Our board
The BIA’s Board is drawn from a wide range of member companies. The Board currently comprises 11 Members, each of whom has been elected for a three-year term, after which they are invited to put themselves forward for re-election.
Board Members
Chair of the Board
Dr Dan Mahony
Daniel joined Novo Holdings in 2024 as a Senior Partner in Growth Investments.
Daniel has 25+ years of global healthcare investment experience covering biotechnology, medical technology and healthcare services. In 2007, he co-founded the healthcare business unit at Polar Capital in London, growing it to over $4 billion in assets under management. Daniel was formerly a Senior Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley in London, an Analyst at ING Barings Furman Selz in New York, and completed his postdoctoral work at DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto.
He currently chairs the UK BioIndustry Association, is a Non-Executive Director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, and was in 2022 appointed as the UK Government’s Life Sciences Envoy.
Daniel received his PhD in Development Biology from the University of Cambridge and his BA in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford.
Corporate Members
Anna Williamson
I am an Executive Director in the Pharma Partnering Group at Roche, where I have 17 years of experience in Partnering and Alliance Management. In this role I have established collaborations with companies ranging from early-stage start-ups to large Pharma. Notable partnerships I’ve helped establish include Genentech’s personalized cancer vaccine clinical development collaboration with BioNTech, Genentech’s clinical collaboration with Abbvie which generated Venclexta, Genentech’s cell therapy collaboration with Adaptive Biotechnologies and Genentech’s preclinical discovery collaboration with Bicycle Therapeutics for bicyclic peptides. More recently, I led Roche’s negotiations to become a Founding Industry Member of Our Future Health, a UK-government supported consortia for early detection of disease.
In addition to partnering, I have experience working with entrepreneurs and with academia. I am on the Board of Start Codon, a Cambridge-based life sciences accelerator in which Genentech is a founding partner. I support the London-based Cancer Tech Accelerator in which Roche is a founder. I am on the selection committee for the Oncology Development Programme at Alderley Park. With respect to experience with academia, I spent 3 years at the University of California Office of Technology Transfer prior to joining Genentech.
I have a scientific background. I have a PhD and MA in Neuroscience from Cambridge University and I conducted post-doctoral studies at UCSF and the University of Colorado.
After spending 20 years in the US I moved back to the UK in 2016 to establish a partnering presence for Roche in the UK. Since returning I have become passionate about helping the UK maintain its position as a world-leading life sciences sector. I believe this passion, together with my diverse background and the support I can bring from Roche, the world’s largest biotechnology company and a global leader in in vitro diagnostics, makes me an ideal candidate.
Charlotte Casebourne
Charlotte believes in equitable access to effective therapies. She is the CEO and Co-founder of Theolytics - a pre-clinical biotech company harnessing viruses to fight cancer - and has been a BIA Board Member since January 2019. This has included audit committee responsibilities, and the ongoing role of Vice Chair of the BIA's Skills, People and Talent Working Party.
Previously Co-founder and Director of New Medicine Partners, Charlotte has worked with organisations spanning three continents to support the early translation of novel life science technologies. She has taken leadership roles including Curator of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers network, Managing Director of HealthTech Women London, and HelloTomorrow’s London Chair for Healthcare and Medical Technologies.
Charlotte graduated as a University of Cambridge Bioscience Enterprise M.Phil Scholar and was a shortlisted finalist for Cambridge Entrepreneur of the Year. She was most recently named one of Forbes 30 Under 30, and In Vivo’s 30 Rising Leaders in Life Sciences.
Claire Thompson
Claire is a multi-award winning entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, spanning large multi-nationals (GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer), virtual biotech and Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisations (CDMOs). She is the Founder and CEO of Agility Life Sciences, a formulation development CDMO which supports pharmaceutical and biotech companies developing formulations which give badly behaved molecules the best chance of success in preclinical studies, and allow them to be accelerated to clinic. Claire is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Cambridge where she helps academics translate their research into healthcare products and platforms. She also holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Nottingham.
Named in the Medicine Maker Power List in 2022, and the inaugural recipient of the One Nucleus “Life Science Inspiration of the Year” award in 2021, Claire is passionate not just about the process of getting medicines to patients, but the people involved in the development. One of her mantras is “People and purpose over products and profits”.
