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.

Andy is the Site Manager at Macclesfield which is AstraZeneca’s second biggest manufacturing site and supplies Tablets, Sterile Devices and Parenteral and Tablet packs to around 130 markets globally. Andy is a Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers and has worked for ICI, Zeneca and AstraZeneca since 1987. Andy has worked across Supply Chain Management, Major Capital and IS projects, Engineering and Manufacturing Management during his career and is currently chairman of the Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnership.

Steve Bates has been the CEO of the UK Bioindustry Association since 2012. He currently chairs the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a Board member of Europabio since 2015. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. He sits on the UK’s Life Sciences Council and Life Sciences Industrial Strategy Implementation Board. Steve has championed with government effective industrial incentives like the Biomedical Cataylst which have crowded-in private sector investment into UK SMES. He has forged links for the sector across the USA, Europe and in China. In his time at the BIA Steve has developed new member groups focused on cell and gene therapy, genomics and engineered biology. A strong advocate of partnership working, Steve champions sector collaboration with research charities and academia. Proud to lead an organisation with a diverse Board with over 40% female representation, Steve is committed to next generation talent and developing the skills needed for the sector to flourish. Before the BIA, Steve worked for Genzyme and as an advisor to the UK Government of Tony Blair. He was made OBE for services to innovation in 2017.

Sharon Grimster has been an active member of the UK bioprocessing community for more than 30 years, and she feels fortunate that her career spans an amazing period in biopharmaceutical development from working in manufacturing at Celltech in the early days of large scale GMP bioprocessing, up to her current role working with ATMPs at ReNeuron. Sharon was the chair of the BIA MAC from 2003 to 2006, and worked with the BIA to implement the recommendations of the BIGT report which resulted in the formation of BioProcess UK, for which she was the first chair of the steering committee.

Prior to working at ReNeuron, Sharon held senior team roles at Celltech, Antisoma and F-star, and during her career has had responsibility for a range of development functions, including project management, CMC, , medical devices, business operations, regulatory affairs and quality.

Sharon qualified as a coach at the Henley Business School, and she is also a current member of a number of industry steering groups and committees including MMIP, MAC and ATCC industry advisory group.