Claire Browns 20 year professional career spans academic research, R&D leadership at three global biopharmaceutical companies and Venture capital.

She is currently responsible for the investment activity of Biocity Group Ltd which includes the management of Alderley Park Ventures, a Healthcare focused Seed fund, and sits on the board of several early stage businesses.

Prior to joining Biocity Group, Claire held a variety of Scientific and Strategy/Business Development roles in the UK and USA in several large organisations including UCB, Genzyme and AstraZeneca-MedImmune including MediVentures, a corporate £400M investment fund.

Claire currently holds a BSc(Hons), a PhD and an MBA having completed her post-doctoral training at the University of Tennessee Medical Centre in the USA. Recently Claire also completed her Investment Management Certification.

Martino is the first CEO of the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst an ambitious concept to develop an Incubator and Accelerator, followed by a world class Science Park for the Life Sciences sector. Martino has a PhD in Biochemistry from Cardiff University and spent 4 years at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX in Cardiovascular research. Martino joined Amersham International in 1991 and subsequently went on to manage the R&D Technology Transfer Group, based in Cardiff and developing high throughput screening technologies for the Pharmaceutical sector. Following the merger of Amersham with Pharmacia Biotech, Martino became the Science Director for the Cardiff site, Martino then became a Business Manager for Manchester Biotech Ltd. and subsequently Manchester Innovation Ltd. in June 1999. When the Universities of Manchester and UMIST merged, he became Managing Director of UMIC and MICL and was a Board member of UKBI. Martino was also acting Chairman for a start-up company, sri Forensics Ltd (2011-2014) and has previously been on the Board of Cartesian Technologies , BIONOW Steering Committee and was also a non -executive Director for Queen Mary Bioenterprise Ltd (2009-Aug 2010).. Martino has recently been a Board member of the Hertfordshire LEP. Most recently, Martino has been on the Trust Board for the North Herts Studio Schools (Stevenage, Letchworth and Thomas Alleyne Schools) and on the Local Governing Body for the Da Vinci Studio School Stevenage. Martino has also been appointed to the Life Science Wales Hub Board as a Non –Executive) and was recently therecipient of a Herts Chamber of Commerce award for “outstanding contribution to Herts Business “ (May 2014). Martino is also on the assessment panels for CRACK-IT (NC3Rs) and TSB (now Innovate UK) Biomedical Catalyst Funding respectively.

Dr Sven Molner is a Lecturer in Marketing at Cass Business School, City University London. He received his PhD from the University of St.Gallen in 2015. Prior to joining Cass, he has been a Research Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School. In his work, Sven investigates the marketing and commercialization of early stage technologies emerging from university labs. Specifically, he is interested in how inventors, technology managers, and science-based entrepreneurs explore and define the market space for early stage technologies. Sven’s research is based on a collaboration with Cambridge Enterprise, the technology transfer organisation of the University of Cambridge. Sven’s unique expertise allows him to advise early stage science-driven companies about finding or creating their unique market niche.

Murat Yildiz is the founder of Avergen Pharmaceuticals Gmbh located in
Martinsried, Germany. He has received his doctorate in molecular
oncology from the University of Munich (lMU) and went to medical school
at the University of Wurzburg. Prior to founding APG, he assessed
scientific licensing-in opportunities for Mundipharma (part of Purdue).
He has worked in medical affairs at Janssen, Cilag, Teva and Novartis.
His academic research focus was in multiple sclerosis in the cantonal
hospital of Saint Gall and schizophrenia at the University Hospital
Basel, Switzerland. He was a principal investigator in several clinical
studies. He is a neurologist with a research focus in CNS indications.
Specifically, he is interested in neurodegenerative diseases and
oncology.

Yuri has nearly 20 years experience in start-ups, research institutes and multi-nationals as a scientist, manager, director and investor.
 
He is the founder of Nabla Ventures, a start-up advisory firm where he works with a portfolio of deep technology ventures in a variety of fields including Quantum Technology, Cybersecurity, AI and IoT.
 
Having had an early career as a physicist at CERN, he left his PhD studies to join a start-up that was building the world’s first online trading platform for financial products. The company was subsequently acquired by CMC Markets, now a $1bn bank.
 
He has since founded and co-founded several other start-ups including FXOnline, a Hong Kong-based fintech company. He also spent over five years working for BNP Paribas, a French investment bank, where he managed multi-million pound technology programmes. In addition, he runs an independent investment firm that has been involved in several projects ranging from Cleantech solutions in Africa to London property development.
 
Yuri studied Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering and Astronomy at Linköping, Stanford and Cape Town universities. He also holds an Executive MBA from London Business School.

Nick Lyth is co-founder and manager of Green Angel Syndicate (GAS), the first business angel syndicate in the UK to specialise in investments in energy and water sectors. He is responsible for finding and selecting the companies in which the syndicate invests, as well as business development for the syndicate.  Prior to GAS, Nick founded, developed and managed International Resources and Recycling Institute, which specialised in applied research, working in European partnership projects exploring innovations in renewable energy, water management, sustainable transport, waste and recycling, and other areas of resource use.  

Nick has contributed to forums advising Scottish Government on water policy, and renewable energy policy; the Northern Irish Government - advising on the development of community renewable energy; has hosted presentations on renewable energy policy to the European Parliament in Brussels and has been invited to assess innovation competitions in the UK run by the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK) and Scottish Government.  He has also served on charitable Boards for the Big Issue Scotland, and Dundee Cyrenians, as well as many commercial Boards ranging from sectors as varied as Denholm Ship Management and Drambuie Liqueur Company. Nick is married, has three children and lives in Edinburgh.

Dr Sharmila Bakshi is an experienced biotechnology consultant and is familiar with the priorities of academic, industry, non-profit, and governmental research organizations. Furthermore, she is experienced in leading the lifecycle management of critical research and development projects, as well as establishing and maintaining successful collaborations between academia and industry.

Providing consultancy to biotech and pharma companies, she is focused on the development of drugs, vaccines, adjuvants, anti-infectives, biologics, and therapeutics, as well as medical devices and diagnostics. Her specialties include drug development, project leadership, business development, medical communications, and the set up and management of collaborations and consortia.

Dr. Bakshi is the founder of Kaizen Bioconsulting and has recently founded Personalize My Medicine. Previously, she held positions such as project manager and senior research consultant at GSK, the European Vaccine Initiative and Origimm. She obtained her PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Oxford and subsequently a graduate Diploma in Law from BPP Law School, London.

After a whirlwind nine years in 34 countries, Shirah settled in Lausanne, Switzerland where she studies entrepreneurship & technology commercialization at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). She is co-founder of financial market technology firm Competence Map Solutions, which wields one of the world's most efficient resource allocation systems. She enjoys coaching entrepreneurs through the early stages of developing the business concept as well as design thinking, UX/UI, branding, marketing, and communications. 

Prior to pursuing doctoral studies, Shirah graduated from Aalto University School of Business (Helsinki) with a master in Strategy. She holds a BBA in International Entrepreneurship. In addition to having worked or interned at the community, state, and federal levels of US government, Shirah has enjoyed working with social entrepreneurs in the U.S., Cambodia, Guatemala, Nepal, Finland, and around the world. Shirah speaks French, Russian, Finnish, and Spanish. She is a passionate Latin ballroom dancer, early morning riser, and lover of steep mountains and milk tea. When the tea pot's empty, you're likely to find her exploring something new to write about on her travel blog (www.shirah.mobi).

Liz Aab works on commercializing new technologies at Shell -- in particular Shell GTL Fuel, a cleaner burning diesel fuel. Before joining Shell, she advised foreign businesses on how to do business in China, based in Beijing, and worked in finance in New York. She studied international relations and computer science at Stanford University and has an MBA from London Business School, where she has co-chaired, judged and mentored for the CleanTech Challenge. Liz's husband co-founded a successful Silicon Roundabout mobile app commerce company, Poq. They are proud parents of baby boy Hunter, born last December.

Philip is currently Commercial Director at PassivSystems Ltd, a smart technology provider in the clean energy sector. He has a background in energy and cleantech, with over 12 years’ experience in business development, commercial strategy and investment. Having started out as an energy analyst, he joined the commercial team at New Energy Finance and helped grow the company both in Europe and Asia, where he was based out of Beijing and Tokyo. While at the firm, revenues grew from $300K to over $30m, and the business was sold to Bloomberg. After leaving BNEF in 2014, Philip helped develop not-for-profit platform to accelerate finance for clean energy, and also worked at a cleantech-focused venture capital firm. He is an angel investor and advisor to a number of start-up companies; he has a degree in Modern Languages from Bristol University and an MBA from London Business School.

Pedro Eloy chairs the ESBN Taskforce on Youth & Women Entrepreneurship, an initiative launched within the Economic and Social Committee for Asia and the Pacific Sustainable Business Network (ESCAP SBN) and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), promoting business leapfrogging and economic growth for Asia Pacific-based young generations of entrepreneurs. This mission is further supported by YET (Young Entrepreneurs), a private initiative led by Pedro, focusing on supercharging entrepreneurship globally. In Academia, Pedro founded and has been heading the MBA Business Lab program at Hong Kong University School of Business and Economics for the past 6 years, providing students with opportunities to pursue their passion for entrepreneurship in areas such as innovation, retail, F&B, artificial intelligence, IOT and big data.

