Ken Cunningham has over 25 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently also Chairman of Abzena plc, and a Non-Executive Director at Verona Pharma plc. Previously he was Chief Executive Officer of Skyepharma plc and before that Chief Executive Officer of Arakis Ltd, Vice-President European Affairs at Alza Corporation and Vice-President Clinical Development at Sequus Inc. Earlier in his career he held a variety of clinical development and commercial strategy roles at GlaxoWellcome plc and WarnerLambert. He holds a Medical Degree from St Mary's, Imperial College, London University.
Mark Payton is CEO of Mercia Technologies PLC, having led the flotation in December 2014 and before that the management buyout of its precursor Mercia Fund Management in 2010. Latterly he led the acquisition in 2016 of Enterprise Ventures. Mark chairs the executive committee and the boards of Mercia’s wholly owned fund management businesses (Mercia Fund Management, Enterprise Ventures and EV Business Loans). Mark also sits on the board of portfolio company Oxford Genetics and has portfolio responsibility for PsiOxus Therapeutics.
Prior to Mercia, Mark was at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, and then afterwards played leading roles within Oxford University Innovation (OUI, formerly Isis Innovation, the technology transfer operation of the University of Oxford), facilitating the spin out of BioAnalab, Oxford Immunotec, Oxitec and Natural Motion. Three of these companies were sold and one other was listed on NASDAQ. After OUI Mark was vice president corporate development at Oxxon Therapeutics Inc prior to its sale to Oxford BioMedica plc. Mark gained his PhD jointly between the University of Oxford (Worcester College) and the University of London (King’s College). He also has an MBA from the University of Warwick, has IMC parts I and II, is a Royal Academy of Engineering Sainsbury’s Management Fellow (Life Sciences) and is FCA accredited.
Quentin Compton-Bishop is the CEO of Warwick Venture, which commercialises innovations produced at the University of Warwick. He also manages the University’s spinout equity portfolio and is the lead sponsor of the Warwick Enterprise Partnership which supports and promotes enterprise amongst students, staff and the wider university community. He has been a member of Medherant’s board since the foundation of the Company.
Quentin has been involved in the development and commercialisation of technology for more than 23 years. He was co-founder and CEO of a number of technology start-ups, including P2i and RolaTube Technology, and his earlier career included business development roles in California and the UK.
He is a director or board observer of several Warwick spinout companies, UPS Pension Trustee Ltd, an advisory committee member of Mercia Fund Management and of the National Energy Foundation and Chairman of the Levantine Heritage Foundation.
Nigel Theobald has 20 years’ experience in the fields of healthcare and pharmaceuticals and has been involved with Medherant since 2015. He has a track record in taking intellectual property and developing it into commercially viable opportunities. Nigel is former CEO of Oxford Pharmascience Group plc, which he grew from nothing to an AIM-listed company with a £40m capitalisation in 5 years. He is currently the CEO of N4 Pharma, a specialty drug reformulation company that he found in 2014 and which was admitted to AIM in May 2017.
Nigel Davis has been commercialising new technologies in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry for more than 25 years, and has extensive experience in biotech management and business development. His previous positions include senior roles at Glaxo, Innovir, ISIS Innovation and PharmaVentures, and as a Non-Executive Director at Ploughshare Innovations. He has focused on helping start-ups and young companies develop their strategy for growth. He has a degree and PhD in Biochemistry from Cambridge and an MBA from London Business School.
David Haddleton is a Professor of Chemistry at Warwick University and is the Founder of Medherant. His research focuses on polymers for healthcare and therapeutics, and controlled free radical polymerisation. He has published about 450 papers and is an inventor on about 20 US and European patents. He has also been awarded the Chemistry World, "Entrepreneur of the Year" prize, and the Lord Stafford award for Best Spin Out Company (2005). He was the Founder of Warwick Effect Polymers Ltd which is now part of Abzena plc.
Sally Waterman joined Medherant in 2017 from Abzena plc where she was Senior Vice President Corporate Development. She initially joined its predecessor, PolyTherics Ltd, as COO, prior to its admission to AIM. She has over 30 years strategic and operational experience, including leading R&D and extensive involvement in M&A, and has worked for large pharma, small biotech/biopharma and contract service companies. Sally is also Chair of OBN Ltd.
James Robson has 27 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries holding CFO roles with a significant commercial and operational element. He has worked for Shionogi, Reckitt Benckiser and Boots Healthcare International, both in the UK and overseas. Alongside Medherant he supports other innovative start-ups and growth companies in the pharmaceutical, healthcare and medtech sectors to develop, fund and execute their financial business plans. He is a Chartered Management Accountant and holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham.
Andrew has been involved in Medherant since it was spun out of the University of Warwick as he was the University’s representative on the Board. He joined the Company in 2016 as Operations Director. He became Director of Commercial Development in 2017. He is an inventor and entrepreneur with extensive experience in technology transfer, licensing, fund-raising and spinout management with a focus on developing new technologies and taking them to market.
Lucy Brindle joined Medherant permanently in December 2018 after working with the company as a freelance clinical researcher. She has over 15 years’ of clinical research experience gained in Europe and North America working for pharma, CROs and academia. Lucy has worked in all phases of clinical development across a wide range of therapeutic areas and technologies.
Gabit Nurumbetov joined Medherant in 2015 after gaining extensive experience in polymer chemistry research during his PhD and post-doctoral training at the University of Warwick, contributing to over 18 publications. Gabit oversees the research underlying the development of Medherant’s novel transdermal delivery technologies and formulates TEPI Patch® products for the Company and its collaborators.
James is a trained project manager with experience of formulation development. He joined Medherant in August 2017 from Syngenta where he was a Formulation Technical Expert. He led multiple research collaborations whilst at Syngenta and was responsible for leading a team that developed a novel coating technology that is now being commercialised. James obtained a MChem and PhD from the University of Warwick working in the area of star polymers.