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 Director operating in the Life Science space. If you think a Director 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.
Giovanni Pericolini
Finance Director & CFO of Medicxi Ventures
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About Medicxi Ventures: Medicxi is a life sciences-focused investment firm.
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Ray Edgson
Director of evonetix
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About evonetix: Evonetix is a provider of a desktop platform designed to synthesize DNA at unprecedented accuracy and scale.
Chris Wood
Non Executive Director of MiNA Therapeutics
Chris Wood has more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology sector, having founded, managed and successfully exited 4 companies. Chris is Executive Chairman and Medical Director of NuCana. He was co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Bioenvision Inc from 1999, and under his leadership Bioenvision grew from a modest entrepreneurial venture to a leading biotech company (NASDAQ: BIV), with a market capitalisation of $345 million. Bioenvision was acquired by Genzyme Corporation in October 2007. Chris was co-founder of Medirace Ltd, a start up biotechnology company, which later became Medeva PLC, traded on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, and was acquired by Celltech Group PLC (now UCB) for £554 million. Chris Wood is an honorary Professor at Imperial College London, holds an M.D. from the University of Wales School of Medicine and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Chris Wood’s specialty interests are Cancer and Molecular Biology and he has acquired an international reputation for his published work in these areas.
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About Medannex Ltd, NuCana BioMed: MiNA Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing therapeutic medicines to harness gene activation mechanisms.
Merrion Edwards
Director, Global Market and Technology Development of Corning
Merrion Edwards is currently the director of market and technology development, optical fibre and cable, for Corning Optical Communications. She has over 25 years of experience in the field of telecommunications and is the author of 60 papers in industry journals, covering a broad range of applications: Core, Metro, Access, DataCenter, Transport and Photonics. During her career at Corning, Dr. Edwards has become a knowledge expert on emerging telecommunications trends and synergetic innovation of optical fibre, cable and components to enable advancement of telecommunications transport systems. Prior to joining Corning, Edwards conducted research into photonic devices for telecommunications and sensing. Edwards holds a PhD from the Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.
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About Corning: Corning is a manufacturer of building materials including glass, ceramic, related materials and technologies, and more.
Robert Perin
Managing Director of Protak Scientific
Prior to his current role as CEO & partner at Protak Scientific in the biotechnology industry the last 5 years, Robert Perin worked at Blackberry as Senior Commercial Director, Europe for just under a decade.
After his time in telecommunications, he worked as an investor and advisor for several start-ups including launching Oscobo, Becovi Media and CST Automotive amongst others. Since becoming CEO and partner in one of the most exciting and ground changing Biotech companies to date, Robert has been instrumental in bringing major pharma companies onboard such as Pfizer, Bayer, Novo Nordisk, and AstraZeneca.
Protak Scientific provides rapid validation solutions to large isolator manufacturers, global pharmaceutical companies, and scientific universities with established and recognised ground-breaking technology that assists pharmaceutical companies to validate their decontamination in aseptic production.
He has been key to both setting the corporate strategy and gaining international recognition and acceptance, as the innovative way of approaching validation, with the regulators and international scientific community.
He has also been a key part in the expansion of the company globally into countries such as the US, India, and China, trebling revenue in recent years. Although relatively new to the pharmaceutical industry, his belief in the technology, passion for the industry, and commercial acumen have enabled Protack Scientific to become a growing UK success story within the international pharmaceutical industry.
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About Protak Scientific: PS is a biotechnology firm that manufacturers enzyme indicators.
Courtney Nicholson
Director Of Business Development of Abcam
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About Abcam: An innovator in life science reagents and tools serving life science researchers globally to achieve their mission, faster.
Luke Mason
Director of Virtual Futures
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About The New Bionics, Virtual Futures: Virtual Futures is an events series that works in cyberculture conferences.
Dominic Falcao
Founding Director of Deep Science Ventures
Founding Director at Deep Science Ventures
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About Deep Science Ventures: DSV is a venture studio and a fund that develops a systematic, optimized approach to science company development and investment.