On the corporate side, Pedro has been the Director / SVP of Digital & Information Technology at Fung Holdings (Fung Group/Li&Fung & Fung Global Institute) for the past 7 years, championing digital innovation initiatives focusing on enhancing omnichannel customer experience, predictive analytics and technology integration, together with related blueprints. He has orchestrated 65+ end-to-end cross-platform projects for the Group’s trading, logistics and distribution verticals and led the teams who brought the first digital awards to the Group.

With 24 years of professional experience in digital transformation, business, strategy and marketing, an international career in North America, Europe and Asia and with an education from Stanford University, the Financial Times NED, MIT Sloan School of Management, Bournemouth University and ISCEM, Pedro is the recipient of several awards including the Best Rebrand of a Digital Property Gold Award (Transform Asia Pacific), the IMA Outstanding Achievement Award, the IACAS Excellence in Marketing Award, the Mercomm Galaxy Award, the Golden Web Awards and the J. William Fulbright Scholarship Award.

Recognized by the digital industry, Pedro is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, an Executive Member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a Council Member of the United Nations EBAC (ESCAP Business Advisory Council), a UN Digital Consultant and serves as judge for several industry leading digital and innovation awards. In his advisory capacity, he is an Honorary Advisory Member at the Hong Kong Sustainable Development Research Institute and an Honorary Member of both the Portugal-China Entrepreneurs Association and the SINO Federation of Portuguese and Spanish Spoken Countries.

Website: www.connectyet.org

Prof. Benny Zee is Assistant Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Medicine and also Professor and Head of the Division of Biostatistics and Director of the Centre for Clinical Research and Biostatistics in the JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is Director of Clinical Trials and Biostatistics Lab in the CU Shenzhen Research Institute (SZRI) and serves as an Executive Committee member in the Centre for Entrepreneurship and holds honorary appointments in the Department of Clinical Oncology and the Department of Statistics of CUHK. He is also the Chairman of the Joint CUHK-NTEC Clinical Research Ethics Committee since 2006. Professor Zee obtained his Ph.D in Biostatistics from the University of Pittsburgh USA in 1987. He then joined the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG) as Senior Biostatistician, and faculty member in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Queen’s University Canada from 1987-2001. He remains as Adjunct Professor with Queen’s University after he joined CUHK and is actively promoting international academic activities and collaborations.

Professor Zee has strong interest in various aspects of multi-centre clinical trials, including statistical methods, data management, drug and medical device development. He has experience in the development of efficient data management and “big data” research using advanced computer technology, plus ample experience in working with industry to design and to carry out clinical trials that satisfy both academic interest and industry objectives. He has tremendous experience in the development of hospital infrastructure such as Ethics Committee, GCP Centre and Risk-based Quality Assurance team to carry out clinical research in hospitals that satisfies regulatory and international requirements. He is also active in medical devices development such as “automatic retinal imaging analysis (ARIA)” for stroke risk assessment and early detection of dementia, and commercializing the technology through Health View Bioanalytic Limited established in the Hong Kong Science Park. He had published more than 200 international peer reviewed journal articles and serves in various committees including advisory committees for drug development and data & safety monitoring committees for international drug trials.

Nick is the Head of The Global Integration Management Group at AstraZeneca where he has over 28 years experience.
Over the last four years Integration and Divestment has become a major focus within AZ, resulting in Nick leading many large integrations and divestments across the AZ portfolio and regions.
Prior to this role, Nick has worked across many business areas within AstraZeneca including Business Development, , Global R&D ( Leader for Breast Cancer portfolio ) , Global Marketing (Leader for Seroquel, Zomig, Anaesthesia, Infection and the Early Pain portfolio) and Regional Business Management where he was the Commercial Director for Asia Pacific North and established the JV in China and the Zeneca legal entities in Korea and Taiwan.

Working as a Deal Finance Manager within AstraZeneca’s Business Development team, Karol is responsible for financial evaluation of potential transactions such as partnerships, collaborations, in/out-licenses and divestments. His primary objective is to understand the key issues, risks and value drivers in order to build a robust financial case and ensure optimal deal structure.

Before joining AstraZeneca, Karol completed the Finance Graduate Leadership Scheme at Rolls Royce and completed a summer internship at PwC’s Strategy and Operations Consulting Division.

His areas of interest include financial evaluation, investment appraisal, performance management, forecasting, budgeting and business plan preparation. Having lived in four countries, Karol has a good understanding of cultural and international aspects of the current business environment.

Parthiban is an entrepreneur and the CEO of Cambridgene, a startup in Cambridge offering genome-based data analytics and consultancy services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.

Prior to launching his startup, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge. As part of academic projects, he has handled more than 10,000 patients' genomic data that offered diagnoses for a range of diseases. He received his Ph.D. from the International Max Planck Research School (Cologne, Germany).

Parthiban has widespread links to large network of entrepreneurs, businesses, consultants, and science/technology companies in Cambridge and worldwide. During his academic life in Cambridge, he has contributed to or managed consulting projects for large businesses.

He has contributed to academic societies and large meetings/conferences such as the Innovation Forum's Innovation Leaders Conference. He is delighted to offer advice and guidance for the IMAGINE IF programme.

Nicholas Edwards graduated in Physiological Sciences from The Queen’s College, Oxford in 1982 and then completed his training in Clinical Medicine (BM, BCh) at Green College (now Green Templeton College), Oxford in 1985. After research into the use of Artificial Intelligence to perform medical diagnosis, he completed house jobs in Cardiology and General Surgery before joining Andersen Consulting in 1986. He spent 18 years with Andersen Consulting (now known as Accenture), including 8 years as a partner, and was the global leader of Accenture’s Pharmaceutical R&D business. Typical projects with global pharmaceutical companies included :
• Helping to build a global, world class drug development function from businesses based in Germany, France and the United States.
• Developing a drug research strategy for a major pharmaceutical company with centres on multiple sites to ensure that they worked together to a unified vision.
• Supporting the Head of Development to create an integrated organisation after the merger of two large pharmaceutical companies.
• Developing a strategy to achieve dominance in the oncology marketplace for a company with several oncology products.
In 2001 he was part of the corporate strategy team for Andersen Consulting developing strategy for the global business and supporting the IPO on the NY Stock Exchange and the rebranding to Accenture.
In 2005, he was one of the founders of Kinapse, a business focused on providing consulting and outsourcing services to the pharmaceutical industry. He was Chairman of this business from its foundation until it was sold to Hg Capital in February 2016. He supported its growth into a £27m revenue business employing over 500 people. This delivered a 75x return for the initial investors and a 16x return for Synova Capital who had invested in 2012.
He completed consulting projects for Kinapse such as :
• Supporting the UK Department of Health in understanding the attractiveness of the UK as a centre for commercial clinical research.
• Helping the CEO and CFO of a Contract Research Organisation identify strengths and weaknesses of their organisation and develop a strategy for growth.
He has been an investor and supporter of several life science start-up businesses. This has included providing advice and support to the leadership of each business.
Nicholas is part of the Kilfinan Group - a network of senior business people who provide free and informal mentoring to charity chief executives.
Nicholas is an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford and chairs the Wealth Creation Oversight Committee of the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.
He is currently Chairman of Oxtex (developing a surgical implant device for skin expansion), Satie 8 (developing an anti-obesity treatment) and Prescient Healthcare Group (a specialty biopharmaceutical product strategy consultancy).

Projects in academia and the commercial sector have entailed establishing and using genomic methodologies for applications that have spanned investigating genome organisation to developing new molecular diagnostic assays. These projects were frequently multinational collaborations that involved implementing genetic, molecular and bioinformatics solutions. Each of the commercial projects entailed establishing quality management systems, managing external partners and obtaining key opinion leader/voice of the customer input. I joined the Isis Innovation ‘E-Health and Bioinformatics’ team in July 2015 as a Technology Transfer Manager.”

Victoria graduated from the University of Oxford with a First Class Honours degree in Engineering Science and completed a PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University. She also spent some time in Cambridge Massachusetts where she was a modeling intern at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. She has 2 years of management consulting experience in the healthcare space, working as a Business Associate at ZS Associates. While at ZS, she focused on strategy projects within sales and marketing for big pharma and top medtech companies, completing a fellowship at the Early Commercialisation, Market Access and Pricing team. She has recently joined Isis Innovation Ltd at the University of Oxford as a Technology Transfer Manager focusing on Digital Health (E-health and bioinformatics) technologies and spin-outs.

Alex is an experienced serial entrepreneur with extensive digital and investment experience, and has been in the market walking through various domains since 1998.

Alex co-founded multiple ventures including CatalystBuilder (Hong Kong based startup venture builder, Business Creation (hospitality digital consultancy), MusicFriendly (Hong Kong’s leading music education consultancy for schools), FOODEASY (Hong Kong’s first online restaurant portal), NomDish (signature dish mobile app) and Orff4Kids (early child music education program).

Alex has been involved in various startup mentorship programs including Google Empowering Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) Program in 2014 and 2015 as mentor and judge and also being part-time lecturer in Entrepreneurship courses in university.

Before engaging in digital and music education business, Alex has extensive experience in different areas: Consultant in Accenture, Finance and Banking with JP Morgan and HSBC Investment Bank, Internet Incubation with IncubASIA, mobile strategy with Hutchison Telecom, and e-Business with Langham Hospitality Group.

