Our Team

Dr Ken Smith, Founder Director

Professor Ken Smith is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge, and Director of the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease. He trained in nephrology (FRACP, FRCP) and clinical immunology (FRCPA) and completed a PhD at the WEHI in Melbourne. His laboratory runs a translational programme in autoimmune disease (particularly inflammatory bowel disease, vasculitis and SLE) and immunodeficiency that has led to the identification of genes and pathways involved in disease pathogenesis, and to the discovery of a novel prognosis-predicting biomarkers.

Dr Amanda Wooding, Director, CE

Amanda is Deputy Head of Life Sciences in the technology transfer team at Cambridge Enterprise, developing the Associate team members who work with technologies across the range of life sciences at the University. Amanda is also part of the Seed Funds team, where she is focused on building and supporting early stage companies by building long term relationships with academic teams; winning funding; identifying and building business opportunities and sourcing fledgling company management whilst carefully managing the interest of all stakeholders throughout. Other activities have included complex technology portfolio licences in the materials field and raising funding for University initiatives in the translational space. Amanda is currently a Director of PredictImmune Limited and served on the board of Sphere Fluidics Limited for six years.

Dr Lea Ann Chen, Rutgers University

Lea Ann Chen, MD, AGAF, FACG is the Director of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Translational Research at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine in New Brunswick, NJ. She completed her medical degree at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, her internal medicine training at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, and her gastroenterology fellowship in the physician-scientist track at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Clinically, Dr. Chen specializes in the care of patients with IBD, with a special interest in working with underserved populations.

Dr Eoin McKinney, Chief Science Officer

Chief Scientific Officer and a Clinical Research Fellow, Department of Medicine works on ‘systems immunology’ and immune cell transcriptomes isolated from patients with a broad range of autoimmune, inflammatory and infectious diseases. A major focus of this work to date has been the identification of pathways driving and marking severe, relapsing autoimmune disease with a view to developing both predictive biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets.

Dr Karen Hills, Executive Director, Medical Affairs & Market Access

Karen has over 20 years’ experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in roles ranging from marketing global pharmaceutical brands to business development for early stage pharmaceutical and Biotech companies. She has a passion for medical science and development of innovative products that can improve outcomes in human health across a broad range of therapeutic areas. Karen’s background has provided her with a diverse skill-set that is ideal for the start-up environment where teams need to be nimble and multi-disciplinarian, and with an ability to understand the depth of technical information behind the research; recruit and support management of trial groups globally as well as capturing pertinent information and communicating audience-appropriate information for clinicians and patients. Karen recognises the importance of working closely with sales and marketing teams to provide them with the tools they need to raise awareness of products in their regions and generate ongoing business.

Tim Rea, Director, BGF

Tim has a science background, began his career in corporate R&D and has been active in the venture capital and start-up ecosystem for over 20 years, initially as an entrepreneur and then as an investor with SoftBank, NEC and DFJ ePlanet Capital. His main role is to identify and execute investments with a particular focus on tech and life sciences propositions. He has been a party to more than 120 investments across a broad range of sectors, stages and geographies.

Mike Anstey, Board Observer, CIC

Dr Michael Anstey is a Partner at Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) specialising in life sciences investments. Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Michael has experience in advising multinational healthcare businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, market access, R&D strategy, and M&A. Michael was also co-founder of an early stage biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target protein-protein interactions implicated in disease.

Alastair Kilgour, Director, Parkwalk

Before co-founding Parkwalk in 2009, Alastair was a Partner of Lazard LLP, Director of BNP and a Founder Partner of Ark Securities. He has analysed and advised both private and public companies on strategy, development, fund-raising and exits. He oversees the investment process at Parkwalk and he sits on various portfolio company Boards including Congenica, Mogrify, Petmedix, Phoremost, Predictimmune, and Mirriad.

Prof. Dr Séverine Vermeire, KU Leuven

Séverine Vermeire is staff member at the Gastroenterology Department of the University Hospitals Leuven and is appointed Full Professor of Medicine at the KU Leuven. She has been the Research Coordinator of the Biomedical Sciences Group at the KU Leuven since 2021. Séverine obtained her MD degree at the KU Leuven and a PhD at the same University on “Genetic Polymorphisms and Serologic Markers in Inflammatory Bowel Disease”. She is actively involved as principle investigator in RCT’s with new therapeutic compounds and has been lead investigator on several of these programs. Séverine’s scientific work has resulted in over 500 peer-reviewed articles and focusses on the role of the microbiome and genetic susceptibility in IBD and on identifying predictive signatures of treatment response.

