Andrew Woodland is a highly experienced scientist and manager, with over 20 years of drug discovery leadership experience working in biotech and similar organisations [BioFocus, Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit (DDU), Tay Therapeutics]. He has contributed to three preclinical and two clinical candidates, and over ten academia–industry partnerships. As a member of the management team of the 100-person DDU in Dundee University, he led the DDU’s first world disease portfolio. He also led on the development of Tay Therapeutics technology platform and assets, and has developed a deep understanding of inflammation, oncology and rare disease drug development. He now dedicates himself to the commercialisation of his academic work and has won several enterprise prizes for his pre-company work on In4Derm, including the prestigious 2019 Converge Challenge. Since co-founding Tay Therapeutics, the Tay team has secured >£10M of investment and licence income.

Mark Bell is a medicinal chemist with 20 years experience working in biotech and academic settings. He co-founded Tay Therapeutics and led on the discovery of VYN201, a topical soft-drug pan-BET inhibitor phase 1 clinical candidate for vitiligo and VYN202, a BD2 selective oral BET inhibitor pre-clinical candidate. In addition, Mark works as a consultant for the Canadian integrated drug discovery CRO Dalriada and the University of Glasgow spin-out KelticPharma Therapeutics. While at Almac Discovery he contributed to phase 1 clinical candidates targeting Wee1 and Akt for oncology and is an inventor on 7 patents in the inflammation and oncology therapeutic areas.

Sunil Shah is an entrepreneur having begun his career in the Life Sciences team at PA Consulting. He co-founded 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, this includes o2h Ventures, an HMRC approved ‘ Human Health’ Knowledge Intensive EIS fund; o2h Discovery, a medicinal chemistry research services company and o2h Co-Work Labs, a 2.7Acre Science Park under development in South Cambridge. 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. He serves on the Board of the BIA as well as Cambridge Angels. He is either Chairman, Non-Executive Director, Board Observer or an investor in over 20 Biotech companies in the UK. Sunil has a degree in Biochemistry from Keele and an MBA from Cambridge University.

Tim Sparey is a serial entrepreneur with over 26 years of experience in large pharma and biotech companies. He is a medicinal chemist by background and spent 11 years in CNS R&D with Merck & Co working on novel targets in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, anxiety, depression and anaesthetics. He then spent three years working in Merck’s Global BD&L team sourcing and evaluating technologies in all disease areas. Since leaving Merck & Co in 2008, he has held board level, chair and C-suite CEO and CBO positions. In these roles he built companies, developed programmes and transacted in multiple disease areas including CNS, inflammation, technology platforms, ophthalmology and cancer in deals totalling over $6bn in value. His biotech experience is in private and public companies including Proximagen (CBO), Q Chip (CEO), Midatech (CBO) and Novintum Bioscience (CEO). In addition, he undertakes board and advisory activities with Cumulus Oncology and ConcR (Non-executive Chair), providing strategy, corporate development, fundraising and business development support. He is also currently Managing Director of VaxEquity, an Imperial College spinout, which recently completed a Series A with Morningside and AstraZeneca in the saRNA vaccine and protein therapeutics areas.