Early education in Hong Kong with La Salle College, graduated from Columbia University with a degree of Computer Science and Master of Investment Management from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Yanto Chandra (蔡振 榮) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Public Policy, with joint appointment with the Department of Management, at the City University of Hong Kong. Chandra’s research focuses on social innovation, sustainable enterprise, social investment, and entrepreneurship in general.
Prior to his appointment at the City University of Hong Kong, Chandra held appointments as Assistant Professor in the Marketing & Strategy Department at the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) and University of Amsterdam (Netherlands). Prior to this, he spent nearly 7 years in the corporate world, including as Decision Analytics Manager at the HSBC Asia Pacific Consumer Credit Risk in Hong Kong, and consultant at Ernst & Young, Lowe Worldwide, Ruder Finn Asia, and Taylor Nelson Sofres in South East Asia. He established four entrepreneurial ventures - in trading, arts and crafts, and e-commerce - when he was a student and while working in Amsterdam.

As the Healthcare and Life Sciences Lead at KPMG Tech Growth, working
businesses, investors and innovators in the space. He has experience
working for KPMG on public sector transformation healthcare regulation,
commercial strategy and commercial due diligence projects. Brendan is
also a member of the KPMG Healthcare Centre of Excellence, where he is a
founding member of a global network which supports healthcare and life
science startups and venture-backed companies. Prior to joining KPMG,
Brendan worked as a pharmacist for five years in a range of settings. He
is an active member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, London
Healthtech Forum, Tech London Advocates and Health 2.0,

Supriya is a senior communications and investor relations specialist
with over 15 years’ experience in both agency and in-house positions
in the UK and internationally. She has implemented corporate reputation
and financial communications campaigns focusing on healthcare,
technology and financial services, both in the UK and globally. She has
expertise of supporting companies through private fundraising as well as
working on numerous transactions including M&A and IPOs.

Healthcare/tech/other sectors/financial services senior appointments headhunter since 2004. Previously 15 years as investment banker with life science industry background, 10 years in pharmaceuticals.

Danielle Anderson is a business coach for early-stage creative, social, and environmental businesses. In her past life, she spent a decade working within financial services – developing business strategies, managing multiple projects, and turning big ideas into reality.
She abandoned her “successful” career in 2012 because the more she climbed the corporate ladder, the more she hated it. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life doing work that didn't really matter.
She now works with entrepreneurs who give a damn about the world around them and helps them to get their businesses off the ground by removing the overwhelm, focusing on strategy, and taking consistent and purposeful action. You can visit her website and learn more at

Christian Thümer is Creative Director and Co-Founder at London-based data design agency Signal Noise. He has over 10 years of experience within information design and corporate communications and has an MA in Communication Design from Central St. Martins.
 
Working with clients including BCG, UBS and Formula1, Christian focuses on representing complex processes and problems in a clear visual format, turning information that was difficult to digest into clear, beautiful and useful designs. He works closely with clients to understand their precise needs and guides them through the design process to deliver results with impact. 
 
He firmly believes that the power of clear information and data visualisation is essential to drive brands forward in our increasingly noisy and complex world.

Jane is the Technology Transfer Manager at Isis Innovation Chemistry and Biophysics team, responsible for a portfolio of  commercialisation projects developed from Oxford University's research. Jane started her career in technology consulting at Sagentia in Cambridge, where she helped global companies identify technologies and evaluate market opportunities across a range of industries including food, personal care, energy, chemical and pharmaceutical.
 
Prior to Isis Innovation, Jane worked as a Business Development Manager at Queen Mary Innovation in London, where she co-organised several Innovation Forums and Technology Showcases with UK Science and Innovation Network team.  In her spare time, Jane has been actively involved in the entrepreneurial community in London and Cambridge. She was invited to join the judging panel for a start-up competition at Level 39 in 2015. Recently she is volunteered as a Junior Facilitator to help the 2016 EnterpriseWise programme, an entrepreneurial skills training at Cambridge Judge Business School. 
 
Jane graduated from the University of Leeds in Medicinal Chemistry and completed her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge.

Duncan works in the Scientific Partnering and Alliances team at AstraZeneca - responsible for oncology and open innovation interactions, and a point for contact for university and not-for-profit collaborations.
 
Duncan has a wealth of experience in technology transfer and translational research. Previously a Business Manager at MRC Technology, he was involved in the identification, protection and commercialisation of MRC intellectual property. As MRCT business model changed, Duncan moved into a newly created role of Business Development Manager to promote MRCT's collaborative drug discovery capabilities, find new collaborative projects within academia and industry, and then source a commercial partner to help develop those projects to the clinic. These roles gave him experience in establishing and managing a wide variety of contractual relationships with academic, research charity and industrial partners, including shared-risk research, consortia models and licences. In recent years, Duncan has been responsible for sourcing over £3m in non-dilutive funding for translational project, commercial licences of over £25m in value, and led with Alzheimer's Research UK on the formation of the Dementia Consortium, a novel business model to bring together the charity and Pharma sectors to drive new therapies to the clinic.

Miranda helps early stage biomedical businesses attract investment and develop their business strategy. She is a Coach for the SME Instrument of the European Commission, long standing Mentor for Cambridge Judge Business School’s Entrepreneurship Centre, contributes to the University of Cambridge Masters in Bioscience Enterprise course, and founded and runs BioBeat, an innovation platform for bioentrepreneurs.

She has worked with many entrepreneurs on fundraising, business planning and technology transfer. Her experience includes working at Cambridge Enterprise, where she licensed and spun out life science technologies, and the seed capital firm, Cambridge Research and Innovation.

Miranda studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and has a Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and has edited eight science books.

www.mws-consulting.co.uk
@BioBeatUK

Key words:
Early stage biomedical businesses
Fund-raising
Business strategy

David Ruff is tasked to work collaboratively with the global scientific community to innovate and advance biomolecular detection and quantification tools that accelerate systems biology approaches using single-cell samples and workflows. This portfolio of emerging methods will further facilitate elucidation of the molecular basis for cell pathway architectures in cancer, immune responses, neurological disorders, stem cells, and early development. Before joining Fluidigm in early 2013, David spent 17 years innovating qPCR and next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies at Applied Biosystems/Life Technologies. He has been a lead investigator in the development of qPCR assays and chemistry, multiplex preamplification, protein quantification, NGS library preparation and sample-to-answer workflows, single-cell analysis, and nucleic acid sample-preparation processes.  Prior to Applied Biosystems, David served as a research scientist at several early-stage biotechnology companies in California, including five years at Amgen. He received his undergraduate instruction in biochemistry at the University of California, Riverside, and graduate training in molecular biology at the California Institute of Technology. David has coauthored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, technical book chapters, and issued and published patent applications in the biomolecular detection and quantification fields.

Eileen has been working with entrepreneurs since 1999 where she was part of a consultancy team and small fund. Since 2001 Eileen has worked for Oxford Innovation working on programmes relating to business development for SMEs including coaching for high growth.  Since 2004 Eileen has managed Oxford Innovation’s angel networks under OION Ltd.  Eileen led the due diligence negotiations for OION Ltd to establish a Co-investment Programme with a leading corporate bank that part inspired the Angel CoFund. She was instrumental with developing the Angels4LifeSciences network with two Life Science professionals, Nesta and the BIA in 2012 and continues to support the Forum.  She is a Board member of Venturefest Oxford and has actively supported the annual event for more than 10 years.  More recently Eileen has been actively involved with the launch of OION Limited’s SEIS funds in partnership with Fund Manager Innvotec; supporting the twelve companies in the portfolio.  

Tom Mander is the Chief Operating Officer for Domainex Ltd., a pharmaceutical research company based in Cambridge, UK made up of nearly 50 scientists. Here, he is responsible for the drug discovery service business of the company, providing customised pre-clinical drug discovery solutions to pharma, biotech and academic institutes globally.
Tom has previously worked in various international life science contract research organizations since 1999, notably Evotec AG (both in Hamburg and Abingdon, UK), Tripos Discovery Research (Bude, UK), Asterand plc (Royston, UK and San Francisco) and BioFocus Ltd (Cambridge, UK), including roles on the executive management teams. Tom began his industrial career in 2002 as a bench scientist at a natural products company Xenova plc (Slough, UK) on a macrophage activation project partnered with Sntory of Japan. Subsequently he worked for a short time at the Centre for Natural Product Research in Singapore before joining Glaxo as a Group Leader in the Lead Discovery Unit, managing a programme of high throughput phenotypic screening.
Educated at the University of Surrey (BSc in Medical Biochemistry), subsequently followed by a DPhil at the University of Oxford, Tom completed his MBA studies (with the Open University) in 2002. Tom brings a wealth of experience in managing scientific programmes, business development, sales and marketing in the fields of small molecule drug discovery research and human tissue based translational research. In addition, he has been involved in the process of successful M&A and acquisition of new technologies on several occasions. He is passionate about identifying transformative new technologies that can accelerate and improve the process of delivering the right therapies/diagnostics to alleviate human disease.

