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 Vice President operating in the Biotechnology space. If you think a Vice President 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.
Richard Young
Vice President, Vault CDMS of Veeva
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About Veeva: Veeva Systems is a provider of cloud-based business solutions for the global life sciences industry.
Jeanne Bolger
Vice President Venture Investing of Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation
Jeanne Bolger, MB BCh BAO, Vice President, Venture Investments, joined Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC) in 2013. She is based in London, UK. Dr. Bolger has over 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience in management roles across R&D, Commercial and Business Development (BD). She spent 11 years in Licensing and Acquisition (L&A), most recently as Global Head of Scientific Licensing for Johnson & Johnson’s Pharmaceutical business, having joined Johnson & Johnson in 2005 from the Business Development group at GlaxoSmithKline. In 2009, Dr. Bolger became Vice President, Alliance Management at Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy, working with Pfizer and Elan. Dr. Bolger received her medical degree from University College Dublin. She also holds diplomas in Child Health (NUI) and in Finance and Accounting (ACCA). She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Ireland (RAMI). Dr. Bolger has served as the sole pharma industry representative on two Irish government taskforces seeking to enhance the commercialization of IP from Irish academic centres. She is a visiting lecturer on the MSc Pharmaceutical Medicine curriculum at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
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About Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Pulmocide: Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, a venture capital subsidiary, finances technology companies focused on patient health.
Alun McCarthy
Vice President of C4X Discovery
Alun has over 30 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, including drug discovery & development, genetics and biomarker research. Alun was co-founder and CEO of both Adorial (in 2014) and of PGXIS (in 2007). Former roles at GlaxoSmithKline include Head of Translational Medicine & Genetics for Psychiatry, Director of Clinical Pharmacogenetics, and Medical Strategy Head for CV/Metabolic Diseases. Alun has managed staff on a global basis, and has significant experience of engaging with regulatory authorities in the US, Europe and Japan. He holds a BA (Biochemistry) from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD (Biochemistry) from Trinity College, Dublin.
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About C4X Discovery: C4X Discovery brings a new dimension to drug discovery. Using its unique NMR-based technique to determine 3D molecular.
Martin Watson
Vice President of C4X Discovery
Martin was one of the first employees of the Company, coming from AstraZeneca plc where he had worked for 4 years in the industrial application of NMR to drug discovery. He has a first class masters chemistry degree from the University of Birmingham and a PhD from the University of Sheffield. He has applied NMR techniques across a wide range of drug targets.
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About C4X Discovery: C4X Discovery brings a new dimension to drug discovery. Using its unique NMR-based technique to determine 3D molecular.
Victoria Kitcatt
Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of Pfizer
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About Pfizer: Pfizer provides access to safe and effective and affordable medicines and health care services.
Gareth Jones
Vice President, Intellectual Property of BenevolentAI
Gareth Jones is vice president of intellectual property at BenevolentAI, a company developing and applying artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enhance and accelerate scientific discovery. In this role, Gareth Jones is responsible for all strategic and operational aspects of intellectual property across the BenevolentAI technology and pharmaceutical business units. Gareth Jones started his career in software engineering, holding technical leadership roles at IBM and Vodafone across a variety of cutting-edge technology areas. He initially became involved in intellectual property as an inventor and has more than 20 granted patents. At IBM, Gareth Jones became one of the youngest recipients of the Master Inventor title, in recognition of his sustained innovation leadership through management of invention harvesting and inventor education and mentoring. Following a role managing the global invention harvesting process at Vodafone, Gareth Jones was recruited as head of intellectual property at SwiftKey, an AI technology start-up that was sold to Microsoft in one of the largest UK tech exits of 2015/2016. He built and scaled IP operations, prepared the business for sale and played a key role in facilitating the acquisition. Gareth Jones joined the Microsoft IP team to oversee the SwiftKey integration and provided additional support evaluating patents for licensing, divestiture and prosecution.
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About BenevolentAI: BenevolentAI is a developer of artificial intelligence and computational medicine technologies.
Martin Ducker
Vice President of Juvenescence
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About Juvenescence: Juvenescence is a biotech company that develops therapies and products to modify aging and help people live longer.
Richard Patterson
Vice President, Europe Sales of Molecular Devices
Richard started in his current role in July 2012. He joined Molecular Devices in May 2005 as a Sales Account Manager and progressed through a series of sales management roles of increasing responsibility. Prior to Molecular Devices, Richard was Managing Director of M. J. Patterson (Scientific) Ltd. Richard holds a BSc degree with Honors in Biochemistry from Imperial College, London.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Richard Patterson
Vice President, Europe Sales of Molecular Devices
Richard started in his current role in July 2012. He joined Molecular Devices in May 2005 as a Sales Account Manager and progressed through a series of sales management roles of increasing responsibility. Prior to Molecular Devices, Richard was Managing Director of M. J. Patterson (Scientific) Ltd. Richard holds a BSc degree with Honors in Biochemistry from Imperial College, London.