Mark Hammond
Founding Director of Deep Science Ventures
Mark manages the commercialisation of software including web and mobile apps. Since joining the technology transfer team in 2011 he has founded the Imperial Digital Enterprise Accelerator and built a community of student entrepreneurship around the accelerator under the icstartup brand. This initiative drives venture creation via workshops, talks, funding and mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs in collaboration with both College initiatives and student societies. Mark completed a combined Masters in Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence from UMIST and went on to obtain a PhD whilst leading a project which investigated how networks of neurons generate behaviour by implementing a biological neuronal network as the brain of a mobile robot. He has also been featured in New Scientist and given talks at the Science Museum and Dana Centre. Marks commercial background includes setting up an IT service business unit and an analyst role at a boutique investment bank in which he worked with IT and cleantech start-ups to develop their commercial and fundraising strategy.
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About Deep Science Ventures: DSV is a venture studio and a fund that develops a systematic, optimized approach to science company development and investment.
Gareth Williams
Founder & Non-Executive Director of YellowDog
Gareth hounds the YellowDog kennel, spearheading the vision to build a world where people do more, create more, discover more; unleashed from limited computing power. Following an MEng in Information Systems Engineering from the University of Durham, Gareth cut his canines working in software and telecoms at companies including Orange, Experian QAS, FREEDOM4 and Arieso, where he was part of the Management Team that completed the successful sale of the company to JDSU in March 2013 for $85m. One day he had a brilliant idea for using spare mobile capacity which, following a chat with someone in the animation department at the University of the West of England, gave birth to what is now YellowDog. When not coming up with brilliant ideas, he is a dad, a keen cyclist, an ardent reader, a Samaritans Listening Volunteer. He also likes ale and talking to anyone (usually together). You can email Gareth on gareth@yellowdog.co or phone +44 (0) 330 223 2499.
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About YellowDog: Helping businesses power their innovations with the most scalable cloud native scheduling and provisioning technology.
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.
Himanshu Kataria
Founder, CEO and Managing Director of CLYZ Labs
Himanshu is an experienced NHS Academic Clinician with emergency medicine background (>10 years clinical experience). Himanshu has substantial experience in setup and delivery of clinical research trials, as a specialty lead within Clinical Research Network for the whole of North West Coast of England delivering research in >23 NHS Partner organisations. Himanshu is an MBBS, MBBS, MRCSed (A&E), MRCEM, FRCEM, ALS Instructor. With a number of years in both clinical and research experience, Himanshu has held various consultancy posts in notable hospitals/medical facilities such as Whiston Hospital in Merseyside. He also held the Special Group Lead position within the Clinical Research Network – North West Coast: Research Delivery arm of the NIHR (National Institute of Health Research). In addition to his qualifications as a Medical Doctor, Himanshu has held a number of entrepreneurial roles over the past few years in bio-medical companies such as Indu Stem Cell Technology Plc, and Transgenex Inc in the USA. Dr Kataria is familiar with financial management of the business owing to his experience in Clinical Finance Limited which advised for fundraising for Indu Stem Cell Technology PLC. He continues to serve as a director for Indu Stem Cell Technology PLC.
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About CLYZ Labs: CLYZ Labs are developing a testing service to select the best drug therapy for personalised cancer treatment.
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.
Tim Hazell
Senior Investment Director of Mercia Fund Managers
Co-founder of MFM and Senior Investment Manager. He has been involved in investment work since 1985, first with UBS Phillips and Drew and thereafter with 3i PLC, WM Enterprise and the Baring English Growth Fund where he headed up the Central England team. He has been extensively involved in actively appraising and executing venture capital investment opportunities (including start-ups, buy-outs and acquisition funding). He has made over 30 investments himself including New Degree Limited and Eurobrake Limited where he managed the complete process from initial appraisal to exit. Tim is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, London, has a Masters Degree in Science Technology and Industrialisation, an MBA and is fully FCA accredited. Tim has particular expertise in Advanced Materials and ICT & Digital Media.
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About Mercia Asset Management PLC, Mercia Fund Managers: Mercia Fund Managers helps to scale innovative businesses across the UK regions by providing debt, equity and growth capital.