Claire was formerly Deputy Chief Scientist of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and Chief Scientist of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She has made appearances for the BBC (Health: Truth or Scare), ITV News and Channel 4 (Food Unwrapped) to illustrate the science behind medicines in a way which engages the public, and demonstrates to girls where science can take them. Claire is passionate about providing opportunities for women and girls to excel in whatever they do. She Chairs the global FIP WiSE (Women in Science and Education) initiative to engage, enable and empower girls and women, professionally or personally. As a former international footballer, Claire launched and fully funds the Girls In Football Teams (GIFT) Grants scheme, which currently supports more than 30 girls’ and women’s teams across the UK.
Ian McCubbin CBE
Chair of RoslinCT ( UK), Chair of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult.
Ian has a passion for biological science, in particular Cell and Gene Therapy due to the transformational medical benefits and the potential economic benefit created for the UK by this innovative treatment platform
RoslinCT is a unique contract development and manufacturing organisation based in Edinburgh and Boston and the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult has been and continues to instrumental in growing the UK cell and gene therapy ecosystem.
He was a formative member of the UK Vaccines Task Force and lead the manufacturing work stream between Jan2020 and May 2021. He also co-lead the Advanced Therapy Manufacturing action plan with George Freeman designed to ‘anchor’ commercial scale manufacturing in the UK. This action plan was adopted in full in the UK Life Sciences Strategy.
He retired from GSK in 2017 as SVP Global Supply leading 17 factories around the globe delivering the new product pipeline of amazing products at scale .
He had two periods of service with GSK split by 7 years in the Generics industry with IVAX and Mark Generics.
Ian trained as a pharmacist and has remained committed to the patients that receive our medicines and treatments and place their trust in our industry to improve their health and keep them safe.
Laura Lane
Laura is the European Regional Head of Lilly Ventures for Eli Lilly & Company. Her focus is on Lilly’s venture capital strategy for Europe covering both direct investments into biotech and life science companies, and fund-of-fund relationships and investments, as well as supporting the wider external innovation efforts across Lilly. As an organization, Lilly is determined to improve the UK’s attractiveness for scientific and medical research so that cutting edge science can be developed into life-changing healthcare products for patients.
Laura is a PhD-trained scientist who brings diverse business, transaction and operational experience to the BIA. Over the last 15 years she has participated in the pharma/biotech research and innovation sphere with her experience spanning key pillars of our industry: pharma leader; venture capital; technology transfer; charity sector; founder and executive of biotech and life science start-ups; and life science consulting. Her strong appreciation of the different pressures and needs of each of these contributors; as well as the acute need for cross-sector collaboration to achieve our goals of serving patients better, not only drives her as an individual but also provides a valuable breadth of experience she can leverage for the BIA.
Prior to Lilly, Laura was part of the investment team at Advent Life Sciences. She was involved across the full spectrum of investment activities; supported the wider portfolio; and led on business development and pharma outreach activities. While at Advent she also served on the Boards of Aleta Biotherapeutics Inc., Artax BioPharma Inc., Highlight Therapeutics S.L., and Ventus Medical Ltd. Prior to Advent, Laura held CEO and COO positions at several UK life science/biotech companies in Birmingham, Oxford & London.
Laura gained her masters and doctorate from the University of Cambridge and currently serves on the board of the non-profit Collaborative Community against Coronavirus (3CCorona) CIC.
Lisa Anson
Lisa Anson is Chief Executive Officer of Redx Pharma plc, appointed 1 June 2018.
Lisa has been President of AstraZeneca UK since 2012 and has significant leadership experience in pharmaceuticals. Over a 20 year career at AstraZeneca plc, Lisa has held a number of senior management roles in both the US and the UK including Global Vice President, Oncology and as Vice President of emerging brands where she worked closely with the Research and Development teams.
Lisa holds an MBA (awarded with distinction) from INSEAD, France and a First Class honours degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University in the UK. Upon graduating she joined KPMG in London as a management consultant and then moved to California where she worked for Salick Health Care (now Aptium), a California based cancer disease management company, prior to joining Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (USA) in 1998 as a business development manager.
Lisa was President of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) a position from which she will stepped down in July 2018. She has been a Board member of the ABPI since 2012 where she has chaired a number of UK industry committees and worked closely with Government and a wide range of industry stakeholders.
Nerida Scott
Nerida Scott is the Regional Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, EMEA, located at the Innovation Centre in London. Nerida oversees the EMEA portfolio of co-investments and collaborations to construct, prioritise and advance the early external innovation portfolio of J&J, which includes pharmaceuticals, medtech and consumer health, exploring new models to support external R&D collaboration and grow early-stage innovation networks.