He holds a PhD in Biochemistry, which he obtained under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Arne Skerra (founder of Forbion's portfolio company Pieris AG); all in the department of Prof. Dr. Hartmut Michel (Nobel Laureate 1988) at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biophysics. As an undergraduate, Holger studied Molecular Biology/Microbial Biology and Biochemistry at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich. After his studies, Holger gained operational experience as a product development manager at Biometra/ Whatman Plc (now part of GE Healthcare). He started his career in Venture Capital in 1997 as an Investment Manager at Technologieholding VC GmbH which at that time was one of the leading German Venture Capital firm. Technologieholding was acquired by the 3i Group in early 2000, where Holger became a Director at its Germany's healthcare practice. Following this assignment he became Principal and later Partner at Global Life Science Ventures, a well-established life sciences-focused partnership with offices in Switzerland and Germany. Holger has served on the Boards of numerous life sciences companies including Epigenomics (IPO 2004), MBT (assets sold to Medigene AG), 4SC (IPO 2005), NeurogesX (IPO 2007), Fibrex Medical (assets licensed to Ikaria Inc.), Agendia BV and Santaris A/S (sold to Roche 2014). Holger holds board seats at Curetis NV (IPO 2015), Cellnovo Group S.A. (IPO 2015), Allecra Therapeutics GmbH and Rigontec GmbH.

In his current position Dr. Olaf Ritzeler scouts and evaluate external R&D opportunities in Europe at all development states with a therapeutic focus on rare diseases and multiple sclerosis. He is working in a global, transversal team to which he brings his strong expertise on drug discovery and development he gained over 17 years working in pharmaceutical industries and his deep insights in the European scientific ecosystem. In addition he is invited lecturer at different Universities on the subject of target and compound profiling and leads Sanofi’s multiunit collaboration with the Charité, Germany which is one of the biggest academic collaboration Sanofi is taking advantage of.
The research teams led by him delivered one phase IIb-, two phase I-, five preclinical-, six lead candidates. His contribution to Sanofi’s drug-pipeline was awarded by the “Meilenstein Preis” and “Drug Hunter Award” for outstanding efforts and key contribution to drug innovation and approval.

Yazann Romahi, managing director, is the head of Quantitative Strategies and Research in the Multi-Asset Solutions team at JPMorgan Asset Management. His team was responsible for the launch of one of the first Alternative Beta solutions available to investors as well as being instrumental in the design of JPMorgan's Strategic Beta suite. He is also responsible for the quantitative models that establish the broad asset allocation reflected across the Multi-Asset solution team’s portfolios. Yaz was recently nominated by Financial News for their “40 under 40 Hedge Fund Rising Stars” award. An employee since 2003, he previously worked as a research analyst at the Centre for Financial Research at the University of Cambridge where he also taught operations research and statistics. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh and is a CFA charterholder.

Investment professional and scientist with broad experience in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics. Consulted for early stage biotech firms. I am now at Wellington Partners, one of Europe's most successful venture firms. With funds totalling more than €800m, WP provides seed, early stage and growth financing to outstanding entrepreneurs across the life science and tech sectors.

After his PhD, Dr. Philipp Bauer went on designing and building rocket engines for satellites and upper stages within the space propulsion division of Airbus DS. He then exerted several roles in project management and steered various R&D projects. After a detour through procurement, he is now in charge of businesses with New Space ventures and startups and develop innovative ventures within Airbus DS.

Alexander Finlayson is an Academic Clinical Fellow in Primary Care in Oxford. He founded a UKAID/THET funded Digital Health company in Somalia, called MedicineAfrica, for which he was awarded BMJ Junior Doctor of the Year.
Whilst studying Genetics and Systems biology on a Kennedy Scholarship at Harvard he developed an interest in strengthening health systems and went on to work in this field for three years as the Head of Research at the King's Centre for Global Health.

Developing a fledgling interest in innovation in global health he founded and is now a board member of 'The 2023 Challenge', a Innovation Fund and Incubator for Healthcare across Thames Valley.

He is currently working with some colleagues from Digital Health Oxford (DHOx) to form 'The Hill' a healthcare Innovation Hub in June 2016.

Richard is Technology Director in the Medical Technology Division at Cambridge Consultants. Richard specializes in the translation of life-science research into commercial products, particularly in nucleic-acid-based technologies. He has twenty years’ experience of product and process development, applying engineering principles and methods to life sciences to create world-first products.
His experience includes
♣ Commercializing isothermal DNA amplification technology into point-of-care diagnostics: Richard led the global team of over 120 people that developed the Alere i platform, the first ever CLIA-Waived point-of-care molecular medical diagnostic.
♣ Winning significant grant funding from the US Government ($13M) to support programmes to commercialize next-generation molecular diagnostic platforms
♣ Leading complex programmes to create robust, globally-applicable, R+D governance frameworks, portfolio management methods and new-product creation processes for development of medical diagnostic products
♣ Developing new automated systems for protein crystallography and high-throughput compound screening at industrial scale for the pharmaceutical industry
♣ Leading development of novel acoustic-resonant sensors for life-science applications
♣ Designing sophisticated life-sciences instrumentation, particularly high-performance confocal microscopy for cell-imaging applications.
Richard holds BA (first class honours), MA and MEng degrees from King’s College, University of Cambridge.

Jennifer Brant provides policy analysis and strategic advice to companies, NGOs, and inter-governmental organizations on global market access and regulatory issues, notably in the areas of innovation, technology, intellectual property, and trade.
Among her projects, she is the Director of Innovation Insights, a cross-sectoral initiative aimed at sharing business perspectives on innovation and technology diffusion with policy-makers and other stakeholders. Through Innovation Insights, technology leaders in the medical technology, clean technology, ICT, and consumer products sectors advocate for policy environments that best support the development and broad deployment of new solutions.
Previously, Jennifer worked on WTO dispute settlement at Sidley Austin LLP in Geneva, where she led a project to provide subsidized WTO legal assistance to developing countries. Before joining Sidley, she worked for Oxfam on bilateral and global trade negotiations, working with officials from US negotiating partners and other stakeholders on agriculture, health, and market access issues. Jennifer has also worked for Gianni Origoni & Partners in Milan, and she has consulted for WIPO, the ILO, and the Open Society Institute.
Jennifer has an M.A. in International Development and Economics from Johns Hopkins SAIS, an M.A. in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, and a B.A. in International Relations from UCLA. Jennifer lives in Geneva, Switzerland, with her husband and daughter Noa. 

Lily has 8 years of strategy, operations, project management and business development experience.
As Director, Strategy and Business Operations at J&J Innovation in London she develops and maintains awareness and understanding of competitor innovation strategies and activities, supports the portfolio management of JJI, and has input into the global oversight of operational systems and processes facilitating management of reporting deals and managing relationships across all Therapeutic Areas and Sectors as well as ensuring JJI as partner of choice with external organizations.

Ajoeb Baridi pursued his PhD in Cancer Stem Cell Research at the Cambridge University - Cancer Research UK Institute.

During his BSc and MSc degrees he also worked on Neural Stem Cells, Diabetes and Immunology in New Jersey, Sweden and the Netherlands. He further has industry experience as a Stem Cell scientist working in a Regenerative Medicine and Medical Device start-up company (Cellcotec).

Additionally, Ajoeb is very engaged and active in the UK entrepreneurs scene, having participated in many entrepreneurship programmes and competitions. His team won the UK Finals of the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme.
He also is the Strategic Development Officer of the Arab Innovation Network, working to establish an innovation hub in Dubai. He is a mentor at the Cambridge Judge Business School Enterprisers Programme.

Dr. Charm has gained more than 25 years of management experience from leading multinational and Chinese companies. He was the associate partner of IBM Global Business Services, the regional head of BI Competence Centre for HSBC Asia Pacific, the general manager of Oracle (BI Division) and Hyperion Greater China, the general manager of Kingdee Asia Pacific, and the executive manager of Jardine Pacific.

Dr. Charm specializes in business and digital strategy, BI and big data, business transformation and innovation, FinTech, customer experience and loyalty management, Chinese enterprises transformation and internationalization.

Currently, he is a Project Director in Centre for Entrepreneurship, CUHK.
He is also a Non-Executive Director on the Board of the Hong Kong Business Angel Network. He is a Member of the Assessment Panel of the Enterprise Support Scheme (ESS) of the Hong Kong SAR Government. Member of the Assessment Panel for HKSTP, Incu App programme.
He has over 28 years of experience in private equity, M&A, investment management, corporate finance and PE operations in USA and Asia, formerly member of the Investment Committees in Shenzhen Capital Group and Standard Chartered Bank Private Equity Pte Limited. Invested in over 200 companies in USA, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China. He was an active Director on the Boards of Companies and the funds he managed after investment.
Formerly, he was the Chief Investment Officer, Eagle Ride Investment Holding Limited (0901.HK), prior to that; he was the Founding General Manager of Tangshan (Shenzhen) Investment Pte Limited. He has held senior investment positions in various firms including Huawei (Head of PE/VC Investments), Shenzhen Capital Group (General Manager) and Standard Chartered Bank (Managing Director of Private Equity). His investee companies have been listed in Singapore, Korea, USA, Hong Kong and China. He graduated with a B.Sc in Physics from the National University of Singapore and obtained his M.Sc in Communications Engineering from the University of Bradford, UK.