Mike Hayes
Investment Director of Mercia Fund Managers
As head of Mercia Fund Management’s (MFM) Digital and E-commerce Division, Mike’s main focus is to build a portfolio of digital media, gaming and e-commerce EIS and Seed EIS investments. Mike brings over 23 years’ experience in interactive businesses and at multinational games company SEGA, he was CEO for Europe and America presiding over a turnover in excess of £400 million. He was responsible for the re-birth of SEGA as a multi-platform software company and managed the acquisition of several development studios including Sports Interactive, (maker of the Football Manager series) and Creative Assembly, (maker of the Total War series). Mike led the team that transferred Sonic successfully onto digital platforms and launched one of the first ever games for the iPhone – Super Monkey Ball. MFM has a solid track record in supporting businesses in a number of technology sectors, and Mike will channel this expertise and his experience into building a strong digital division to support and mentor innovative young businesses. Mike’s expertise ensures that MFM can offer enviable support to ambitious and dynamic start-ups that require expansion and development capital of £100k to £500k or up to £2 – 5 million as part of an investment syndicate.
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About Mercia Fund Managers, PlayerLands, Serious Games International: Mercia Fund Managers helps to scale innovative businesses across the UK regions by providing debt, equity and growth capital.
Sandy Reid
Investment Director of Mercia Fund Managers
Sandy joined the Group in 2017, originally in the University Team focussing on the North of England she has now moved to the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) team with responsibility for the East Midlands; this fund focusses on proof of concept and early stage opportunities. Sandy has hands-on experience of early stage companies having founded and worked as CEO for a university spinout for eight years. She also has experience of acting as a consultant on spinout formation in the HE sector as well as most recently managing the spinout portfolio at the University of Leicester. In addition, Sandy has acted as both director and observer on a number of early-stage company boards, and holds the Certificate in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors. She has a technical background with a PhD in Chemistry, and started her career in corporate research and development.
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About Mercia Fund Managers: Mercia Fund Managers helps to scale innovative businesses across the UK regions by providing debt, equity and growth capital.
Rob Johnson
Investment Director of Mercia Fund Managers
Investment Associate. Rob has had an extensive career in the digital and e-commerce sector, holding numerous high profile positions in leading organisations, most recently as joint MD at Buyagift PLC which he helped grow from £3.2m turnover to over £20m prior to the sale of the company to Smart&Co. Prior to this Rob was Managing Director and a main board member at ilion plc and was responsible for the turnaround of the fortunes of the UK organisation. When Rob joined the company the share price was 52p. The entire share capital was bought by Landis at 160p per share.
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About Mercia Asset Management PLC, Mercia Fund Managers: Mercia Fund Managers helps to scale innovative businesses across the UK regions by providing debt, equity and growth capital.
Paul Mattick
Director of Mercia Fund Managers
Paul is responsible for Investor Relations, with particular focus on supporting the firm’s co-investors. Paul graduated from Leeds University and then completed a PhD in Cardiac Pharmacology at Oxford University. During his career he has combined scientific and entrepreneurial work, whilst at the same time pursuing life as an international athlete. He rowed for Great Britain at the Beijing Olympics and is a rowing World Champion. Paul has now retired from international competition but in his spare time he still enjoys social rowing, as well as walks in the country with family, friends and his dog.
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About Mercia Fund Managers: Mercia Fund Managers helps to scale innovative businesses across the UK regions by providing debt, equity and growth capital.
Ian Scott
Finance Director of Mercia Fund Managers
Finance Director of Mercia Fund Management Limited. As Financial Manager and Compliance Officer he has been involved with venture capital funds accounting and reporting since 2008 at West Midlands Enterprise Limited. During that time Ian has been involved with a number of venture funds (to include SEIS, EIS and institutional funds) in respect of all financial matters and ensuring full compliance with the Financial Conduct Authority regulations. Ian is FCA authorised in relation to the controlled functions of compliance oversight, money laundering reporting and systems and controls. Prior to this Ian held senior management positions in business and finance with Planit Holdings Limited where he spent three years in the USA as CEO and Amphenol Limited where he held the position of Group Finance Director.
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About Mercia Fund Managers: Mercia Fund Managers helps to scale innovative businesses across the UK regions by providing debt, equity and growth capital.