Nerida has been an integral part of the J&J Innovation team since 2015, and before that, she was in the UK Biotech sector for 15 years as Director for Business Development & Licensing and Executive Team member at Vernalis PLC and at RiboTargets. Previously she was in the UK Healthcare team at the Boston Consulting Group.
Nerida brings 25 years of diverse business and transaction experience to the BIA board. She represents innovation on the UK government’s Life Sciences Council particularly focusing on: strengthening the UK clinical trials infrastructure; the generation of and access to high quality data within the NHS for research; the need for functional genomics capability; and advocating strongly that the UK needs to not only value the life sciences sector for inward investment, but needs to develop and deploy the sector’s innovation across the NHS to generate improvements in the nation’s health, wellbeing and productivity.
Professional Achievements & Organizations
• Member of the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council as the Industry Innovation Lead
• Board member of the UK BioIndustry Association
• Member of the Johnson & Johnson UK Leadership Council
• Board member of Johnson & Johnson Innovation Ltd.
Education
• Biochemistry B.Sc (Hons), University of Sydney, Australia
• PhD in Biochemistry as the Prince of Wales’ scholar, Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK
Olivia Cavlan
Olivia Cavlan is a founding team member and Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer at Alchemab Therapeutics. Prior to Alchemab Olivia was an Investment Principal at SV Health Investors and a Partner with McKinsey & Company where she was part of the leadership team in the Healthcare Private Equity and Pharmaceutical practices. Alongside her role as a Non-Executive Director for the UK BioIndustry Association, Olivia is a member of the Investment Committee for Cancer Research UK’s (CRUK) Seed fund. She also co-founded and sits on the Board of Directors of Sevenless Therapeutics, a small molecule pain company. Olivia is a medic originally, holding an MBChB in Medicine and a BSc in Pharmacology from Bristol University.
Ros Deegan
As CEO of OMass Therapeutics, private biotechnology company applying native mass spectrometry to discover novel small molecule medicines, I am passionate about the potential of the life sciences sector in the UK to contribute positively to the UK economy and to change the lives of patients through innovation.
I have over 20 years of experience in biotech, pharma and consulting in Europe and the US. I am a strong generalist with senior-level experience in strategy, finance, operations and project leadership at early-stage companies, and a successful track record in business development and financing, including supporting the transition from private to public. At OMass I have led its strategic development into a therapeutics company, raising >£110m. I joined OMass from Bicycle Therapeutics where I served as President, Chief Business Officer and a Director of the US subsidiary of the Company. I established the company’s Boston-based subsidiary and over a three-year period led three major transactions. Prior to that I served as Senior Vice President, Business Development and Operations at Trevena, Inc. During my tenure at Bicycle and Trevena, the companies moved four programmes into the clinic, and raised over $300 million in private and public financings. I have an MBA with distinction (INSEAD) and a first-class degree in Natural Sciences (Cambridge). In addition to my role at OMass, I support emerging business leaders through mentoring and previously served on the advisory group for Harwell Science Park and the 2024 Prime Minister’s Business Council.
Shaun Grady
I have had the privilege to work in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector for my entire career spanning over 30 years with AstraZeneca in the UK and also for a short period in the US. In leading AstraZeneca’s global business development function in various guises over the last twenty years, I have had the opportunity to develop a strong understanding of the healthcare system and life – science sector in the UK and globally.
As a Business Development leader I have led the development and execution of buy-side and sell -side BD strategies for AZ through multiple business cycles particularly delivering the Return to Growth strategy led by Pascal Soriot over the last decade, and now leading the Business Development contribution to AstraZeneca’s bold ambition for 2030.
My responsibilities in AZ have enabled me to work closely and collaboratively across the life-science value chain with Academia, entrepreneurs and start – ups, Angel Investors, VC, PE as well as with Biotechs, peer Pharma, Diagnostic, Data and Digital companies and organisations. This has enabled me to develop a good understanding of the dynamics of our sector and the interdependencies, opportunities and challenges and the reliance we must place on each other.
My role (and high performing team and colleagues) has allowed me to develop a strong and deep network and profile in the UK (particularly in Cambridge and the North West) but also across Pharma and Biotech globally. As part of that network, I am an Honorary Fellow on the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and Lucy Cavendish College Cambridge and sit on the Board of Directors of Healx an AI enabled rare disease early stage company, and Prostate Cancer Research Charity. I am the Chairman of the Board of Cambridge United Football Club and on the Board at the Cambridge Arts Theatre whose links to bioindustries is a little more nuanced.