Eugène de Groot is Venture Project Supervisor at the Management of Technology section at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He received his Masters of Science degree in Economics, Business Policy and Business Management from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and succeeded the Executive Development Program for IBM at the INSEAD Business School in Fontainebleau, France.
In 2008 Eugène moved to Switzerland and was CEO of a Bio-Technology startup company in Lausanne and advisor for several IT related startups in Switzerland and Sweden. Prior to this, he was General Manager Emerging Markets for Lenovo, the world`s largest PC manufacturer, responsible for the entire business in more than 60 emerging countries. In 2003 Eugène moved to Vienna as IBM Director Personal Computer Division, responsible to realize growth in the emerging markets and to transition and migrate the IBM organization into the Lenovo structure. 
Eugène has a wide international business experience in mature and emerging markets, in small and large organizations and managed all disciplines. He is passionate about business in general, quality of management and selling/negotiating in particular. He speaks 4 languages and likes to spend his free time hiking, reading or with his classic cars.

Dr Michalis Papadakis is a co-founder and the CEO of Brainomix, an award winning University of Oxford spin-out. Building the company from the ground up he has significant experience in start-ups and innovation. He has led the development, regulatory clearance and commercialisation of medical imaging, decision support tools for stroke diagnosis and treatment. He has secured and managed more than £1.5 million of Innovate UK funding and £1.2 million of private investment. He has a BSc Honours in Biochemistry from Imperial College and a PhD in Neurosciences from UCL School of Pharmacy. In 2005, he joined the Laboratory of Cerebral Ischaemia at the University of Oxford and he was the scientific director.

Tom Brown was formerly Professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh University and Southampton University and is currently Professor of Nucleic Acid Chemistry at Oxford University. He is a member of the Departments of Chemistry and Oncology. His research interests centre on DNA sequence recognition and applications of oligonucleotide chemistry in biology and medicine. He is the co-founder of three Biotech companies (Oswel, ATDBio and Primer Design) and has published over 350 research papers and patents. He has received several awards including the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Josef Loschmidt prize, the RSC award for Nucleic Acid Chemistry and the RSC prize for Interdisciplinary Research. He was Chemistry World entrepreneur of the year for 2014 and BBSRC Commercial Innovator of the Year and overall Innovator of the Year for 2016. Recently he was presented with a lifetime award for external engagement and promoting impact by Oxford University. Tom is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is President of the Chemistry Biology Interface Division of the RSC and Editor-in-Chief of the RSC Book series on Chemical Biology. He is currently Associate Head of the Chemistry Department at Oxford with responsibility for Research.

Marco brings over 14 years of experience in biomedical and medical device research and development, product management and business development. A biochemist by background, Marco had a BSc in Biochemistry from Hogeschool Zuyd, Heerlen, (the Netherlands), an Msc in biology from Radboud University, Nijmegen and a PhD from Utrecht University in immunology. After his MSc, Marco worked in several positions as researcher in leading research groups focussed on the development of cancer-immunotherapies. Prior to joining Coller IP, Marco was responsible for the development, launch and global sales of a biomaterial portfolio for orthopaedic and dental reconstruction surgery. Together with a young team, he built, promoted and protected the technology brand through various IP strategies. The successful launch and marketing of several medical devices resulted in the buyout of the company by foreign investors and the foundation of one of the fastest growing medical device companies in the Netherlands. Marco brings also considerable experience in guiding start-ups in their early phase due to his work in business development, with a special focus on IP.  During his PhD, Marco successfully directed his own invention towards commercialisation, his first encounter with IP.
At Coller IP, he is responsible for the global business development activities and forging new strategic alliances around the world, as well as provided commercial and technical support to other members of the Coller IP team in relation to biochemical and life science projects.

Dr Karolina Zapadka is a co-founder and Managing Director at ZapaBio Ltd, a global consulting company which aims to support Bioscience Innovation. Her interests lie in the life sciences and healthcare industry and the interface between business and science, entrepreneurship and technology transfer.

Karolina has a strong interest in knowledge exchange and in facilitating collaborations between Academia, Industry and Government. As such she joined the Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable (OBR) in 2013 as President of Cambridge Chapter, where she was highly involved in organising workshops and seminars, as well as setting up and marketing of the OneStart competition. For the past almost eight years she has been actively involved in Cambridge ecosystem, first working in an emerging biotech company (Arecor Ltd.), later during her PhD and postdoc in non-profit organisations. She is a founding member and a former Executive Team Member of Global Innovation Forum Ltd (IF), a global, interdisciplinary network of young researchers, industry professionals and policy makers. Moreover, she participated in many entrepreneurship courses run by Cambridge Judge Business School including: BioInno Entrepreneurship Course in 2014, A Life Sciences Start-up Weekend with AstraZeneca in 2015, Accelerator Programme, Ignite 2016 & 2017.

She has over nine years of professional experience in research work in both academia and the industry. Her academic work includes a double research Master diploma from Jagiellonian (Poland) and Lund (Sweden) University, PhD from Cambridge (UK) and Postdoctoral work between University of Cambridge and MedImmune. Her research interests are focused on diabetes, drug discovery, stability and formulations of peptide pharmaceuticals.

Nick has a PhD in Microbial Genetics from University of Warwick followed by post graduate research (genomics/biotechnology) in two of the most prestigious Universities, Harvard (DFCI, 1995) and Oxford (Biochemistry, 2000). At Oxford, the research in Professor Sir Ed Southern’s laboratory led to the creation of the spin out company Oxford Gene Technology Limited. Nick went on to secure a fellowship in technology transfer at the University of Warwick and then to Manchester as a business consultant to UMIC, mentoring entrepreneurs and commercial development of the bioincubator. This was followed by heading up the business group at Warwick HRI (2008) and the creation of Warwick Enterprise Park for provision of incubation facilities. Nick held several senior level positions as Scientist, CEO, NED, investor and Chairman in several start up enterprises such as the Oxford University start-up Oxagen (Human Genetics, 2003) where he implemented their genomic microarray analysis platform. Nick has been the founding CEO of the life science businesses Novolytics (antimicrobial therapeutics, 2010), BioMimox (peptide aptamers, 2014), Arcamis (business consulting, 2010) and has served as the Director of Business Development at OBN (2012). Raising finance has been a key skill for Nick and he has raised significant public, private, VC and business angel funding (Beer and Partners, 2013) for several businesses (multiple £M) and was a coach for the Growth Accelerator programme. More recently (2016) Nick has co-founded The Clinical Genome Advisory (tcga) that exists to promote the UKs world leading strengths in genomics through the 100,000 genomes project. tcga builds global relationships with Governments and healthcare organisations seeking advice and support around genomics activity.

Current work included/s the creation of the Molecular Diagnostics Centre within the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, building self-sustainability models and international collaborations and partnerships. Nick is a current member of the Diagnostics Advisory Council in Oxfordshire; has advised on Genomics products for ThermoFisher; is a lecturer at MIB (Manchester) in genomics; and is graduating (2016) with a PGDiP in Strategy and Innovation from the Said Business School in Oxford.

Nofel Izz is an inventor and entrepreneur who is focused on developing solutions to global issues. His past experiences creating recognition programs, working with branding and founding an employment company have led him to a new career as an inventor.

Nofel started out by developing a successful employee recognition program for Canadian banks that is sill in use. Then, he founded a company which become the largest jobs portal in the Middle East, with 8.5 million users and more than 10,000 employers. Now he works at creating inventions to address deficits in various aspects of life.

Current projects he is working on include an oxygen mask for vehicles submerged in water, a patented space elevation concept using alloys and rail-stay cable systems, a tidal turbine design that generates over 3000 MW of power using only 200 acres of spatial footprint, a portable toilet apparatus that costs less than a cup of coffee to manufacture, a prophylactic wrapper with one hand application and a global-migration platform for millions seeking to immigrate to different regions of the world. ( MBA - University of Cambridge )

Studied Law and IESE Business School. Business entrepreneur and founder of several companies. A lot of experience in providing and selling value added B2B services to major corporations. Knows the IT, CPG, FMCG, retail (field and trade) and geolocalized crowdsourcing markets very well. Consultant on B2B social selling and business development. Startup mentor. Business Angel investor.

Yacht captain. Running a business and social selling are like sailing a boat. Started studying medicine in Montpellier and left it to go to UC Berkeley to study Neurobiology and Physiological Optics. Has published in several science magazines. Pioneered nanotechnology in the 80's. IESE. Consultant on social selling and business development. Entrepreneur. Expert in biotech, biomed, life sciences, ecommerce B2B / B2C, IT, FMCG, retail and geo crowdsourcing. Startup mentor. Business Angel investor.

Carlos Martínez is CEO of M & PARTNERS and responsible for the Barcelona office. He has a wide experience advising startups through the main accelerators and startups incubators of the country and among other awards, he won the Young Jurists Award as best young lawyer in Spain in 2009. In 2015 he finished in the first position in the absolute ranking of lawyers by number of operations advised in Spain (source TTR).

A vital entrepreneur, Francisco co-founded his first company at age 23. Later he reinforced his academic training developing his professional activity as an executive in important companies of different sectors and in different stages of the distribution chain in the areas of Marketing and Sales. He then resumed his entrepreneurial activity, this time focusing on Internet-related projects.
His experience in different markets and his deep knowledge of the Internet offer him a broad vision of the possibilities and opportunities that the new technologies of information and communication offer to draw a new and evolving social, cultural, economic and political scene.

