People
Board
Ken Cunningham (Chairman)
Ken Cunningham has over 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently Chief Executive Officer of SkyePharma, having joined the Company in 2006 initially as Chief Operating Officer. Previously, 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.
Mike Hayes
Mike Hayes has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and life science industries. He held the position of Divisional Director of Discovery Technology at GlaxoWellcome and was the Chairman of their Centre for Natural Products Research in Singapore (now MerLion Pharma). Mike has also been the Executive Chairman of Biotica Ltd and a Non-Executive Director of Thiakis Ltd, and was the founder and Director of SciBridge Ltd, and an advisor to Quester Capital Management Ltd. In his earlier career he was Executive Vice President Global R&D and Chief Technology Officer at Amersham Biosciences Ltd. Mike is currently Managing Director of Avicus Ltd..
Keith Powell
Keith Powell joined PolyTherics as CEO in 2005 and has been responsible for two successful rounds of funding for the Company, which have led to investments totaling of £5.3m, and several commercial licensing deals.
Prior to PolyTherics, Keith was President of the Small Molecule Business at Maxygen, where he was responsible for the execution of research partnerships with Lilly, Pfizer, Hercules, DSM, Atlas and Novozymes which generated > $20 m of revenue. Before joining Maxygen, he held senior management positions at AstraZeneca; in his earlier career he worked for both ICI and Glaxo. Keith has also been a visiting Professor of biotechnology at the University of Ulster.
Keith was also CEO and is now Chairman of Domainex and has also been a director of several successful UK biotechnology start-ups. Keith received his PhD in Microbial Genetics from the University of Reading.
Tony Brampton
Tony Brampton was previously Managing Director, Corporate Finance at J P Morgan Cazenove, 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 GlaxoSmithKline 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.
Robert Bahns
Robert Bahns joined the investment team at Imperial Innovations in 2005. He has twenty years experience in technology and investment and previously was a Director in the technology principle investment team at Nomura International, focussing on the semiconductor and hardware opportunities. He trained as an electronics engineer and spent seven years in Japan where he worked for Pioneer Electronics.
Steve Brocchini
Steve Brocchini 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.
Helen Reynolds
Helen Reynolds is an Investment Manager at YFM Venture Finance. The YFM Group is a major provider of finance to the UK SME sector. Its largest fund under management is The Capital Fund, a £46m fund for high growth London-based businesses that first invested in Polytherics in 2007.
Helen has a BA in Natural Sciences and an MSc in Physics from the University of Cambridge. She began her career at ZS Associates, a management consultancy focussed on the pharmaceutical sector, then moved to Seed Capital, working on the Oxford Technology Venture Capital Trusts. She joined YFM in October 2003 and has responsibility for a number of The Capital Fund’s investments, many of which are in healthcare, technology and life sciences.
Management
Keith Powell PhD, Chief Executive Officer
See "Board"
Steve Brocchini PhD, Chief Scientific Officer
See "Board".
Sally Waterman PhD, Chief Operating Officer
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 FCCA, Finance Manager and Company Secretary
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 PhD, Development Director
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 PhD, Business Development Manager
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 PhD, Director of Chemistry
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 chemistry team and the production, purification and chemical characterisation of PEGylated proteins and peptides produced using the company’s proprietary PEGylation methods. 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.
Ji-won Choi PhD, Director of Biology
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.