Sunil Shah
Sunil has now served on the Board of the BIA for more than 2 years, and worked with other board colleagues to support the Executive team navigate the challenges of COVID and served to strengthen the biotechnology ecosystem. Sunil is a serial entrepreneur having begun his career in the Life Sciences team at PA Consulting group followed by co-founding Oxygen Healthcare Ltd which was fully acquired by Piramal Enterprises Ltd (BSE: PEL) in 2013. Since this time, Sunil has co-founded the o2h Group and is CEO of o2h Ventures which are building an ecosystem to support early-stage Biotech Therapeutic companies.
Sunil is highly passionate about building and investing into early stage biotechnology. For more than two decades, he has been focused on building the o2h biotech ecosystem to support fledgling biotech innovations through investing, mentoring and providing discovery support to pre-seed and seed stage biotech companies.
Sunil absolutely loves connecting people and supporting the biotech ecosystem, during lockdown when we were not allowed to meet each other in person Sunil led a series called o2h ChaiTimes in which he assembled a panel of experts (globally) to discuss various topics of interest to other Biotechies on an online platform, this was for free for anyone to join. Post the lockdown when we were able to meet each other again, he has been hosting biotech bikers events from o2h’s new site in Cambridge for Biotechies to get some exercise and talk science.
Sunil has won the UKBAA Angel Investor of the year award in 2019 as well as the OBN Special Recognition Award for his significant contribution in the Life Sciences Industry. Most recently, Sunil won the CEO of the Year award at Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards.
o2h Group includes o2h Ventures, an HMRC approved Knowledge Intensive EIS fund that provides pre-seed and seed funding to Biotech Therapeutics & AI, the fund has now invested into 28 British biotech companies.
Associate Members
Dr Peter Finan
Pete has more than 25 years of experience in both drug discovery across the pharmaceutical industry and in building early-stage therapeutics companies. Prior to joining Epidarex, Pete was Global Head of the Respiratory Disease Area and Site Head for the Novartis Institute of BioMedical Research in the UK. In this role, he had strategic and operational oversight for the respiratory portfolio from target discovery through to proof-of-concept trials in the clinic.
Pete is a former Executive Director of the Novartis Developmental and Molecular Pathways Platform based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In this capacity, he led target discovery, validation and early drug discovery programs across a wide range of therapeutic areas including oncology, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, autoimmunity and inflammation. The approaches used have been extensively published in Nature and Cell.
Pete’s experience from senior transatlantic industry roles to dealing with the day-to-day complexities of building venture-backed start-ups, ensures he is well qualified to join the BIA’s Board. He has an extensive global network of Pharma and Biotech contacts. Pete’s background in successfully funding innovative therapeutics start-ups is particularly relevant to the BIA’s goal of further establishing our industry as a global hub of drug discovery and development.
Clare Terlouw
Clare Terlouw is Head of LifeArc Ventures, responsible for LifeArc’s investments across the life science sector.
She is the head of the investment team and a member of the Early Ventures Investment Committee. Clare oversees the Early Ventures strategy at LifeArc, which is a seed to Series A investment strategy, with the ability to further fund select companies into later rounds of funding. LifeArc’s investment strategy is to seek to generate positive impact on patients and financial returns by investing in early translational sciences and technologies in areas of high unmet patient need.
Clare was previously at Syncona Investment Management Ltd, a FTSE250 healthcare investment trust, where she was Head of Corporate Development. Syncona founds and builds life sciences companies to deliver transformational treatments to patients. She has 15 years of biotech and healthcare financing experience as an investment banker in the City of London, previously a Managing Director at Numis Securities, with significant expertise in growth funding for innovative life sciences companies in the private and public markets.
Clare is also a board member of the BioIndustry Association, a non-executive director of Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, and an investor director on a number of private venture backed companies.
