People
Board
Ken Cunningham (Chairman)
Ken Cunningham has over 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He was most recently Chief Executive Officer of SkyePharma, having joined the Company in 2006 initially as Chief Operating Officer. Before that he was Chief Executive Officer of Arakis Ltd, Vice-President European Affairs at Alza Corporation and Vice-President Clinical Development at Sequus Inc. Prior to this he held a variety of clinical development and commercial strategy roles at GlaxoWellcome plc and Warner-Lambert earlier in his career. Ken is also a Non-Executive Director of Xention Ltd. He holds a medical degree from St Mary's, Imperial College, London University.
John Burt, Chief Executive Officer
John joined PolyTherics in November 2010 and brings broad business and corporate development experience to the Company. Prior to joining PolyTherics he co-founded Thiakis, with Professor Steve Bloom (Imperial College), which he led as CEO through a major financing round in 2006 and ultimately to a very successful sale to Wyeth in 2008.
John has previously led medical and life sciences technology transfer for Imperial Innovations and at GSK served in a range of strategy, business and corporate development roles. His early experience in the biotech industry came through the R&D finance role with Vanguard Medica, now Vernalis.
John was a board member of Sterix, a joint Imperial College - University of Bath spin-out company which was acquired by Ipsen in 2004, and has been an active advisor to early-stage biotech and life sciences companies on strategy, business development and finance issues.
Tony Brampton
Tony was previously Managing Director, Corporate Finance at J P Morgan Cazanove, with overall responsibility for healthcare. Tony has an MSc in Biochemistry from Oxford and joined the City in the early 1980s as a pharmaceutical analyst. During the period 1994-2006 he was actively involved in numerous IPOs, follow on fund raisings, and mergers and acquisitions, including the GlaxiSmithKline merger, UCB's acquisition of Celltech, AstraZeneca's acquisition of Cambridge Antibody Technology and Imperial Innovations' private placement and subsequent flotation. Tony is a Partner at sudbrook Associates LLP.
Nigel Pitchford
Nigel joined Imperial Innovations Group plc as Managing Director of Healthcare Investments in January 2012. He was previously a Partner at DFJ Esprit where he was responsible for leading their healthcare activities across Europe. Prior to joining DFJ Esprit, Nigel spent 12 years at 3i, becoming a Partner in 2006, and ultimately leading the venture team's healthcare activities across Europe and the US. He has been responsible for leading deals into Domantis, Apatech, Horizon Discovery and Arakis.
Nigel studied chemistry at the University of Oxford, before completing a PhD at the University of Durham. His research activities included rational drug design and saw him join the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) in 1994, where he spent two years working on new product design and projects for pharmaceutical company clients. He completed an MBA at Warwick Business School, before joining 3i in 1997.
Steve Brocchini
Steve co-founded PolyTherics in 2001 and has been involved with developing the Company’s technologies. Steve is also a Professor of Chemical Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, University of London.
Steve has previously worked as a medicinal chemist (Xenova Ltd) and as a metallurgist technician (Raychem Corp.). He studied synthetic chemistry at Reed College in Portland, Oregon (BA), at the University of Michigan (PhD) and as a postgraduate student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Steve has also been an adjunct faculty member in polymer science at Rutgers University, New Jersey.
Stéphane Méry
Stéphane manages the investment for Beringea’s ProVen Health VCT. Prior to joining Beringea he was an Associate Director of Healthcare Investment at Noble. Stéphane has also been a Fund Manager for the Bloomsbury Bioseed Fund since November 2000.
Previously, he was Associate Director, Worldwide Business Development, for SmithKline Beecham. He has also worked as a management consultant with ZS Associates and been involved in the start-up of a strategic consulting company, Double Helix Development. Stéphane is a Doctor in Veterinary Medicine, a trained Veterinary Pathologist, specialising in Nasal Toxicology at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) in North Carolina, and holds an MBA from INSEAD (Fontainebleau).
Mark Payton
Mark is a co-founder and the Managing Director of Mercia Fund Management. Prior to founding Mercia Fund Management Mark was a fund principal at WM Enterprise Ltd. He was previously at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, played leading roles within Isis Innovation Ltd (the technology transfer arm of the University of Oxford), and was VP Corporate Development at Oxxon Therapeutics Inc prior to its sale to Oxford BioMedica plc.