We all have interesting stories to tell. That is Julia's philosophy when it comes to public speaking.
With a background in Biotechnology and Business management, she has been working in companies of different sizes and fields of expertise, both in the private and public sector. She has always remained close to the stage, and has received formal acting training focused on musical theatre.
Two-time awarded as the best speaker in Spain (2016 & 2017), Julia has been doing public speaking and pitching workshops for over three years.
Is there an idea you're passionate about? She'll help you get it out, and spread your passion to the world!

Dr. Lluis Pareras has a degree and PhD in Medicine and a Global Executive MBA (IESE). He has been director of Meditecnologia, and he leads the innovation and incubation program at COMB, investing in companies in the healthcare market. He was one of the founders of Medicina Television, a company where he has been general manager and board member for more than 4 years. Lluis is an author of numerous books in the field of innovation, technology, venture capital and healthcare. The last one being “Innovation and entrepreneurship in healthcare”, published both in Spanish and in English internationally (US and Europe). He writes several columns about healthcare venture capital in economic journals. In the academic space, he is associate professor of several business schools where he teaches regularly about healthcare innovation and venture capital (IESE, ESADE, EADA, UPC ,...).

Expert in the development of projects related to capital investments for the creation of corporate value or corporate growth based on innovation, technology and global alliances.

He holds a degree in Law from the University of Barcelona, ​​postgraduate in Finance from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Barcelona and BA from IESE Business School.

Currently he is President of Tibidabo Ventures, Business Innovation Commissioner of the Leitat Technological Institute, President of the Spanish Mentoring Association, Consultant of the IDB-Inter-American Development Bank and regularly cooperates with different companies, organizations, universities, public administrations and private investors and funds in Spain, California and Colombia.

He has previously worked in the Governments of Spain and Catalonia, and he has directed and managed company policies, foreign investments, education and employment. He has worked as DG in large companies in the banking, media and information technology sectors. He has also founded several ventures, including Servijob.com, Keiretsu Business Angels network, the venture capital investment forum ForoCapitalPymes and the CITIC-Centro de Innovación Tecnológica Industrial de Colombia. As an investor he participated in the startup Verbio Technologies and at associative level he has been co-founder and Vice President of AEBAN-Spanish Association of Business Angels. In the academic world he has also been a professor of business finance at the IQS-URL Faculty of Economics.

Extensive experience and training in Technology Transfer, Business Development, Intellectual Property Management, Patent Licencing Agreements, Spin-Offs Creation, Collaborative Innovation Agreements and Negotiating with Industry in the Health Sector.

Background in Life Sciences and broad experience in commercialization and business development working in the medical industry for over 15 years.

Currently: Director and Partner of CSyM Asesores, a company devoted to consulting in Technology Transfer in the Health Field.

Expert Career Development Programs aimed at middle managers and executives. PDD from IESE. More than 17 years of experience related to the HR consulting , mainly in Outplacement Identification of potential and Training. Specialist in Project Management Guidance and career support throughout the Spanish territory, mergers / purchases , reorganizations and company closures . With many hours of practice in individual and group sessions to a variety of professional profiles orientation. Forming processes access to the labor market and entrepreneurship skills . Country Manager Spain http://3daystartup.org/ , next: http://barcelona.3daystartup.org/ event for entrepreneurs. Professional specialized in professional marketing, Networking and Professional Alternatives . With true passion for people -centered attitudes observed to help make a difference.

Design thinker. Dot connector. Idea generator and doer. Joanna Parlinska is a Head of Human-Centred Innovation and Design Thinking for digital strategies at SFY Soft For You, software company based in Barcelona. Her main focus area is a Digital Health. Currently she is working on two major healthcare projects, enabling her to design the future of Smart Glasses applied in the surgery and to improve patient adherence in a field of Multiple Sclerosis.

She is one of the official Dreamers from Imagine Express 2015, where she recently became one of the staff members responsible for ideation methodology. She holds a Master Degree in Design Management that has awaken her passion for making a world a better place by finding an intersection of design, business and technology.

Andrew’s career spans almost 30 years and all phases of pharmaceutical development.  Originally from an arts background, he has worked in cardiovascular and oncology clinical research focused primarily on clinical stage development. Within AstraZeneca, he has held positions in both clinical operations and TA settings including project and line management roles and has led groups varying in size from 10 to over 100 staff. His current role combines project and line management and this extends to the review of early stage clinical development programmes as a standing member of the Oncology Round Table panel. He also represents AstraZeneca on the Experimental Expert Network at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). At the project level, his role as Clinical Project Director for AZD5363 has involved partnering with medical and scientific colleagues to shape and deliver the clinical development programme for the compound; this included the development of business cases and their presentation to senior governance bodies within AstraZeneca. He has also represented AZ at interactions with health authorities as part of securing approval for clinical and diagnostic development strategies. In July 2016, Andrew was awarded Honorary Membership of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians.

Before joining AstraZeneca, Andrew was employed by Nottingham Clinical Research Limited, a university spin-off company established as a CRO specialising in the conduct of large-scale cardiovascular studies which he joined as a graduate recruit in 1988. There, he held positions of increasing responsibility and was appointed an Executive Director in 1997 and served as a member of the company board until 2002. During this time, he was responsible for spearheading the definition and launch of new service offerings and the development of novel approaches to the challenges of conducting large-scale clinical studies and served as secretary to a number of academic steering committees for pivotal studies. Andrew also took the lead in developing a refreshed external identity for the company, securing a grant from the Department of Trade and Industry as part of a government scheme aimed
at spring-boarding SMEs.

Elizabeth has a BSc honours degree in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Management of Intellectual Property from Queen Mary, University of London.
Elizabeth joined Sagittarius IP in July 2011 based in the Cambridge office and qualified as a UK and European Patent Attorney in July 2015. She completed CIPA’s Litigation Skills Course in November 2015, and now holds the Intellectual Property Litigation Certificate.

Elizabeth has significant experience in patent drafting and prosecution of biotechnology inventions, as well as contributing in due diligences and freedom to operate searches. She is also currently working two days a week at a major pharmaceutical firm on secondment, where she has gained valuable experience working in-house.

Bioinformatics scientist specialised in genome analysis with 15 years of experience in software development and project management. Fiona left her job at Illumina Cambridge in 2013 to pursue her vision of enabling efficient genomic data sharing and founded the charity DNAdigest. In August 2014 she founded Repositive as a spin out of DNADigest.

Keywords:
- social enterprise and social impact
- business model development
- software products
- selling to biopharma and CROs
- raising funding
- strategic partnerships

Katarzyna joined the IMED Oncology team at AstraZeneca as a Drug project Information Manager, taking responsibility for scientific information management governance. In this role Katarzyna oversees and aligns scientific communication strategies with the oncology business acumen.

Prior to this role, she worked for an emerging Clinical Research Organisation in Cambridgeshire, being accountable for clinical project management and cultivating relationships with key business partners. At Amgen, she conducted a business insight project to evaluate market share.

Katarzyna is passionate about oncology and neuroscience R&D, though encouraging open innovation knowledge transfer, scientific communications. Her area of interest lies in the new applications of AI technologies in Healthcare. For the past few years, she has enjoyed gaining experience working both with small businesses and start-ups in the UK, and also global organisations (the Alzheimer’s Society, WHO, and the United Nations internationally.

Katarzyna completed her MSc in Clinical Drug Development and Management at the Queen Mary University/UCL, focused on clinical research recruitment strategies. She holds a BSc degree in Biomedicine and an Eng. degree in Pharmaceutical Technology. As a part of the Erasmus exchange programme she collaborated with the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, and the Uppsala University where she focused on pharmaceutical IP innovation.

Mark’s technical background includes an honours degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Leicester (1995) and a PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Sheffield (1998).

Mark entered the patent profession in 1998 with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) where he gained valuable experience of pharmaceutical related issues. He qualified as a Chartered Patent Attorney in 2002 and a European Patent Attorney in 2003.

Mark joined a private practice IP firm in 2004 and became the managing partner of a branch office. Since then, Mark has been involved with providing intellectual property support for a wide variety of clients, ranging from major pharmaceutical companies to sole inventors. Mark joined Sagittarius IP in April 2009 as the managing partner of our Cambridge office.

Mark has particular knowledge of drafting and prosecuting patent applications relating to pharmaceutical compounds, peptides, formulations, biomarkers and diagnostic kits, specialising in pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical inventions.

Mark is experienced in drafting and prosecuting patent applications in a wide variety of countries, as well as in contentious matters such as European oppositions and UK and US litigation.

Doctor in Behavioral Sciences, coach-trainer and professional musician.

Eija is currently the CEO and co-founder of an awarded applied games start up called Altogame. Altogame is a game-changing virtual multiplayer environment for innovation, collaboration and training simulations.

Prior to founding Altogame, Eija developed an internationally unique face-to-face coaching method integrating musicians ́ professional top performance and well-being. She wrote the first Finnish coaching related doctoral thesis on the subject, and the first white paper on how to transform organizations by using arts-derived interventions. Eija has created and run programs on how to integrate agility, innovation and top performance in numerous organizations including Nokia, Kone, UCL, Aalto University, and Anglia-Ruskin University. She is very experienced as public speaker, coach and trainer. The first part of her professional career Eija was an internationally performing musician.