Melanie Toyne-Sewell
Melanie is on the Board and on the Executive Committee for the BIA. Outside of the BIA, she heads up the healthcare & life sciences team at Instinctif Partners. She has c.25 years of experience advising healthcare, pharma and biotech companies on financial, corporate and crisis communications. She has extensive experience of capital market transactions and corporate issues, supporting successful financings both privately and on public markets as well as advising sector companies through periods of growth and change. She is also on the Strategic Counsel of the charity, the Staff College – Leadership in healthcare. Prior to joining Instinctif Partners, she built and established the healthcare & life sciences practice at the Hogarth Partnership. She was a partner in the Financial Dynamics (now FTI) Life Sciences team and a Director at Merlin Financial PR. Before entering business communications, she was at Price Waterhouse where she qualified as a chartered accountant. Melanie has a BA in Biochemistry from Oxford University.
Robert Tansley
I am a partner at the venture capital fund Cambridge Innovation Capital. We invest in early-stage businesses that have the ambition to become category leading global businesses with a focus on life sciences and deep tech. In the last ten years we have invested in 44 businesses, the majority of which have their origins within UK academic research with a particular focus on the Cambridge (UK) ecosystem. During this time I have led CIC’s investments in a wide range of start-up and early stage companies including CMR Surgical (grown to have the second highest installed base of multi-port surgical robots in >30 countries), Inivata (sold to NeoGenomics for $440 million), Microbiotica, Carrick Therapeutics, PetMedix, Morphogen-IX (sold to Centessa), Gyroscope Therapeutics (sold to Novartis for up to $1.5 billion), PetMedix (sold to Zoetis), Pretzel Therapeutics, T-Therapeutics and Sortera.bio. I had previously spent 20 years in drug development and commercialisation in both large pharma (Sanofi, Roche), the regulatory authorities (MHRA) and biotech including CMO at Arakis, CEO/Founder of Treague, founding CEO at the University spin-out Avilex Pharma and being part of the founding management team at KalVista (Nasdaq: KALV). Prior to joining industry I spent seven years as a hospital doctor in the UK and Australia training as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. I am passionate about translating UK cutting edge medical science into sector-leading commercial companies that can bring substantial societal benefits at scale and have a significant global impact on human health.
Ex-Officio
Steve Bates OBE
What does your role at BIA involve?
Steve Bates is the CEO of the UK Bioindustry Association, the UK’s Trade Association for innovative life science companies with over 550 members. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. He serves on the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council and the UK Biosecurity Leadership Council. Steve was a founder member of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce in the Covid crisis, sitting on its steering Board alongside Kate Bingham. He is active member and former chair the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a board member of EuropaBio since 2015.
Previous experience & achievements
Steve has championed, with government, effective industrial incentives like the Biomedical Catalyst, which have crowded in private sector investment into UK SMEs. He is a driving force behind the scale up agenda, spearheading policy agenda to unlock UK pension fund capital into productive UK growth in life sciences. He has forged several links for the sector across the USA, Europe and in China. In his time at the BIA, Steve has developed new member groups focused on cell and gene therapy, genomics and engineered biology. A strong advocate of partnership working, Steve champions sector collaboration with research charities and academia. Proud to lead an organisation with a diverse Board with over 40% female representation, Steve is committed to next generation talent and developing the skills needed for the sector to flourish. Before joining the BIA in 2012, Steve worked for Genzyme and was advisor to the UK Government of Tony Blair working on NHS reform and the Northern Ireland peace process. He was made OBE for services to innovation in 2017 and became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science in 2020.
Company Secretary
Nick Gardiner
What does your role at BIA involve?
Nick is responsible for overseeing the BIA’s operations, ensuring that all activities are professionally delivered to the highest standard and providing an organisation-wide operational perspective to and support for, activities and projects. He has specific responsibility for office management/facilities; financial systems/processes and credit control; the people, skills and talent workstream; company secretariat; human resources and IT/telecoms.
Previous experience & achievements
Nick has extensive industry and not-for-profit management experience. Prior to this role, he ran the Clinical Laboratory Division of Lab21. This involved providing specialist laboratory services to the healthcare, pharmaceutical and clinical trials markets. In that role, Nick had management responsibility for all operations, income, laboratory and customer services and client liaison across the Group. He also has specific and extensive experience of diagnostic testing within the HIV and HCV disease areas. This was gained through building Delphic Diagnostics into a one-stop shop for clinicians, enabling more effective patient monitoring and subsequent treatment options. Nick also has broad management experience within the not-for-profit and charity sector, working for a trade body representing and building the profile of the business communication industry and prior to that working for the world’s oldest active society devoted to natural history.
If you could invite any scientist or entrepreneur to dinner, who would it be?
Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator, independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection. He travelled the world and I would imagine had some excellent stories to tell.