDC was an innovative agreement between Pfizer and 20 leading U.K. universities that created research partnerships between Pfizer, academic researchers and patient groups to develop new therapies for rare and orphan diseases using a new collaborative paradigm. As part of those activities he also established Pfizer’s Genetic Medicine Institute, a bespoke research unit in central London embedded within the U.K. gene therapy academic community. Previously, he established a discovery performance unit at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) focused on developing therapeutics targeting inflammatory kinases using an externalised and partnered model with leading European biotechnology companies. In his time at GSK he successfully advanced multiple molecules from screening into clinical trials. Prior to GSK he co-founded a successful biotech start-up company, Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd., (CBT), which specialised in developing small molecule and peptide therapeutics for inflammation and metabolic disease. CBT was sold to Swedish Orphan Biovitrum. Mike obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Imperial College and is an author on over 30 peer-reviewed scientific publications.
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About Bicycle Therapeutics: Bicycle Therapeutics is developing a technology for the creation of new generation biotherapeutics.
Claire Woodthorpe
VP Europe and COO of Lightpoint Medical
Claire Woodthorpe is the VP Europe and COO at Lightpoint Medical.
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About Lightpoint Medical: Lightpoint Medical, a medical device company, develops intra-operative imaging technology that can detect cancer during surgery.
Nick Yeo
Chief Operating Officer of Veryan Medical
Nick has over 20 years’ international experience in the healthcare industry. He began his career in pharmaceuticals, becoming CEO of Sterling Winthrop Prescription Medicines, before moving on to senior marketing and business leadership roles at Gensia Europe and Scotia QuantaNova. Before joining Veryan he held senior management positions in product and clinical development at oncology drug-device specialist Light Sciences, where he led the formation of a cardiovascular technology start-up.
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About Veryan Medical: Veryan Holdings is a medical device company developing three dimensional vascular stents for peripheral vascular disease.
Samantha Payne
Co Founder & COO of Open Bionics
Samantha Payne is the co founder of Open Bionics; a robotics company developing assistive devices that enhance the human body. The company has won multiple awards for Engineering and Innovation including two British Engineering Excellence Awards and the James Dyson award for innovative design. Open Bionics works with companies like Disney to children with limb differences into bionic superheroes. They were the first company to bring affordable multi-grip bionic hands to the National Health Service in the UK.
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About Open Bionics: Open Bionics is a robotics company creating affordable 3D-printed bionic hands for amputees, researchers and makers.
Tornike Asatiani
Chief Operating Officer of PCL Health
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About PCL Health, PCL Health: B2B SaaS Connected care platform with IoTs, mobile Apps and Online Clinician Dashboard.
Chris Townsend
Chief Operating Officer of CellNovo
Chris has over 25 years of experience in medtech, in particular the transfer of devices from R&D in production and their subsequent scale to large volume manufacture. He has worked at Owen Mumford (Auto injectors), Microvisk (Sensors), Sphere Medical (Biosensors) and Innovata (Inhalers) where he held senior management team roles.
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About CellNovo: CellNovo is a medical device company developing a wireless therapeutic system for diabetic patients.
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.
Gemma Timms
Founder & COO of VitaeVR
Gemma Timms is an executive at Hakluyt and the co-founder of Vitae VR.
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About VitaeVR: Medical devices for early diagnosis of cognitive disease
Andrew Shawcross
COO of Endomag
Dr. Shawcross has 25 years’ experience in industrially based scientific R&D, built initially on his time with ICI, Zeneca, and Avecia, through to more recent experience with Xennia, CDT and now Endomag. Originally trained as a chemist, Andy’s career has taken him into the areas of dyes/pigments, polymers, formulation, semiconductors, nanotechnology, inkjet, displays and medical devices. In the last 15 years, Andy has held a wide range of technical and project management roles, as well as gaining significant experience in sales, business development, quality, regulatory and operational management. Andy holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Northumbria University.
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About Endomag: Endomag is a medical technology company devoted to improving breast cancer care through its magnetic sensing technologies.
Zahid Ansari
COO of GyroGear
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About GyroGear: GyroGear is developing a wearable to help individuals with hand tremors.
Daniel Green
Chief Operating Officer of Caristo Diagnostics
Experienced start-up executive, most recently COO at Perspectum Diagnostics. Led multiple products through successful FDA and CE clearances. 20 years in medical device industry, both hardware and software.
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About Caristo Diagnostics: Caristo Diagnostics utilises standard CT scans to identify potentially heart-stopping plaques
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
Richard Mcconnell
Co-Founder & COO of Liopa
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About Anaeko, Liopa: Liopa’s LipRead deciphers speech from lip movements. It uses AI and deep learning for automated lip reading.
Sean Pollock
Founder & COO of Opus Medical
Doctor Sean Pollock researched and developed the Breathe Well technology over 5 years for his Masters and PhD in medical physics, transitioning into a full time role in the company after the completion of his PhD.
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About Opus Medical: Opus Medical designs and manufactures medical devices for use in motion management during cancer treatment.
