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 Founder operating in the Biopharma 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.
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.
Amit Nathwani
Founder & Chief Scientific Officer of Freeline
Amit is renowned for his pioneering work on gene therapy for haemophilia B, and was first to show successful correction of bleeding diathesis in patients with severe haemophilia B. Amit is the Director of the Katharine Dormandy Haemophilia Centre at the Royal Free Hospital, and a Senior NIHR Investigator. He is also Professor of Haematology at UCL. He graduated in Medicine from the University of Aberdeen in 1984. In 1997 he moved to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, USA, to work with Dr Arthur Nienhuis on adeno-associated virus mediated gene transfer. Here he started his pioneering work on gene therapy for haemophilia B. In 2001 he returned to University College London as a Senior Lecturer in Haematology and a Consultant to the National Blood Services in the UK. He was the first to show successful correction of bleeding diathesis in patients with severe haemophilia B, using a distinct gene transfer approach developed in collaboration with Dr’s Davidoff and Nienhuis at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
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About Freeline: Freeline Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on developing liver directed gene therapies for a range of diseases.
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.
Charles Sermon
General Counsel & Co-Founder of Mereo Biopharma
Charles is Mereo Biopharma’s General Counsel, Company Secretary and a co-founder. He has over 20 years’ experience in corporate law and biopharmaceuticals. He started his career as a corporate lawyer at Freshfields before joining Nomura as an Associate Director in 1998 where he worked for Nomura’s life science investment team investing globally in biotechnology companies. Charles was part of Phase4 Partners’ MBO from Nomura in 2010. Charles has an LLB (Hons) from Hull University. Charles is a Board Member of Phase4 Partners and a Member of the Mayor of London Enterprise Panel’s Digital Creative, Science and Technology Working Group. Prior to Nomura Charles was a corporate lawyer in London with Freshfields. Charles holds a LLB (Hons) from the University of Hull and a Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors.
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About Mereo Biopharma: Mereo is a new UK-based speciality biopharmaceutical company.
Alastair MacKinnon
CMO and Co-Founder of Mereo Biopharma
Alastair joined the team in 2005. He serves as Board Observer for Albireo and Chroma. Further to these he has been actively involved in the investments in OncoMed (OMED), Proteolix and Nabriva. Prior to joining, Alastair was a practising physician, with a breadth of experience across cardiovascular and oncology surgery and intensive care. He holds a Physiology BSc (Hons) and MBBS from King’s College London, is a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (Ed) and hold s a Diploma in Corporate Finance from the London Business School.
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About Mereo Biopharma: Mereo is a new UK-based speciality biopharmaceutical company.
Eoin McKinney
Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder of PredictImmune
Eoin is a Wellcome-Beit intermediate Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and an honorary consultant in nephrology and transplantation in Cambridge University NHS hospitals Foundation Trust. He obtained a first-class degree in pre-clinical medicine from Keble College, Oxford University in 1999 and graduated in clinical medicine with honours from Edinburgh University in 2002. His primary interest is the use of systems immunology approaches to translate high throughput analyses of autoimmune disease datasets into clinical practice.
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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.
Kenneth Smith
Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer of PredictImmune
Professor Ken Smith is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He trained in nephrology (FRACP, FRCP) and clinical immunology (FRCPA) and completed a PhD at the WEHI in Melbourne. His laboratory runs a translational programme in autoimmune disease (particularly inflammatory bowel disease, vasculitis and SLE) that has led to the discovery of a novel prognosis-predicting biomarker currently in clinical trials and the identification of genes and pathways involved in disease pathogenesis.
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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.
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.
Chris Torrance
Co-Founder and CEO of PhoreMost
Chris has significant oncology research and development experience, including six years as a senior manager at Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company, Vernalis. His principle expertise lies in cancer cell biology and drug discovery. In this field, he has led project teams taking drug targets from inception through to hit identification, lead optimisation and into preclinical studies. Chris holds a PhD from East Carolina University and completed a Post-Doctoral position in the world renowned oncology laboratory of Professor Bert Vogelstein (Johns Hopkins University) where he pioneered the use of X-MAN™ cancer models in high-throughput screening and drug discovery.
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About PhoreMost: PhoreMost is a new-model drug discovery company based in Cambridge, UK.
Martin-Immanuel Bittner
Co-Founder & CEO of Arctoris
Martin-Immanuel Bittner MD DPhil is a clinician-scientist and life sciences entrepreneur. He is a Rhodes scholar, an active member of several leading cancer research organisations, and an elected member of the Young Academy of the German National Academy of Sciences. Martin is a Co-Founder & CEO of Arctoris, the world’s first fully automated drug discovery platform.
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About Arctoris: Arctoris is a tech-enabled platform company in biotechnology, combining robotics & data science to accelerate drug discovery.