Karen Roy
Chief Strategy Officer & Member of the Board of Directors of Phlexglobal
Karen Roy graduated as a Pharmacist in South Africa and entered the Pharmaceutical Industry working for Eli Lilly in Sales. In 1992, she moved into Clinical Research in the UK with Chiltern International, initially managing the Clinical Development Department. Latterly she started up and globally managed a new and novel group, EDC Solutions. In 2007, Karen joined Phlexglobal as Chief Business Development Officer and moved into her current role as Senior Vice President, Client Solutions in 2015. With her clinical and EDC background, Karen has also taken on a lead role in Phlexglobal’s electronic Trial Master File initiative, to promote, develop and implement support of Client eTMF systems as well as Phlexglobal’s eTMF Solution – PhlexEview. Karen also co-chairs the DIA TMF Reference Model, an industry driven initiative to standardize the content, naming and structure of Trial Master Files.
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About Phlexglobal: Established in 1997 Phlexglobal delivers a specialist comprehensive service for all administrative aspects of the clinical trial process
Magdeline Pokar
Founder, Managing Director of Asia Research News
Maggie is the managing director of Asia Research News, overseeing all aspects of this innovative startup.
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About Asia Research News: Asia Research News connects researchers with international media, policy makers, fellow collaborators and the science-hungry public.
Mick Hunter
Chief Scientific Officer & Director of Development of Atopix Therapeutics
Dr Mick Hunter has responsibility for drug discovery and development in Atopix. He has over 28 years experience in Pharmaceutical and Biotech R&D. He has spent the past 12 years working on the discovery and development of antinflammatory and respiratory drugs. He is also Director of Discovery at Oxagen Ltd. Mick has led Atopix CRTH2 antagonist discovery and development program from concept to Phase IIb. Less Mick has experience of leading teams to identify IND candidates and managing them through early clinical development. He is familiar with regulatory environments and has managed biological pilot plants for GMP manufacture. Prior to joining Atopix, Mick held positions at Oxagen Ltd, British Biotech Pharmaceuticals (now Vernalis PLC) and at Searle Pharmaceuticals.
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About Atopix Therapeutics: Atopix Therapeutics Limited is a privately held, clinical-stage, biopharmaceutical company based in Oxford, UK
Philipp Kukura
Founder and Director of Refeyn
Philipp Kukura is the Founder and Director at Refeyn.
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About Refeyn: Refeyn is specialising in label-free single molecule imaging and mass measurement.
Kat Bruce
Co-founder and Managing Director of Nature Metrics
Kat Bruce is the Co-founder and Director of NatureMetrics.
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About Nature Metrics: Nature Metrics is an award-winning technology start-up using cutting-edge genetic techniques to monitor biodiversity.
Jonathan Raven
Global Director, Customer Development, Clinical Services of Avantor
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About Avantor: Avantor is a provider of mission-critical products and services to customers in the life sciences and applied materials industries.
Jiahao Huang
Co-founder, Director and CFO of Nuclera
A molecular biologist by trade, Jiahao has coordinated multi-national collaborative projects and experienced first hand the limitations of the current provision of DNA. This intimate knowledge of user requirements enables him to guide Nuclera’s commercial operations towards creating the right product for the right market. Jiahao holds a BSc from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge.
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About Nuclera: Nuclera makes biology accessible through desktop enzymatic protein and gene synthesis.
Michael O’Neill
Co-Founder and Director R&D of Inflection Biosciences
Michael O’Neill has more than 20 years’ experience working in the pharmaceutical industry. He was a Senior Research Scientist and Portfolio Manager at Eli Lilly for much of this time where he was responsible for developing project plans for the selection of projects and for their progression from discovery through to important development milestones. He established his own consulting business, Eolas, to help early stage companies to organize their research along commercial lines, becoming accomplished at building highly streamlined development plans. He has built consortia of commercial and academic groups to apply for major EU grants. Previously Dr. O’Neill was Head of Laboratory at Almirall and a Research Neuroscientist at Merck. He has authored over 80 papers, book chapters, patents and abstracts and is Honorary Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex. He holds a BA Psychology from UCC and a PhD from QUB Belfast.
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About Inflection Biosciences: Inflection Biosciences is a company that develops small-molecule therapeutics for the treatment of cancer.
