Speakers
Aline Charpentier
Will Kay
Parker Moss
Alessandro Riccombeni
Panel session
There are broadly two different approaches to developing thriving life science AI companies – spinning out from larger organisations, or launching as a new start-up. This session will compare the pros and cons of both approaches, and see if there’s common lessons to be learned for building a successful company. We’ll also dig into what both approaches can teach from a culture and operational perspective.
Aline is the Head of Innovation for Bruntwood SciTech Melbourn Science Park, working on establishing it as a thriving ecosystem for TechBio companies. Aline’s experience covers a wide range of support to entrepreneurs in life sciences, having developed Bioentrepreneurs bootcamps across Europe, established the One Nucleus Virtual Innovation Centre for growing companies and now advising an early stage therapeutics fund, BioTranscript. Prior to joining the Cambridge ecosystem, she worked on technology transfer programmes for the scientific services of the French Embassy in the USA (Boston) and technology scouting at the CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique). She holds a MSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Toulouse and MBA from Grenoble School of Management.
Dr. Alessandro Riccombeni is the CEO and founder of Axia Medicine, a patient-centric Personalised Healthcare company. Alessandro has more than 16 years of international experience in business strategy, product development and research. Before creating Axia Medicine, Alessandro led the Precision Medicine investment strategy, sales pipeline and enablement programmes for both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, including the creation of AWS' international Precision Medicine segment and Microsoft's only win in Population Genomics.
Alessandro led the creation of bioinformatics platforms and services for gene editing and multimodal data, including the creation of Big Tech's first original cloud service for Precision Medicine. At DNAnexus, Alessandro led the development of the EMEA market for Pharma and Diagnostics, as part of Andrew Carroll's team.
Alessandro is an advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, with an interest in social mobility and the creation of industry opportunities for young talent from disadvantaged backgrounds. He started his career in research, leading projects in Oncology and Infection Biology. Dr. Riccombeni holds a Ph. D. in Bioinformatics from University College Dublin and an MBA from London Business School.
I'm a techbio entrepreneur and AI expert with almost two decades of experience in machine learning that I have been translating to innovations in the life sciences sector. During my tenure as founder and CEO of Glamorous AI, I led the development and commercialization of advanced machine learning for drug discovery that have a significant impact on the productivity of the sector. As a CEO, I led the acquisition of the company by X-Chem Inc., A US-based company specialising in DNA Encoded Library technology. I joined the X-Chem team as the SVP and General Manager of the London site to build and lead the company's AI efforts. I was responsible for everything AI-related from product to commercialisation. In 2023, I founded SpatialX, a company on a mission to cure cancer through this decade's most powerful tool, AI, let's hope we succeed :).
I have the honour of being globally recognised as an industry thought leader. I actively speak about AI and its immense power in healthcare and life sciences. I gave talks at events organised by MIT, Fortune, BBC and WIRED. I'm the winner of MIT Innovator Under 35, in the 2019 BBC list of 100 women, and among the 100 Asian Women in tech for 2023. I also serve on the Board of Directors of a number of companies and advise the government and academic organisations on issues related to AI, entrepreneurship as well as Diversity and Inclusion.
Prior to starting my entrepreneurial journey, I was an Assistant Professor at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, where I made a significant contribution to the field of procedural content generation, affective computing and computer games. My work led to international recognition as a technology leader, co-authoring the main book on Procedural Content Generation in Games, currently taught by universities internationally, publishing over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and having numerous patents. I served as the Chair of the IEEE Games Committee and my work has won numerous best paper awards. I received a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the IT University of Damascus and a Ph.D. in AI from IT University of Copenhagen.