Renny Leach

DIRECTOR

Dr Leach was until recently interim CEO of the Eastern Academic Health Sciences Network (AHSN) based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. Prior to that he founded the South West AHSN across Devon Somerset and Cornwall working in partnership with the academic, NHS, commercial and voluntary sectors. The AHSN network was established in England with government funding to identify and adopt innovation that will impact on health and wealth opportunities. Renny has been senior independent director of one of the top performing NHS Foundation Trusts in England, a member of the clinical research panel for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework and is also chairman of Lord Snowdon’s Award Scheme for disabled students. He was previously CEO of a venture capital backed Clinical Research Organisation and Director of Clinical Research at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust. Renny has a DPhil. in peptide and hormone biochemistry and represents one of Isogenica’s major shareholders.

Niclas Erikson

DIRECTOR

Niclas has been in the investment business since 1992, through Vasastaden Holding AB and Kungsstaden Fastighet AB and positions at the broker firm Consensus as well as the financial services company Capinova. He is a former board member of listed entities Clavister Holding AB, Eolus Vind AB (2013 – 2016), Agrokultura AB, Net Entertainment AB (2008-2012) and Auriant Mining (2011-2012). He holds a MSc in Economics from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and represents one of Isogenica’s major shareholders.

Björn Cochlovius

CHAIRMAN

Bjӧrn Cochlovius joined Isogenica as chairman in December 2019. He most recently served as Senior Director of Development (Strategy) at Abbvie and brings 20 years of biopharmaceutical discovery, clinical development and commercial experience to the Board.  Dr Cochlovius previously held positions in research and development, business development and mergers and acquisitions at companies including Affitech AS, Roche and Otsuka.  Dr Cochlovius started his career developing diabodies and tandem diabodies: fully human recombinant bispecific antibodies. He became the youngest department head at the German Cancer Research Centre (dkfz), after a PhD in immunology and oncology obtained at the Universität des Saarlandes.

David Mead, PhD

DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

David has more than twenty years’ in Life Sciences developing complex bioprocesses and products and held a number of senior positions in R&D, GMP manufacturing, intellectual property and licensing. His experience includes both in and out licensing of technologies, products and services and has driven numerous licenses and collaboration deals. Dave has worked in several small Biotech and large Pharma companies.

David is also a Board member of MediLink; a Life Science industry association whose aim is to help companies establish, develop and grow. He also sits on the Advisory Board of BioPartner UK, an organisation that promotes international partnering for trade, investment and collaborations with UK life science companies.

David was previously Business Development Director at Albumedix where he was instrumental in signing significant royalty-bearing drug and vaccine development deals based on the company’s albumin-based formulation and half-life extension technologies. He is passionate about commercialising science and strategic partnerships with the goal of improving the quality of patient treatments.

Edward Walker, PhD

DIRECTOR OF ANTIBODY TECHNOLOGIES

Ed joined Isogenica in 2016 following a decade in biopharma at CAT/MedImmune and latterly at Bicycle Therapeutics, where as Head of Biology, he industrialised the selection of bicyclic peptides and discovered Bicycle’s lead compound (BT1718), which entered clinical trials in 2018.

Ed holds a BSc in Biochemistry (University of Bristol), a PhD (University of Cambridge) and completed postdoctoral training at the LMB in Cambridge.

Bill Eldridge, PhD

DIRECTOR OF ANTIBODY ALLIANCES

Bill has extensive experience in the biotechnology and pharma industry. He has over twenty years’ experience in antibody, scaffold protein and peptide discovery and development. Bill started his career with a post-doc at Pfizer and moving on to be an early member at Cambridge Antibody Technology (now Astra Zeneca) where he was a senior scientist in their antibody discovery arm. Having spent four years at CAT, he joined Isogenica where he co-invented and developed the company’s CIS Display Technology. He then went on to build and lead the Alliances team at Isogenica. Most recently he was CSO at Cyclogenix, a biotech company developing Cysteine knot micro-proteins (Cyclotides) for Oncology, Blood Brain Barrier and Oral Delivery of biotherapeutics.

Edward McGowan, PhD

DIRECTOR OF ANTIBODY DISCOVERY & DEVELOPMENT

Ed is a biomedical scientist with broad experience of translational biology, basic immunology and antibody and vaccine discovery, design and development. Within Ablynx Ed was heavily involved in their very successful Nanobody discovery program before moving on to Ossianix, where he led the development of the VNAR platform from first principles.

Whilst working with IAVI Ed designed a vaccine aimed at inducing cell mediated protection against HIV, developing a novel platform for T-cell epitope design in the process and also engineered IgG based antibodies for use within the program. Ed also spent time in Covance where he designed and led safety programs to transition biological entities into the clinic for partner organisations. Ed’s experience of leadership positions in both academic and industrial laboratories provides a deep technical expertise as well as strong commercial awareness.

Emma Sceats MS, DPhil

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Emma joined Isogenica as Chief Executive Officer in September 2018. She is passionate about technologies that can accelerate drug discovery and development, and experienced in leading highly innovative, scientific companies from start-up through multiple product launches, to rapidly growing sustainable businesses. Before joining Isogenica, Dr Sceats, was CEO of CN Bio Innovations, which she grew from a Oxford University spin-out to a recognised leader in human Organ-on-Chip technologies.

Dr Sceats was instrumental in the development and execution of CN Bio’s vision, resulting in strong revenue growth, rapid development of two innovative new products, and a pioneering partnership with the Food and Drug Administration to characterise the use of Organs-on-Chips in drug development and regulatory evaluation. Earlier in her career Emma was a technology manager at Oxford University Innovation, responsible for patenting, marketing and licensing technologies developed at the university and building spin-out companies to exploit IP.

Emma was a Presidential scholar in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a graduate scholar at the University of Oxford (DPhil, Chemistry).