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.
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.
Raj Mehta
Co-Founder & CEO of Adendra Therapeutics
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About Adendra Therapeutics, Apple Tree Partners: Adendra Therapeutics wants to use new insights into dendritic cell biology to develop a novel type of immunotherapy.
Caetano Reis e Sousa
Co-Founder of Adendra Therapeutics
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About Adendra Therapeutics: Adendra Therapeutics wants to use new insights into dendritic cell biology to develop a novel type of immunotherapy.
Peter Widdowson
Founder & CEO of Quethera
Peter Widdowson has over 30 years of drug discovery experience during which he has worked on a number of small molecule, protein and gene therapy approaches to managing disease. He has a background in researching therapies for indications as diverse as ophthalmic, neurological and psychiatric disorders, type-2 diabetes, oncology, gastrointestinal motility disorders and inflammatory conditions encompassing inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis. He has held a number of senior scientific roles within Servier (Research Group Leader), AstraZeneca (Senior Scientist and Project Research Manager), Pfizer (Senior Scientist and Project Research Manager), OSI Pharmaceuticals (Director of Pharmacology) and most recently, whilst Head of Preclinical Development at Oxford BioMedica was responsible for overseeing and managing the development of three lentiviral vector gene therapies for wet age-related macular degeneration, Stargardt disease and Usher 1B syndrome which are all currently in Phase I/II clinical development. Dr. Widdowson has experience in all aspects of preclinical and early stage development from animal model proof-of-concept studies to clinical trial design and biomarker identification. Widdowson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in human Physiology from Newcastle University and a PhD in Neuropharmacology from Manchester University.
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About Ikarovec, Quethera: Quethera is a gene therapy company dedicated to improving the future treatment of common blinding eye diseases.
Alberto Bardelli
Founder of Horizon Discovery
Alberto Bardelli is a professor at the University of Torino, He is also a Researcher and co-founder of Horizon Discovery, which is a successful British biotech company.
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About Horizon Discovery: Horizon is a gene editing company that designs & engineers genetically-modified cells, applying them to advance human health.
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
Sophia Karagiannis
Scientific Founder of Epsilogen
Sophia is a Reader in translational cancer immunology at KCL and a globally-recognised expert on the use of IgE antibodies to fight cancer. She co-founded and Chairs the Task Force on AllergoOncology and her group collaborates closely with the CRUK Centre for Drug Development. She holds a PhD from King’s College London.
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About Epsilogen: Epsilogen is a developer of an immuno-oncology company intended to develop immunoglobulin antibodies to treat cancer.
Neal L Millar
Co Founder & CMO of Causeway Therapeutics
Neal is an Academic Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon specialising in shoulder surgery having completed fellowships in Sydney and New York and is an expert in human tendinopathy.
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About Causeway Therapeutics, University of Glasgow, University of Glasgow: A bio pharmaceutical spin out emerging.
Derek Gilchrist
Co Founder & CEO of Causeway Therapeutics
Derek is a principal investigator at the University of Glasgow and leads the scientific and technical development of TenoMiR™.
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About Causeway Therapeutics, University of Glasgow, University of Glasgow: A bio pharmaceutical spin out emerging.
Vincenzo Cerundolo
Founder of iOx Therapeutics Ltd.
Professor Cerundolo is Professor of Immunology at the University of Oxford and Director of the MRC Human Immunology Unit at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. He was the first to show the mechanism of ligand binding of lipids to CD1d molecules and their subsequent presentation to lymphocytes. In addition, He was able to demonstrate the importance of iNKT cells in enhancing antigen specific T and B cell responses and their ability to abolish the immuno-suppressive activity of myeloid derived suppressor cells. This work led to the development of the engineered iNKT agonists being developed by iOx as potential immunotherapy candidates. He discovered the technology that is the basis for iOx Therapeutics and acts as scientific advisor to iOx.
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About iOx Therapeutics Ltd.: iOx Therapeutics Ltd. operates as an immuno-oncology company.
Daljit Cheema
Founder & CEO of PHARMASEAL
Daljit Cheema is Founder & CEO at PHARMASEAL.
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About PHARMASEAL: PHARMASEAL is developing the first B2B control platform for biopharmaceutical companies to manage their enterprise clinical trials.
Mitra Najafi
CEO & Founder of Pplus Skin Care
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About Pplus Skin Care: Innovative and disruptive skin-care products based on biotech.
Colin MacKay
Founder and CEO of Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services
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About Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services: A leading GMP contract manufacturer of novel injectable pharmaceuticals for use in clinical trials.
Daniel Ives
Founder of Mitohelix
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About Mitohelix: UK-based biotech startup in stealth
Radha Desai
Founder of Mitohelix
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About Mitohelix: UK-based biotech startup in stealth