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About Molecular Devices: Bioanalytical Systems and Solutions
Martin Lachs
Vice President Global Project Management of ICON plc
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About ICON plc: ICON is a global provider of outsourced drug development services to biopharma, medical device, biosimilar and generic organizations.
Paul Lyons
Vice President of Platform Delivery & Co-Founder of PredictImmune
Paul is a Principal Research Associate in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He has over 25 years of experience in molecular and cellular biology including Senior Scientist positions in the Dept. Medical Genetics, University of Cambridge, Dept. Surgery, University of Oxford and the Rosalind Franklin Centre for Genomics Research. His primary research interest is the application of high throughput genomic approaches to better understand the genetic and molecular basis of autoimmune disease.
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About PredictImmune: Providing tools to physicians in the treatment of patients with immune-mediated disease, through prediction of long term clinical prognosis.
Christopher Vann
Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of Autolus
Christopher Vann leads commercial activities for Autolus. An industry veteran with 30 years’ experience in both development and business roles, he joined Autolus from Hoffmann-La Roche’s Swiss headquarters, where he was latterly responsible for leading the lung cancer commercial team and general management of the Tarceva brand. He has extensive experience of global lifecycle management of oncology products as well as implementing marketing strategy at a regional and national level. This includes launching several oncology, immunology and transplant products in countries such as China, Japan, Romania, Russia, South Africa, the UK and the USA. He gained his degree in toxicology and pharmacology from the School of Pharmacy, University of London.
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About Autolus: Autolus is in T-cell programming and manufacturing technology.
Gareth Ridge
Senior Vice President of Operations & Site Head of Cambridge Epigenetix
Gareth has a degree in Pharmacology from the University of Cambridge and has worked in the pharmaceutical sector for over 20 years. During his career he has worked for both large and small pharma, biotechnology and clinical research organisations, he also has five years’ experience in business consultancy. In addition to delivering successful clinical research projects Gareth has managed business change projects – including system implementations, process reengineering and organisational change. He has held many leadership positions with responsibility for project and revenue delivery and strategic growth and has had oversight of over 70 clinical research studies, either directly as project manager or as responsible head, and has worked in high growth companies where he successfully built a team to successfully deliver 700% growth in project delivery & revenue in 2 years.
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About Cambridge Epigenetix: Cambridge Epigenetix is using epigenetics to reduce several routine & important diagnostic tests for common cancers to a simple blood draw.
Joanna Holbrook
Senior Vice President of Research of Cambridge Epigenetix
Joanna started her career in GSK R&D, working for seven years in the UK bioinformatics department, processing the integrating ‘omic data for drug target identification and validation mostly focussing on neurological disease, and then for three years in GSK USA Oncology R&D working on biomarkers for targeted therapies. She then left GSK and the USA for Singapore and built an academic group in A*STAR Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences. Her group focused on epigenomic trackers of complex disease, especially the interaction of genetic, environmental and disease states in shaping the human epigenome. Her work in Singapore encompassed set-up of observational and interventional cohorts, biobanking, clinical databases, production, processing and analysis of biosample ‘omic profiles and multiple industrial collaborations. Moving back to the UK five years later, she took up a professorship at the University of Southampton, still working on epigenomics and also integration of electronic health record data to clinical cohorts. Most recently she has been VP of Translational Medicine at BenevolentAI, a fast growing British Biotech, where she initiated and led integration of ‘omic data into a large biomedical knowledge graph and machine learning approaches to analyses of patient-level data for precision medicine.
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About Cambridge Epigenetix: Cambridge Epigenetix is using epigenetics to reduce several routine & important diagnostic tests for common cancers to a simple blood draw.
Arif Shivji
Senior Vice President, Business and Corporate Development and Development Operations of Drugabilis
Dr Shivji is a co-founder of Ziarco and was previously Vice President of Development Operations and Business Development. Dr Shivji has a broad experience of drug discovery, development and commercialization and has contributed to bringing 10 commercially available products to the market, through various leadership roles in pharmaceutical sciences and global project management. Prior to Ziarco, he was in Pfizer’s Business Development group. In this role, he was responsible for in-licensing, out-licensing and research collaborations with universities, medical research institutions, governments and companies for Pfizer’s Allergy and Respiratory and Anti-Infectives businesses. Dr Shivji has a degree in Pharmacy, and a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Nottingham, under the direction of Professors’ Martyn Davies, Saul Tendler, Clive Roberts and Phil Williams. His post doctoral research was sponsored by Glaxo SmithKline (GSK) Pharmaceuticals and focussed on understanding the role and mechanism of beta amyloid deposition in Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr Shivji has authored and co-authored a number of scientific papers, abstracts and patents and regularly contributes to scientific and business development meetings. He is currently also a visiting professor at the University of Reading.
