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 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.
Maroof Ahmed
COO & Co-founder of Quit Genius
Maroof Ahmed is the COO of Quit Genius.
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About Quit Genius: Quit Genius is pioneering digital therapeutics for multiple addictions.
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Eric Collins
COO of Digital Surgery
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About Digital Surgery: Digital Surgery is a privately-held pioneer in surgical artificial intelligence (AI), data and analytics, and digital education and training
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.
Kit Tse
COO of Lemonaid Health
Kit Tse currently works as Chief Operating Officer at Lemonaid Health UK.
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About Lemonaid Health: Lemonaid Health is a telemedicine platform that uses technology to change the way people interact with health care.
Michael Anstey
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Proteorex Therapeutics Inc.
Michael Anstey is an Investment Director specialising in healthcare investments. Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Toronto office. Michael has experience in advising multinational healthcare businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, new launches, R&D and medical strategy, and M&A. Michael was co-founder and COO of an early stage biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target protein-protein interactions implicated in disease. Prior to BCG, Michael worked in venture capital, where he focused on investing in early stage healthcare and life science businesses. Michael earned his DPhil in Zoology in the field of neurobiology, jointly supervised by professors at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. Michael sits on the board of Bicycle Therapeutics.
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About Cambridge Innovation Capital, Proteorex Therapeutics Inc.: Expanding horizons to find cures
Anil Kumar
COO of Medic Creations
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About Medic Creations: Revolutionising Communications in Healthcare
Anil Kumar
COO of Medic Creations
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About Medic Creations: Revolutionising Communications in Healthcare
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.
Mike Birch
Chief Operating Officer of F2G
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About F2G: F2G discovers and develops novel drugs for the treatment of life-threatening fungal diseases.
Nick Lench
Chief Operating Officer & Chief Scientific Officer of Congenica
Nick was previously Director of the NE Thames Regional Genetics Service at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, with responsibility for the strategic and operational management of a genetics service that provides DNA diagnostic testing to a population of approximately 4.5M people. Nick is an honorary Reader at the UCL Institute of Child Health, London and has over 25 years of research experience in human molecular genetics and was awarded a personal chair in Medical Genetics at Cardiff University in 2005. As founding CEO of London Genetics Ltd and Programme Director at Oxagen Ltd, Nick has gained significant expertise in establishing and managing academic, healthcare and commercial partnerships in biomedical discovery and diagnostics.
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About Congenica: Congenica is a biotechnology company that provides a diagnostic decision support platform.
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.
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.
Deepti Atrish
CEO & Chief Operating Officer of PCL Health
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About 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.
Matthew Khoory
Co-founder & COO of mOm Incubators
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About MedTech Innovator, Metronomic Technology Solutions, mOm Incubators: mOm is an inexpensive, electronically controlled, inflatable incubator constructed to decrease the number of premature child deaths.
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.
Mike Trower
Founder, Chief Scientific Officer & Chief Operating Officer of NeRRe Therapeutics
Mike is Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of KaNDy Therapeutics. It was Mike’s advocacy of the dual mechanism neurokinin-1,3 receptor antagonism, offered by NT-814, to present a novel and potentially transformational non-hormonal therapy for treatment of symptoms of the menopause and other related Women’s Health conditions which led to NT-814 being spun out of NeRRe Therapeutics to create KaNDy Therapeutics in 2017. Mike has broad knowledge of neurokinin receptor biology and, in particular, the emerging science that has established the pivotal role these systems play in neuroendocrinology and female sex-hormone related disorders. Mike is also Co-founder and CSO of NeRRe Therapeutics whose focus is on developing the neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist orvepitant to treat neuronal hypersensitivity disorders including chronic refractory cough. Prior to founding NeRRe, Mike worked in pharmaceutical industry R&D at GSK for nearly 20 years, where latterly he was VP & Head of the External Drug Discovery Group in the Neurosciences Centre for Excellence for Drug Discovery (CEDD). In this position, Mike successfully implemented the CEDD externalisation strategy and advanced a portfolio of preclinical and clinical pipeline assets. Mike has BSc (Hons) and PhD degrees in biological sciences and has held post-doctoral positions at DuPont Inc in Delaware, US, and at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK, under the Nobel laureate Professor Sydney Brenner.
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About NeRRe Therapeutics: NeRRe Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that develops clinical and pre-clinical neurokinin receptor antagonists.
