Since being appointed as the first Chief Operating Officer of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in January 2013, Stephen has established the world-class industrialisation capabilities at both the Guy’s Hospital facilities in London, plus designed and built the innovative manufacturing centre in Stevenage. He brings over 20 years of biological medicine research, development, and manufacturing experience to the organisation. Stephen enjoys bringing cutting edge technologies to patients, by developing commercially viable products. Stephen is passionate about securing and growing the cell and gene therapy manufacturing and development supply chain. He is the current Chair of the BIA’s Manufacturing Advisory Committee, actively promoting and supporting UK biomanufacturing at Government as well as grass root level. His first degree was from the University of Birmingham, and his second degree from the Medical School of Southampton University.

Dr Kate Barclay is an Independent Consultant working across high impact Science and Technology industries with a passion for STEM education. As a Chartered Chemical Engineer and Fellow of the IChemE, she has spent over 20 years in the Bio-Pharmaceutical Industry as a Senior Leader in Global R&D across 3 large Pharma organisations leading technical and scientific project teams in clinical manufacture of parenteral, solid dose and inhaled dosage forms as well as developing novel device technologies.

Since 2013 Kate has been instrumental in developing apprenticeships across the Science Industry, leading the Life Sciences and Industrial Sciences Trailblazer employer group in development of new apprenticeship standards. She pioneered apprenticeship implementation across the science industry leading to the first cohort completing new standards in 2016 and has won multiple national awards for quality of apprenticeship delivery.

Kate has a passion for promoting opportunities for women in STEM, is an experienced vocational workplace assessor for apprenticeships and a Non-Executive Director of the Institute for Apprenticeships, assuring quality governance to apprenticeship and Technical Education reforms across England. Kate also volunteers as a Parent Governor and Enterprise Advisor to primary and secondary schools providing advice on career pathways and the many exciting opportunities within Science and Engineering.

Amy Mercer is a 22 year old Pharmaceutical Associate Scientist based at Pfizer (Sandwich, UK). Amy is a higher apprentice, working 4 days a week within the Drug Product Design department supporting the Material Sciences group and studying 1 day a week for a Bsc in Chemistry. Over the last four years Amy has spent time on early and later stage development of the drug product through work in active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) solid form screening, investigating the physical stability of the API in drug product and recently transitioning to the material characterisation team to provide support to solid formulation.
An enthusiastic and active advocate of STEM, Amy engages whenever possible with younger generations to share and promote her passion for science. As a firm believer in equal opportunities and a supporter of women in science Amy is keen to reach out to potential scientists of the future.

Chris is a Senior Manager within Process Sciences at Allergan Biologics (Liverpool, UK) with over 8 years of experience within the industry. In this role he leads teams to develop upstream processes for the manufacture of Biological APIs for Mammalian, Microbial and more recently Gene Therapy products. Prior to his current role, he has held positions as Cell, Strain and Fermentation Development Scientist, as well as Senior Process Development Scientist. Throughout his career, he has worked on the scale-up, optimisation, process characterisation/validation and technical transfer of upstream processes, whilst also evaluating new and emerging technologies. Chris holds BSc Biochemistry and Biological Chemistry from the University of Nottingham and MSc Industrial Biotechnology from Liverpool John Moores University.

Nick is responsible for overseeing the BIA’s operations, ensuring that all activities are professionally delivered to the highest standard. He will be 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, company secretariat, human resources and IT/telecoms. Nick joined the BIA in October 2014, bringing with him 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. He had management responsibility for all operations, income, laboratory and customer services and client liaison across the Group. He also has specific 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 extensive management experience within the not-for-profit sector, working for a trade body representing and building the profile of the business communication industry.

Employed by GE Healthcare since 2001, Elles Steensma is the Global Product Manager for Security of Supply for chromatography resins. Her prior roles at the company include Protein Scientist in R&D and Quality Control Manager within Global Supply Chain. At Wageningen University, The Netherlands, Elles earned a BSc and MSc in molecular sciences as well as a PhD in biochemistry. She joined GE Healthcare after several years as a postdoctoral researcher at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Ray Field is Director BioPharmaceutical Development for MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca. He is also CMC Team Leader for several clinical stage biologics projects across different therapeutic areas and leads multiple academic-industrial collaborations. He has held a number of roles since joining MedImmune (formerly Cambridge Antibody Technology, CAT) in 1994, including leading the company’s upstream and cell sciences group which has developed successful upstream processes for clinical stage biologics, including Durvalumab/Imfinzi.

Prior to joining CAT, Ray was Head of Laboratory for the biotechnology section of Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (now AstraZeneca), and before that a team leader in the process development group at Celltech Biologics (now Lonza).

Ray graduated with an honours degree in Biochemistry from the University of Warwick, and gained a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Glasgow. Ray is an author on numerous publications on upstream processing and bioprocessing and an inventor on several patents. He also has held roles on the management committees of both BRIC and BioProNET-1/2.

In his current position within Pall Biotech, Peter Levison is responsible for developing strategic partnerships within the Biotech community through the management of a global Key Opinion Leader network. Working with key industrialists and academics around the world, Peter is actively looking for solutions to tomorrow’s challenges today. Previously he has held a global product management leadership role for the continuous processing portfolio of products and process chromatography columns and systems. He joined Pall in July 2003 and has over 25 years experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, holding positions of increasing responsibility in research and development, technical management, and product management.

Dr. Levison holds a BSc (Hons) Class I in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester, Manchester, UK and a PhD gained in the Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Manchester. He has an MBA awarded through the Open University Business School, Milton Keynes, UK. He is a member of various professional bodies and has the status of C.Chem, FRSC (Chartered Chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK) and C.Biol, FRSB (Chartered Biologist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in the UK).

Jim has over 20 years’ experience working in the biotech and biopharmaceutical sector. He has held senior management positions at Cantab biopharmaceuticals (CEO), Xenova Biomanufacturing (Director of Operations) and Xenova Research Ltd (Leader, Upstream Process Development and Technical Business Development). Jim originally joined Cantab Pharmaceuticals, before its acquisition by Xenova, as a senior scientist in Upstream Process development and GMP Manufacturing in 1997. He has an extensive technical background in bioprocess development and GMP manufacturing, having worked on a diverse range of bioproducts from enzymes and recombinant proteins to live vaccines and conjugates. Jim’s experience ranges from products in early-stage research to those in Phase 3 clinical development. Jim has a PhD in microbial physiology and biochemistry from the University of Leicester and has published a number of papers on microbial enzymes, upstream and downstream process development.

Cobra Biologics: International the global biopharmaceutical industry.
3 facilities, 2 in Sweden and 1 in the UK, 245 employees
Orders £40m in 2017, 85% exported >50 customers
Queens Award for International Trade 2018
Bionow Company of the Year 2017
£15m Advanced Therapy Expansion Plan 2017-2019
£3m government grant awarded in 2017

Prior to his appointment as CEO in 2011, Peter was also the Cobra CFO from its IPO in 2002, through to its acquisition and subsequent separation from Recipharm. Before Cobra he was employed in a number of senior financial and corporate development roles. Peter was awarded an MBA with distinction jointly from the Manchester Business School and the University of Wales.

He is also currently the CFO of Prokarium Limited which is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing vaccination and cancer immunotherapy solutions using synthetic biology. The company recently completed a successful $10m fund raising in Jan 2018.