In regard to start-up scenes and communities, Eija has been a start-up member of numerous accelerators/hubs and participated various programs. She has herself acted as a mentor and delivered training to start-ups e.g. in Aalto University and University of the Arts Helsinki (Finland). In addition to the business subjects, her training has included also Human Factor themes such as working with customers (e.g. to understand the real problem), pitching to different audiences (e.g. from academic to corporate, customer or investor viewpoint and language), top performing (multi-cultural, cross-disciplinary etc.) teams, creativity at work, self-leadership, persuasion skills and performing under pressure.

Currently Eija is based in Cambridge, UK.

Dr. Shima Barakat, MBA is an entrepreneur, director and academic obsessed with making the world a better place. Her experience is in how the environment (planet) as a strategic issue is understood and integrated into organization strategy through how people understand and interact with the strategy. Shima has spent the last 20 years helping companies (SMEs and MNEs) as well as governments and international funding agencies to improve their performance in an environmentally and socially sensitive manner. Shima is one of the founders and a Director of Value in Enterprise, the responsible business consultancy company. She has also been among the founders of several charities that aim at engaging communities in their own development in Egypt (Nahdet El Mahrousa and Egyptian Junior Business Association) and the US (Global Communities Initiative) and one of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship in the UK. She is the Head of Entrepreneurial Learning Programmes at the Entrepreneurship Centre of the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. Shima is broadly interested in critically studying management and entrepreneurship practice to explore the implications on people and the planet. She has a particular interest in exploring how and why people do or don’t do things, recently specifically the role of confidence (self-efficacy) and gender. Currently, her work focuses on global food, agri and environmental challenges and the nature, the rate, the focus, the location, the activities, the team choices, the networks and education/training needs of entrepreneurs and their ventures in providing solutions to these big challenges.

Steven is a Senior Patent Attorney within the AstraZeneca Legal Group - responsible for a portfolio of respiratory and oncology projects, and for the marketed oncology drug Lynparza.

Steven joined AstraZeneca in 2017 after 9 years in private practice where he handled IP matters in the fields of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, materials, and laser-activated dyes. Before his move into IP, Steven worked as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. In private practice Steven's responsibilities included IP strategy, cost forecasting, drafting and prosecuting patent applications, and defending or opposing granted patents. Steven was also active in deal making, where he represented SME and venture capital clients during the purchase, licensing, and sale of IP assets. For example, Steven provided due diligence advice to Danish evergreen investors Lundbeckfond Emerge, leading to investments in the bioscience companies: Insusense Therapeutics, IO Biotech, and NMD Pharma. Steven also represented Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company Proximagen during its acquisition by US pharmaceutical company Upsher Smith Laboratories. Very recently Steven provided IP support to the multibillion dollar strategic oncology collaboration deal between AstraZeneca and Merck.

Steven is keen to help companies to identify their IP assets and to build an IP strategy that maximises the value of those assets.

With over 15 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical sector, Irina has lead a number of innovative digital initiatives across marketing, medical education, corporate comms and patient services. Having spent most of this time working for Janssen, Irina has recently joined AstraZeneca as a Global Director for Mobile and Customer Experience Strategy to accelerate AstraZeneca’s patient services strategy and capabilities. Irina also held a position of Honorary Digital Services Academic Support in Digital Technology with NHS England.

Irina is a Chartered Marketer and a Member of the Chartered of Institute of Marketing (Post-graduate Diploma in Marketing). Received a Master of Science degree in Information Systems and Computing from Brunel University, she is currently working on PhD at UCL with focus on impact of Personally controlled health records (PCHRs) on patients outcomes.

I work for AstraZeneca, a large pharmaceutical company with offices all over the world and a focus on leading with science and delivering innovative, life-saving medicines. My role is on the commercial side and I am responsible for the strategy and design of patient support services to be provided alongside our medication. I am quite new to pharma having been in this role for a year. I started my career in the agency world at Ogilvy in Hong Kong and then to fluid, a local creative agency there. After that, I took the role of Product Director at Dow Jones for almost six years where for much of my time I worked on the Global Digital Product team at The Wall Street Journal and was responsible for the strategy, development, localisation and evolution of WSJ’s digital products in APAC and later in the US and UK.

10+ years market acceleration & advocacy for global innovation in tech, climate change, smart cities and energy, in partnership with companies and cities (Google, Cisco, BT, Living Labs Global, Metropolis) at The Climate Group and UK think tank Demos. Green innovation strategy advisor for Skype-founder’s Zennström Philanthropies. Jury member for numerous cleanweb and clean tech awards. 5+ years software and IT product development in New York, Tokyo and London. MSc in Environmental Policy at the London School of Economics.

Working at the intersection of sustainable business, energy and international development for the last seven years, she is currently responsible for delivery of projects and business development. At Forum for the Future, with clients such as Innovate UK, Action on Climate Today, DFID in the UK and India, she led projects on smart cities, decentralised energy and embedding sustainability in business. Green Mentorship Award lead for Skype founder’s family foundation helping digital and hardware startups in energy to scale their businesses.

Liz Aab works on commercializing new technologies at Shell. She currently leads Shell Retail's ambition to lower the carbon intensity of its global petrol station network. She also deploys cheaper, better and safer technologies and practices for building and maintaining petrol stations around the world. Previously she was responsible for bringing to the market Shell GTL Fuel, a cleaner burning diesel fuel. Before joining Shell, she advised foreign businesses on how to do business in China, based in Beijing, and worked in finance in New York. She studied international relations and computer science at Stanford University and has an MBA from London Business School, where she has co-chaired, judged and mentored the CleanTech Challenge. Liz's husband co-founded a successful mobile app commerce startup, Poq. They are proud parents of their toddler son, Hunter.

Brendan is a strategy consultant with Novasecta. He previously worked for three years with KPMG and spent three years as a post-qualification community pharmacist.

In his role with Novasecta Brendan works with senior executives in Pharma and Biotech companies to address strategic issues such as commercial growth, R&D and collaborations. In his previous role with KPMG he worked on a number of large healthcare and life science transactions as well as supporting the development of venture-stage digital health businesses.

When he's not clinging to the side of a mountain, Simon manages the life-science side of the UCL Technology Fund, which supports the commercialisation of academic innovation across University College London. He worked for 8 years at Goldman Sachs JBWere in Australia, predominantly on the Healthcare & Biotechnology and Portfolio Strategy Research teams. In 2006 he moved to the UK and completed his PhD and postdoc in auditory neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, where he continues to teach undergraduate finance. He joined Albion in 2015, after 4 years working in the biotech startup sector. Simon enjoys the odd long run, and is an active member of the choirs of the London and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

Simon Bragg is Chief Executive of JSB Energy. Prior to this he was Chairman and Chief Executive of Stifel Europe, which acquired Oriel Securities, a business he founded. Simon is a non executive director of JPMorgan American Investment Trust, Bridge Petroleum 1, Intralink and Chairman of YOUhome. Simon has extensive experience of starting-up high growth companies. Having qualified as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG, Simon previously worked for Hoare Govett, Cargill and HSBC. Simon is a Chemistry graduate from Imperial College and a Fellow of Goodenough College.

Danielle Anderson is the founder of Step & Stone and a business coach for early-stage creative, social, and environmental businesses. In her past life, she spent a decade working within financial services – developing business strategies, managing multiple projects, and turning big ideas into reality.
She abandoned her “successful” career in 2012 because the more she climbed the corporate ladder, the more she hated it. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life doing work that didn't really matter.
She now works with entrepreneurs who give a damn about the world around them and helps them to get their businesses off the ground by removing the overwhelm, focusing on strategy, and taking consistent and purposeful action.

A Chartered (UK) and European Patent Attorney, Matthew advises a wide range of clients in high tech fields, with particular expertise in computing and nanotechnology. Since joining Marks & Clerk in 2011, he has been active in protecting innovations within the fields of non-volatile semiconductor memory, telecommunications, machine learning and medical devices.

Matthew has drafted and prosecuted a wide variety of UK, European and International patents across a diverse range of technologies. He has also assisted clients in a number of appeals and oppositions before the European Patent Office.

Matthew has experience in neural networking across a variety of programming languages and, in particular, neural networking for the detection of fraudulent activity hidden within large volumes of data.

Murat Basarir has been involved in a broad spectrum of international cleantech projects, such as launching UK’s first wireless charged electric bus startup, part of developing Portugal's first virtual power plant trial and UK’s first driverless pod initiative.

Prior to cleantech investments, he has led a nationwide energy efficiency project that has been acknowledged by the Economist, BBC, and has been shown as an exemplary low-carbon initiative by the government.

Murat holds a BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering from Queen’s University and an MPhil in Engineering from Cambridge University and has completed the Ignite programme at Stanford’s Graduate Business School.

Gerard Gregg-Smith started his career with 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry, initially with Chugai Pharmaceutical (now part of Roche) in Japan, then with Glaxo in the UK. He then worked for 15 years in investment banking (mergers and acquisitions), living and working in three continents, starting with Baring Brothers in London, then Japan for another 5 years, and culminating by joining KPMG Corporate Finance as a Partner.

He then established his own business, GGS Associates, which provides executive search and investor introductions. The executive search focuses on senior appointments, both executive and non-executive. Sectors include healthcare and life sciences, as well as in other sectors including consulting, professional services, finance and investors (venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, family offices etc), globally.

He has appointed a number of CEOs, CFOs, Business Development and other senior executives and board directors in Europe, Asia and the US. He has raised capital for a number of companies.

He is an investor in companies across various sectors, and is available for non-executive roles.