Mark is a Sainsbury’s Management Fellow in Life Sciences and has an MBA from the Warwick Business School. He has made and led in over 30 venture capital investments, and sits on the boards (as a director or observer) of the following Mercia Fund Management portfolio companies: Anaxsys Ltd, Celentyx Ltd, Intelligent Orthopaedics Ltd, nanoTherics Ltd, Native Antigen Company Ltd, PsiOxus Ltd and, prior to its acquisition by PolyTherics in January 2012, Warwick Effect Polymers Ltd.
See "Board" See "Board". Sally Waterman joined PolyTherics in October 2009 as COO. Sally’s previous roles include Director of Research & Development at Protherics (now part of BTG) and KS Biomedix (acquired by Xenova), VP of Non-clinical Development at Vernalis and Director of Scientific Operations at Pharmakopius (since acquired by PRA). Her early career was spent in regulatory affairs in GD Searle, Wyeth and Sterling Winthrop. Sally has been a member of several Boards, including Discerna, the first spin-out company from the Babraham Bioscience Technologies Limited. She has a BSc degree in Biological Sciences and obtained a PhD from the University of Reading for her research with Campylobacter jejuni. Tim Brown qualified as an accountant at a top 50 UK firm of auditors and then became an Audit Manager, responsible for a portfolio of approximately 100 businesses and individuals. The firm of auditors was particularly strong in the technology sector and Tim gained valuable experience working for biotech firms in the Oxford area. Tim’s previous roles include a position at a listed PLC, with a turnover in excess of €1.5 bn. He was responsible for the integration of new acquisitions into the group and managed the re-organisation of a group company into the head office operations, stepping in as an interim Financial Controller. Before joining PolyTherics, Tim ran his own consultancy business, which included roles at two leading UK biotech businesses. Jeff Edwards was previously Director of Development at Thiakis (acquired by Wyeth). Prior to joining PolyTherics Jeff was Director of Alliance Management at Ipsen and played a key role in the coordination of a GLP-1 analogue peptide project with Roche; he was previously the Head of Exploratory Development at Ipsen in charge of management of the preclinical portfolio. Jeff’s first role was at Beecham, subsequently SmithKline Beecham, where he initially managed the Biochemistry group and then the Biotechnology Development group. Jeff studied Natural Sciences and Biochemistry and holds an MA and PhD from Cambridge University. Ajay Mistry joined PolyTherics in May 2009 and is involved in business development and licensing activities for the company. Ajay obtained his PhD in molecular biology from Imperial College and then worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute of Ophthalmology (Moorfields Eye Hospital, London), where he carried out research on gene-based therapeutics for various forms of blindness. Ajay was previously an investment associate with ITX Corporation, a Japanese investments company and subsidiary of Olympus, where he executed several successful deals. He then joined the London offices of EEP Advisors, a venture capital group where he was involved in the acquisition of the ICOS facility from Eli-Lilly and its merger with CMC Biologics. Antony Godwin co- founded PolyTherics in 2001 and has helped to develop the company’s PEGylation and polymer solubilisation technologies. He is named as co-inventor of six patents and the sole inventor on another. Antony has responsibility for the science teams utilising the company’s proprietary technologies and the development of new intellectual property. He has a PhD from the School of Pharmacy, University of London, in the medicinal use of polymers. Antony has previously worked for ICI Imagedata, where he worked on developing improved digital imaging media using polymers that more strongly interact with dye molecules for increased image stability. Since joining the founding team of PolyTherics in 2003, Ji-won Choi has led the biology department, which is responsible for the in vitro and in vivo assessment of PEGylated therapeutic proteins and peptides. He is also closely involved in the in-house therapeutics development programs. Ji-won is a co-inventor in the PolyTherics' core technology patents including TheraPEG™ and HiPEG™. Ji-won holds a degree in Biochemistry and was awarded a PhD in Virology for his work on HIV from Imperial College London, UK.Management
John Burt DPhil, Chief Executive Officer
Steve Brocchini PhD, Chief Scientific Officer
Sally Waterman PhD, Chief Operating Officer and Company Secretary
Tim Brown FCCA, Finance Manager
Jeff Edwards PhD, Director of Alliance Management
Ajay Mistry PhD, Business Development Manager
Antony Godwin PhD, Director of Science & Technology
Ji-won Choi PhD, Director of Scientific Evaluation