Dr James Lee, The Francis Crick Institute

Dr James Lee is a Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital London and a Clinician Scientist Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. He trained in Medicine at the University of Oxford, and later completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, before spending two years at Harvard University as a Visiting Scholar. He leads the Genetic Mechanisms of Disease lab at the Crick, which uses a range of experimental tools to uncover the molecular, cellular and biological mechanisms by which genetic variants predispose to diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). He has clinical expertise in IBD and is an active member of the UK and International IBD Genetics Consortia.

Dr Paul Lyons, University of Cambridge

VP Delivery and a Principal Research Associate in the Department of Medicine with a research interest focused on understanding the underlying basis of immune-mediated disease.

Paul Foulger, Chief Financial Officer

Paul is a seasoned CFO, having been Finance Director at NovaBiotics Ltd, Venn Life Sciences plc, Elsevier Science, Porta Communications plc, Hansard Group plc and Curidium Medica plc, amongst others. He has experience in managing a broad range of corporate transactions including lead roles in several IPOs on the AIM market, two management buy-outs, over £100m of fund-raising and a number of acquisitions both in Europe and the US. More recently he was Group CFO at EKF Diagnostics plc, the global point-of-care and central lab devices and tests medical manufacturer. He is also CFO of GeninCode plc, a Company focussing in risk assessment and the prediction of cardiovascular disease, a non-executive director of Penrhos Bio Ltd, an innovative bioderived anti-biofilm company, and Autoclenz Ltd. He obtained an MBA from Warwick Business School and is a qualified Certified Accountant.

Aarti Gurnani, Chief Executive Officer

Aarti has 25 years’ leadership experience in technology sales, marketing, finance and strategy. She began her professional career as a corporate attorney in Silicon Valley and subsequently became lead counsel for a multinational wireless communications company with operations in Latin America and Southeast Asia. She then spent a number of years as an equity investment banker with JPMorgan before joining Cisco, where she held several senior leadership positions covering the US and EMEA. Aarti is an LBS Sloan Fellow and holds a JD from Hastings and a BSc in Medical Microbiology from Stanford University.

Andrew Sandham, Chair

Andrew has more than 30 years’ experience in co-founding and building start-up businesses in the biotechnology sector. He has served in chairman, non-executive and executive roles with UK and US biotech start-up companies, including Cantab Pharmaceuticals, Hexagen, Signature Bioscience, Novacta, Ionix Pharmaceuticals, NeurAxon, Syntaxin, Synosia, Kymab, Bicycle Therapeutics, 14M Genomics and LoQus23 Therapeutics. He has also worked as a venture partner at Abingworth and Syncona and currently serves as deputy chairman of the University of Cambridge Seed Funds Investment Committee.

Fionnuala Patterson, Executive Director, Operations

Fionnuala has been working across life sciences, biotechnology, and diagnostics industries for the past 18 years and has accumulated a high level of technical and operational management experience. She is a strategic, innovative diagnostic expert focusing on technology transfer and clinical realisation of complex diagnostic solutions reaching across early feasibility analysis, product development & validation, QMS & regulatory strategy and operational delivery. Fionnuala has previous experience of executing major diagnostic test development projects (patents including US10260097B2, US2014051591A1) and has been pivotal in supporting the journey of PredictSURE IBD from its discovery through to clinical realisation.

Amanda Wooding – CE

Amanda is Deputy Head of Life Sciences in the technology transfer team at Cambridge Enterprise, developing the Associate team members who work with technologies across the range of life sciences at the University. Amanda is also part of the Seed Funds team, where she is focused on building and supporting early stage companies by building long term relationships with academic teams; winning funding; identifying and building business opportunities and sourcing fledgling company management whilst carefully managing the interest of all stakeholders throughout. Other activities have included complex technology portfolio licences in the materials field and raising funding for University initiatives in the translational space. Amanda is currently a Director of PredictImmune Limited and served on the board of Sphere Fluidics Limited for six years.

Paul Lyons – VP Platform Delivery

VP Delivery and a Principal Research Associate in the Department of Medicine with a research interest focused on understanding the underlying basis of immune-mediated disease.

Eoin McKinney – CSO

Chief Scientific Officer and a Clinical Research Fellow, Department of Medicine works on ‘systems immunology’ and immune cell transcriptomes isolated from patients with a broad range of autoimmune, inflammatory and infectious diseases. A major focus of this work to date has been the identification of pathways driving and marking severe, relapsing autoimmune disease with a view to developing both predictive biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets.