He is a mentor and judge at MassChallenge, Cleantech Challenge, and Innovation Forum.

Rory is a Consultant at ZS, where he works with (bio)Pharmaceutical and MedTech clients to improve performance of both their commercial and clinical organisations. He has experience in Commercial and Digital Health strategy, as well as product launch design and planning.

Prior to ZS, Rory did an MBA at London Business School, where he was Co-president of the Healthcare Club. While at LBS, he co-founded the London HealthTech Challenge, a business idea competition for grass roots Tech innovation in the life sciences.

Rory has a passion for entrepreneurship, and small businesses that could solve big problems.

Christina is a bit of a marketing pro, as well as an all round make-stuff-happen type. She spent much of her career managing and growing FMCG brands worth in excess of £100 million and then turned her hand to startups and has never looked back since. She's passionate about helping entrepreneurs and SMEs with practical marketing training and advice, and has also co-founded two technology start-ups herself so knows first-hand what it is like to launch and grow a new business. Her first technology business launched in 2012 and was acquired by Enterprise Nation in 2015; her second was acquired by a large corporation early 2017. Today she teaches Entrepreneurial Marketing for UCL whilst also testing new startup ventures. As well as this she is an active mentor at Bathtub2Boardroom and is a trustee for young charity Breadwinners.

Joana is a Design Strategist with a practice that overarches communications, co-creation and applied research. She runs a location independent practice and supports ventures to articulate and amplify their sustainability impact.

Alain has over 25 years’ business experience, of which over 20 years on-and-off but almost constant involvement with Start-ups. Over the years, he acted as a Co-Founder, Angel Investor, Consultant, Interim CFO, Non-Executive Director to various Start-ups in various sectors and in several countries (Germany, France, UK, Switzerland) – and now as a Mentor within the CTI Training Initiative at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland). In his free time during all those years, he also enjoyed acting as a Partner with EY (Ernst & Young), a Managing Director in Investment Banking in the City of London, a European Managing Partner for US- and UK-based listed financial consultancies, a CFO in industry, a Private Equity professional, a Strategy Consultant with The Boston Consulting Group and a Factory Manager turning around troubled industrial plants. He lived and worked in roughly equal proportions in France, Germany, UK and now Switzerland where his current pastime is to act as President of AlpahaConsulting, a boutique he founded in 2010 and which focuses on Special Situations Advisory and CRO (Chief Restructuring Officer) roles – albeit not so much for Start-ups.

Adam joined the EPFL Technology transfer office in December 2013 specialising in the life science area (IP management, licensing and contract negotiations with industry). Adam graduated as a biochemist at the University of Bristol and worked as an R&D scientist at Abbott Diagnostics. After undertaking at the University College London (UCL) a PhD in biochemistry with a particular emphasis on neuroscience, he continued with a post-doctoral position at the University of Geneva. Before joining EPFL, he managed a journal published by Elsevier (Journal of Hepatology) that resulted in its successful revamp. Before joining the EPFL-TTO, Adam worked for the EPFL Grants Office where he managed a large portfolio of research contracts.

Nettra holds an M.A. from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences Po) and a B.A. from Columbia University where she studied International Public Management and Political Science. She is currently completing her PhD thesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where she is focusing on investor decision-making and new ways of organizing. Nettra has worked with a number of organizations on how to design business initiatives which aim to address the world’s most pressing challenges. She is also passionate about the role of media and technology in research and education. Nettra grew up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and has lived in San Diego, New York City, Paris and Lausanne. She has completed three half-marathons in Geneva, Lausanne, and Paris in support of UNICEF, The Harpswell Foundation, and the Against Malaria Foundation.

Mauro is a technology transfer manager at EPFL dealing mainly with ICT technologies. Communication engineer with a PhD in signal processing he has been a co-founder of a startup in 2001 for media production systems. Since 2005 he joins a semiconductor company for digital security and convergent media systems. Since 2013 he manages contracts, patents and licenses at the Technology Transfer Office of EPFL. He is passionate about new technologies and business creation.

Jonas Van Hove is a research associate at the chair of Entrepreneurship at D-MTEC, ETH Zurich. He conducts research on academic entrepreneurship and the impact of incubation models on venture evolution. Over the years, he has developed a deep understanding of the European scene of accelerators, its good practices and has launched a unique platform for academic entrepreneurs to navigate the overall startup ecosystem (backed by Imperial College London). Besides his research activities, he works on various tech transfer projects and designs experiential programmes to equip STEM students, academics and executives with an entrepreneurial mind set (equally relevant to starting-up, scaling-up or steady state organisations). He holds an MSc in Biotechnology and Biochemistry from Ghent University and the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology.

Pedro has 20+ years professional experience across Technology Solutions & Services, in particular in Networks and Telecoms, balancing strategy, business and technology skills, in international roles and multi-cultural environments.

He is currently SDS/IoT Partners Program Manager at HP Inc. and has held diverse leadership roles, like Global Client Advisor at Oracle, responsible for client accounts’ strategy, innovation and transformation initiatives in several industries, Global Client Services Manager at Stefanini TechTeam, responsible for the P&Ls of IT helpdesk outsourcing multinationals, OSS Business Manager at HP (Hewlett-Packard), responsible for the worldwide Service Management business done with Vodafone Group, driving teams towards complex business objectives, and Chief Technologist, EMEA at UUNET, worldwide Internet Service Provider belonging to WorldCom, where he had the responsibility of evolution of Internet services.

He has an MSc. in Computer Engineering & Telecommunications form the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL-Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and completed the first year of the Executive MBA of the iimt-International Institute of Management in Technology in Fribourg, both in Switzerland.

Nicola is a partner at law firm Penningtons Manches and advises technology companies on all aspects of corporate law including the delivery of funding rounds and strategies for growth and realisation of value. She has acted for numerous companies from early stage through to major institutional funding rounds, strategic acquisitions and exit via sale or IPO. Her clients include organisations in the life sciences, digital and clean tech sectors, many of which have an international dynamic to their business. She has advised over 40 spin out and start-ups companies from Oxford University as well as several more from other institutions.

Nicola is recognised by both Chambers UK and The Legal 500, winning praise for coming up with ‘simple but effective solutions to complex legal issues’ and for being ‘absolutely charming and very competent’. She has also been described by clients in the directories as being ‘absolutely passionate about her job’ and as having ‘a palpable determination to drive change that is a pleasure to witness’.

Long and successful career as medtech business leader in large corporations, AIM listed companies and early stage ventures: CEO of Lombard Medical Technologies (2005 - 2009) and General Manager of Boston Scientific in UK (1999 - 2005). Currently board member of three emerging medtech companies, including OE.

As an experienced Biotechnology executive with over 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry, I have acquired broad scientific, business and commercial capabilities and have formed a strong understanding of risk and value within the industry. I have had the enormous privilege of developing and benefiting from an extensive professional network. I find real pleasure in working with talented people to drive creative ideas forward. I have recently set-up two companies capable of exploiting the experience and capabilities I have taken from the industry and applying them in an entrepreneurial setting

Key skills & capabilities

• Influencing and negotiation skills demonstrated with senior leaders and executives.
• Strong financial acumen relating to investment metrics and indices within the healthcare sector.
• Demonstrated strong judgement in setting strategic direction.
• Deep insight of the commercial and business drivers of the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.
• Ability to apply a fresh and entrepreneurial approach to problem solving.

David has a background in biochemistry, immunology and molecular biology with a PhD from Imperial College, London and three years of post-doctoral experience. David has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for almost 20 years. He worked in big pharma at AstraZeneca for more than 17 years in a wide variety of R&D roles both in the UK and the US. Whilst at AstraZeneca he was heavily involved in developing the use of informatics and systems biology to support the development of new medicines. David joined Blueberry Therapeutics as Chief Scientific Officer at the start of 2014. In this role, he is responsible for leading the research activities of the business which are focused on developing new treatments for serious infectious diseases. The first of these treatments has now entering clinical testing.

James is a Partner at James Cowper Kreston. With offices in the South of England, membership of Kreston International and a global network of independent accountants and business advisers, James Cowper Kreston is ideally placed to provide informed local, national and international advice.

James has worked with a variety of largely corporate clients, including start-ups, SMEs, international companies and groups, and publicly listed companies. James has experience working in a wide range of sectors but with particular emphasis on science / technology companies. He has worked closely with entrepreneurs, academics, research institutions and companies from spin out through to listing on accounting, taxation and strategic issues. He is delighted to offer advice and guidance for the programme.

Mr. Victor Zhao is Assistant Director of Innovation and Technology Development Department of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is committed to assist university faculty and research staff to facilitate high impact research and technology development and promote knowledge exchange and technology transfer. He is also responsible to protect and manage university IP rights to enhance and realize the value and performance of technology transfer. Mr. Zhao is a seasonal professional in management and leadership, specialized in innovative technology transfer, business development and strategic planning, works closely with governments, communities, industry and academia. Prior that, he was Senior Manager in HKU and committed to IoT technology in cross-border food safety supply chain management and application by developing and completing a series of Key State Food Safety projects. Mr. Zhao has long been engaged in technology transfer, professional consulting and high tech management role in multinational corporations and public institutions and familiar with different rules and standards. Mr. Zhao holds a BS degree from Fudan University, Shanghai and MS degree from George Washington University, USA and Master of Global Business and Management from University of Hong Kong.