Alison Armstrong
Senior Director, Development Services of BioReliance
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About BioReliance, BioReliance, BioReliance: BioReliance is a leading CRO providing nonclinical testing and contract manufacturing services.
Jonathan Moseley
Technical Director of CatSci
Jonathan obtained his BSc in Chemistry from Southampton University in 1986 before starting as a medicinal chemist for Merck Sharp and Dohme working on CNS projects for three years. He returned to academia in 1989 and completed his PhD from Cambridge University in 1992 on a thesis entitled Synthesis of Cerulenin Analogues with Prof. Jim Staunton. He returned to Merck Sharp and Dohme as a medicinal chemist for a further three years before moving to Zeneca (now AstraZeneca) as a process development chemist in 1996. Since then he has worked on the full range of pharmaceutical development projects from early route selection, kilo-lab and pilot plant scale-up, through to established manufacturing processes. His research interests include the application of new technologies to scale-up within pharmaceutical manufacture, notably in the use of microwaves. He has presented and published widely on both process development and microwave synthesis.
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About CatSci: CatSci provides innovative process research and development services to emerging, mid-sized and large pharma.
Ed Turp
Facilities Director of CatSci
Ed completed a BSc in Applied Chemistry at Salford University in 1993 and stayed to complete his PhD in 1996 with Prof. Garry Procter on stereoselective additions to a,b-epoxy-aldehydes. On completion of his PhD Ed joined Zeneca (now AstraZeneca) as a chemist working in the Research Support Laboratory at Mereside. In 2000 he moved to the Avlon site as part of the commercial product support team. In 2006 Ed moved into process chemistry to work on mid-stage development projects. In 2008 Ed switched gears to join the Catalysis Facility where he has delivered significant improvement to the ways of working and has been heavily involved in the utilisation of physical organic techniques to improve reaction understanding.
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About CatSci: CatSci provides innovative process research and development services to emerging, mid-sized and large pharma.
Christopher McMaster
Scientific Director – Institute of Genetics of Canadian Institutes of Health Research
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About Canadian Institutes of Health Research, DeNovaMed: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Jan Berghe
Managing Director & Co-Founder of Novalis Biotechnology Incubation
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About Novalis Biotechnology Incubation: Novalis Biotech Incubation is an early-stage vc fund that invests in biotechnology and life sciences related companies.
Andrew Southan
Chief Executive and Executive Director of Metrion Biosciences
Andy has over 25 years’ experience in life science research, including 14 years in the CRO sector. In 1991 he received his PhD in Pharmacology from the University of London (UK), investigating the effects of anaesthetics and high pressure on CNS potassium channels. Following a move to industry Andy worked as a brain slice electrophysiologist supporting ion channel-based CNS programmes at Wyeth (UK), before moving to Imperial College London where he published the first patch-clamp recordings from cerebellar inhibitory nerve terminals. At CeNeS Pharmaceuticals he performed CRO services (hERG, nAChR) and internal research on HCN and two-pore channels. He subsequently established the electrophysiology laboratory for Ionix Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on identifying novel pain therapeutics, where he worked on Nav, Cav and mechanosenstive ion channels. Before joining Metrion Andy spent 12 years in leadership roles at BioFocus and Charles River managing stand-alone projects, multi-year collaborations and fully integrated drug discovery programmes.
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About Metrion Biosciences: Metrion Biosciences is a Contract Research Organization (CRO) that is located in the world renowned Cambridge biocluster.
David Roth
Finance Director of Expedeon
Finance Director at Expedeon Protein Solutions.
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About Expedeon: Expedeon is an expert in cutting-edge innovative reagents and services for life sciences and diagnostics.
David Roth
Finance Director of Expedeon
Finance Director at Expedeon Protein Solutions.
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About Expedeon: Expedeon is an expert in cutting-edge innovative reagents and services for life sciences and diagnostics.
Richard Saumarez
Director of Fen EP Limited
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About Fen EP Limited: Fen EP Limited is a developer of biomedical device created to prevent sudden cardiac death.
Richard Saumarez
Director of Fen EP Limited
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About Fen EP Limited: Fen EP Limited is a developer of biomedical device created to prevent sudden cardiac death.