Andy Sandham, Chairman

Andrew has more than 30 years’ experience in co-founding and building start-up businesses in the biotechnology sector . He has served in chairman, non-executive and executive roles with UK and US biotech start-up companies, including Cantab Pharmaceuticals, Hexagen, Signature Bioscience, Novacta, Ionix Pharmaceuticals, NeurAxon, Syntaxin, Synosia, Kymab, Bicycle Therapeutics and 14M Genomics. He has also worked within venture capital firms Abingworth and Syncona and currently serves as chairman of PolyProx Therapeutics and Loqus23 Therapeutics. He is also deputy chairman of the Cambridge Enterprise Investment Committee.

Paul Foulger, FD

Paul is a qualified certified accountant and seasoned CFO, having been Finance Director at NovaBiotics Ltd, Venn Life Sciences plc, Elsevier Science, Porta Communications plc, Hansard Group plc and Curidium Medica plc, amongst others. He has experience in managing a broad range of corporate transactions including lead roles in several IPOs on the AIM market, two management buy-outs, over £100m of fund-raising and a number of acquisitions both in Europe and the US. More recently he was Group CFO at EKF Diagnostics plc, the global point-of-care and central lab devices and tests medical manufacturer. He is also a non-executive director of Arcis Biotechnology, the nucleic acid sample preparation solutions provider, and Autoclenz Ltd.

Mike Anstey – observer

Dr Michael Anstey is a Partner at Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) specialising in life sciences investments. Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Michael has experience in advising multinational healthcare businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, market access, R&D strategy, and M&A. Michael was also co-founder of an early stage biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target protein-protein interactions implicated in disease.

Steve Martin-Paxton Advisors LLC

Mr Martin is managing partner of Paxton Advisors LLC, a business advisory and consulting firm based in Omaha, Nebraska. Previously, Mr Martin was President and Chief Executive Officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska (BCBSNE), leading the company’s executive management team for over 16 years and serving as a member of the board of directors from March 2002 until March 2018. BCBSNE, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is the largest health insurance and health benefits administrator serving Nebraskans. BCBSNE is wholly owned by Good Life Partners, Inc., a not-for-profit mutual insurance holding company and is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Prior to leading Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska, Mr. Martin was the founding CEO of Prime Therapeutics, a national U.S. pharmacy benefit management company, and served as a board director of the company from 1998 to 2018. Mr Martin also served as the founding board chair of Think Whole Person Healthcare, the largest primary care clinic and pharmacy in the state of Nebraska.

Professor Ken Smith, Chief Medical Officer

Professor Ken Smith is Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge, and Director of the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease. He trained in nephrology (FRACP, FRCP) and clinical immunology (FRCPA) and completed a PhD at the WEHI in Melbourne. His laboratory runs a translational programme in autoimmune disease (particularly inflammatory bowel disease, vasculitis and SLE) and immunodeficiency that has led to the identification of genes and pathways involved in disease pathogenesis, and to the discovery of a novel prognosis-predicting biomarkers.

Alastair Kilgour-Parkwalk

Before co-founding Parkwalk in 2009, Alastair was a Partner of Lazard LLP, Director of BNP and a Founder Partner of Ark Securities. He has analysed and advised both private and public companies on strategy, development, fund-raising and exits. He oversees the investment process at Parkwalk and he sits on various portfolio company Boards including Congenica, Mogrify, Petmedix, Phoremost, Predictimmune, and Mirriad.

Tim Rea – BGF

Tim has a science background, began his career in corporate R&D and has been active in the venture capital and start-up ecosystem for over 20 years, initially as an entrepreneur and then as an investor with SoftBank, NEC and DFJ ePlanet Capital. His main role is to identify and execute investments with a particular focus on tech and life sciences propositions. He has been a party to more than 120 investments across a broad range of sectors, stages and geographies.

Find out more about

Our Team

Executive Team

Scientific Advisers

Board of Directors

Executive Team

Aarti Gurnani

Dr Eoin McKinney

Fionnuala Patterson

Dr Karen Hills

Paul Foulger

Scientific Advisers

Dr Paul Lyons

Dr James Lee

Dr Lea Ann Chen

Prof. Dr Séverine Vermeire

Board of Directors

Andrew Sandham

Alastair Kilgour

Dr Amanda Wooding

Dr Ken Smith

Mike Anstey

Tim Rea