Amanda Wooding – CEAmanda 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 DeliveryVP 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 – CSOChief 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, ChairmanAndrew 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, FDPaul 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 – observerDr 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 LLCMr 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 OfficerProfessor 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-ParkwalkBefore 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.