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About Drugabilis: Drugabilis specializes in solid form characterisation and formulation development for human and animal health.
Giles Snare
Vice President , Sales Developed Markets of Beckman Coulter
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About Beckman Coulter: Beckman Coulter develops, manufactures and markets products that simplify & automate biomedical testing for lab professionals.
Nick Child
Vice President of Stablepharma Ltd
Nick Child – Vice President & Co Founder Experienced company leader, business developer, multi-disciplined & experienced in UK & International markets, manufacturing & distribution. Initiated various start-ups, acquisitions, & funding rounds.
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About Stablepharma Ltd: An innovative Biotech, developing a wide range of reformulated thermostable and fridge free StablevaX vaccines
Noor Shaker
Senior Vice President and General Manager of X-Chem
Noor was an assistant professor at Aalborg University in Copenhagen working on machine learning. She has more than 50 publications and 1100+ citations and has co-authored a book on generative methods.
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About Lynura, X-Chem: X-Chem, Inc. is a privately held biotechnology company.
Lynn Purkins
Vice President & Chief Development Officer of Ziarco
Lynn Purkins is the vice president of clinical operations for Reneo Pharmaceuticals. Lynn has nearly three decades of drug development experience in large and small biotechnology companies. Before joining Reneo, Lynn was a founder and chief development officer at Ziarco Pharma, which was acquired by Novartis in 2017. Prior to Ziarco, Lynn held numerous roles at Pfizer, including clinical pharmacology, clinical operations and team leader for projects from target selection to clinical proof of concept. Her experience spans multiple therapeutic areas including dermatology, pain, respiratory and gastroenterology. Lynn received a Ph.D. in nutrition and immunology from University of Leeds and a B.S. in dietetics from Leeds Beckett University.
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About Ziarco: Ziarco develops therapeutic agents for treating inflammatory and allergic diseases.
Tony Brown
Vice President of Scientific and Corporate Development of Asterand
Tony has been with Asterand Bioscience for 16 years. Prior to taking up his current position, he held a number of senior positions within the company including General Manager for the UK Services business, General Manager for the Detroit-based tissue products business and VP, Strategic Alliances, with responsibility for securing and managing the Company’s human tissue supply collaborations. Tony began his career teaching physiology at Nottingham University Medical School in the UK, after obtaining degrees in engineering, bioengineering and a PhD in physiology. He subsequently joined SmithKline Beecham in 1988, where he headed up the receptor pharmacology group within neurosciences research, and led several drug discovery projects and drug screening programs. Tony joined Pharmagene (now Asterand Bioscience) in 1998. Tony has published on the pharmacology and biochemistry of ion and neurotransmitter transport and on the use of human tissues for research in drug discovery and development.
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About Asterand: Asterand Bioscience is the leading global provider of high quality, well characterized human tissue & human tissue-based research solution.
Robert Spavin
Vice President of Legal Affairs of Virttu Biologics
Robert joined VIRTTU in 2003 as Legal Counsel responsible for the company’s legal and intellectual property affairs. Qualifying as a solicitor with City of London firm Herbert Smith in 1996, he subsequently specialised in IP law at leading IP firm Bird & Bird. He is experienced in the development of growth technology companies, patent management and regulatory affairs.
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About Virttu Biologics: Virttu is a privately held biotechnology company, which has pioneered the development of oncolytic viruses for treating cancer.
Alex Graham
Vice President of Translational Medicine of Virttu Biologics
Dr. Alex Graham has more than 30 years of experience as a scientist in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector, having most recently worked as a Principal Scientist for AstraZeneca. He has led several small molecule discovery projects and most recently was responsible for the Genomics Facility for AstraZeneca Oncology. He was also responsible for introducing relevant new technologies into the Oncology business, specifically in the areas of biomarkers and translational medicine. Alex joined Virttu in 2008 and has been closely involved in the planning,management and analysis of Virttu’s clinical studies.
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About Virttu Biologics: Virttu is a privately held biotechnology company, which has pioneered the development of oncolytic viruses for treating cancer.