Cliff Holloway
COO of Benitec Ltd
Cliff brings over 25 years of life science industry experience to Scancell in the development and commercialisation of emerging technologies and therapeutic products including licensing, M&A, corporate financing and operations management. Most recently he was Chief Business and Operating Officer of Benitec Biopharma Ltd (ASX:BLT, NASDAQ:BNTC). Prior to his role at Benitec he held the position of Managing Director at Sienna Cancer Diagnostics Ltd (ASX:SDX), and also for therapeutic antibody development companies Immune System Therapeutics Ltd and Biosceptre International Ltd. He was formerly VP of Business Development at Arana Therapeutics Ltd, which was acquired by US-based Cephalon Inc (now Teva) in 2009, and he is currently a director of investment fund Newstar Ventures Pty Ltd. Cliff holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy and a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Nottingham.
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About Benitec Ltd, Newstar Ventures Pty Ltd., Scancell: Benitec Biopharma is using patented ‘gene-silencing’ technology to develop drugs for chronic and life-threatening human diseases.
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
Sylvain Vuillen
Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Findoc
Sylvain Vuillen is serves as a Chief Operating Officer at Findoc.
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About Findoc: Platform for booking appointments with healthcare professionals.
Minaam Abbas
Chief Operating Officer of angioClast
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About angioClast: angioClast is a Cambridge biotech startup comitted to transform cancer research.
Ian Abercrombie
Business Unit Director & Chief Operating Officer of NuCana BioMed
Ian Abercrombie has over 25 years experience in the biopharmaceutical and healthcare industry. Ian’s specific expertise includes the clinical development and commercialisation of anti-cancer medicines and companion diagnostics to enable therapies to be targeted to specific patient populations. Ian has wide biopharmaceutical and healthcare experience having initially served in the public health sector before working for Janssen Cilag, Ortho-Biotech, Bioenvision and Caris Life Sciences. Whilst at Bioenvision, Ian played a major role in developing and commercialising clofarabine, the first new drug to be approved specifically for childhood acute leukaemia in Europe for over thirty years.
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About Medannex Ltd, NuCana BioMed: NuCana BioMed, a biopharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes rationally designed medicines for significant unmet medical needs.
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.
Jaymin Amin
COO of Ingenza
Jaymin Amin has a successful track record of 15 years of sales, marketing and financial experience in life sciences start-up companies. Working in the life sciences publishing division of the Daily Mail group, Jaymin delivered record revenues and profits, before leaving to co-found a life sciences media company of his own. He joined the board of Ingenza in 2006 as financial director. After helping to grow the business four fold in his first four years, Jaymin was promoted to chief operating officer in 2011.
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About Ingenza, ProFactor Pharma: Ingenza is an industrial biotechnology company.
Derek Lindsay
Chief Operating Officer of AMR Centre
Derek was a co-founder of Redx Pharma and its Chief Operating Officer from 2012-17. His former roles include being a Director of Innovation of pharmaceutical industry consortium Britest Ltd from 2006 to 2012, and R&D Director of Avecia Pharmaceutical Products in a management career of more than 20 years. Derek has worked in R&D, Process Development and Hazards at Avecia and its predecessor businesses, Zeneca and ICI, which he joined in 1988, after initially working in R&D at BP from 1985.
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About AMR Centre: AMR Centre is a joint private-public initiative to support/accelerate the development of new antibiotics and diagnostics.
Lynn Cunningham
Chief Operating Officer of Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability
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About Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability: UK medical charity restoring choice and independence to adults with severe/complex neurological disability by providing specialist rehab.
Elizabeth Fairley
Founder, COO of Talking Medicines
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About EFB Services, Mironid, Talking Medicines: Talking Medicines captures the unstructured global voice of the patient using AI, ML, and NLP technologies.
Steven Edward Peak
Chief Operating Officer of Vanguard Healthcare Solutions
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About Vanguard Healthcare Solutions: Vanguard Healthcare Solutions operates a fleet of mobile healthcare facilities that support National Health Service & healthcare providers.
Vasileios Touronis
Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of My Online Therapy
Vasileios Touronis is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder at My Online Therapy.
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About My Online Therapy: MyOnlineTherapy, a mobile mental health company, is the first of its kind virtual psychology clinic.
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.
Troy Norcross
COO of MyHealthPal
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About MyHealthPal: My Health Pal is a powerful digital companion that enables people with long-term health conditions.
Dennis Belichenko
Chief Operating Officer of EuroMD
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About EuroMD: International European Medical and Health Portal
Nicky Mcleod
COO of Cygnet Health Care
COO at Cygnet Health Care
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About Cygnet Health Care: Cygnet Health Care Limited provides mental health services.
