Advisory Board Members

The Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association is Chaired by John Brown.

Dr John Brown CBE FRSE

Chairman, CXR Biosciences

John has extensive international experience in the life sciences sector. He is Chairman of CXR Biosciences Ltd, and a non-executive Director of Vectura Group plc. He is also an advisor to several private equity and venture capital funds, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

In the public sector John chairs the Roslin Foundation, the Scottish Government's Life Sciences Industry Advisory Board, and the UK Cell Therapy Catapult. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor of the University of Edinburgh.

Hugh Griffith

CEO, ALIDA CAPITAL INTERNATIONAL

Hugh has 20 years experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, having held CEO, COO and Executive Director positions. He is CEO and gatekeeper of Alida Capital International, a specialist biopharmaceutical business angel syndicate, which he formed in 2009. He is actively involved in several emerging biopharmaceutical companies, and is co-founder and CEO of NuCana BioMed, an oncology focused biopharmaceutical company.

As former COO of Bioenvision, Hugh led the company’s operations from start-up to a global, fully integrated, NASDAQ listed biopharmaceutical company. He was instrumental in increasing Bioenvision’s market capitalization from $22 million to $345 million in 5 years, culminating in the company’s successful acquisition. Hugh was responsible for the strategic direction and implementation of the company’s core programmes, including fund raising; non-clinical and clinical development; manufacturing; regulatory; medical; PV; commercial build-out and product launches.

Hugh has wide pharmaceutical experience having held numerous positions in Abbott Laboratories and Parke-Davis Warner Lambert. He has an active global network of business angels, researchers, regulators, analysts, and institutional investors. Hugh currently serves on the Angel Leaders Forum; the Saltire Foundation; and the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Alan Walker

CEO, Ectopharma

Alan Walker joined the pharmaceutical industry over 40 years ago as a sales executive with Welcome. He transferred to Warner Lambert’s pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis where he worked for 28 years in a number of senior positions including President UK / Scandinavia and President Italy / Greece. He managed UK launches of Neurontin and Lipitor. In 2001 he became VP Global Commercial Operations for ProStrakan and created EU and US affiliates until 2008.

Alan was Vice President of ABPI from 1997-99. He is now Chairman of BioFilm (film delivery technology), CEO of Ectopharma (oncology gene research) and CEO of Internis (a new UK pharma marketing company). He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Alan Johnston

Non-Exec Director, CXR Biosciences

Alan Johnston qualified in Biochemistry and Business Administration, and holds Fellowships and Chartered status of both the UK Society of Biology and Royal Society of Chemistry. He spent some 30 years with Inveresk Research (subsequently Charles River Laboratories) in various roles, culminating in Commercial Director, through periods of Management Buyout, USA NASDAQ IPO and subsequent mergers. As Commercial Director of a company employing some 1000 staff locally, he was responsible for attracting international research business from Northern Europe, USA and Japan to Scotland.

Alan is currently Chair of the Board of Marketing Edinburgh Ltd and holds other non-executive and advisory appointments with Biosciences companies and other organisations, including the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association. He is also actively involved with "Business Angel" investments in early-stage Life Sciences companies, and is a Young Enterprise Business Adviser. Alan undertakes considerable voluntary work and is a Trustee of several Educational Charities and a significant Pension Fund, and was until 2009, Honorary Officer & Treasurer of the UK Institute of Biology. He is immediate past-President of The University of Edinburgh Graduates' Association, and is a member of the Court of that University. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

David Harrison

Prof of Pathology, University of St Andrews

David Harrison is Professor of Pathology at the University of St Andrews. He is also Director of Laboratory Medicine in NHS Lothian, responsible for genetics, haematology, biochemistry, pathology and microbiology laboratories across the region, and he is lead clinician for access to, and use of, human tissue in Lothian.

His research interests include systems biology approaches to the study of disease and biomarker identification, and he is an enthusiastic proponent of new ways of developing public-private partnerships to train the next generation of life scientists. He chairs Medical Research Scotland, an independent charity which offers funded PhD studentships to company-led consortia. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Kevin Moore OBE

Non Exec Chairman, Biopta

Kevin Moore is a graduate chemist from the University of Strathclyde with a subsequent business qualification from Glasgow Caledonian University.

Kevin has nearly 40 years experience spanning sales, marketing, business development and company formation in life science medtech and healthcare. Kevin was responsible for developing Scotlab Ltd, from a sole proprietor company to one of the most successful life science companies in Scotland. He has also been instrumental in the formation and development of numerous life science and technology companies

He has been directly involved in developing and successfully marketing over 100 new technology products and services in the last 20 years. For the last 12 years he has been involved in a number of start up and spin technology companies as Chairman or Non-Executive Director. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association,

Deborah O'Neil

CEO/CSO, Novabiotics Ltd

An immunologist by training with over a decade's experience in the field of natural antimicrobials, Deborah studied at University College London and then worked in laboratories in San Diego and Ghent before moving to Aberdeen. Novabiotics was started in order to fully develop the commercial potential of novel antimicrobial peptide therapies. Deborah is CEO/CSO at Novabiotics Ltd based in Aberdeen, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association

Jim Reid

Chairman, Sistemic

A “Global Scot” for his work in the international biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, Jim was the Winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Science and Technology for both Scotland and at the UK National finals in 2005. Jim developed his early career in blue-chip organisations in many parts of the world including Hoffman la Roche, Chiron and Organon, progressing from the research bench to business management before returning to Scotland in 1999 to join the Board of Axis Shield plc.

Since then he has utilised this experience to contribute widely to the life sciences industry in Scotland. Jim has been instrumental in the formation and development of more than 10 companies in the sector and has successfully exited from 2 of these companies including the highly acclaimed sale of Haptogen to Wyeth, one of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies. He was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Life Sciences in 2010. Jim is now expanding his work with early stage Life Science companies, picking the “winners” of the future in this key sector of the Scottish economy. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Paul McBarron

Executive VP Finance, Cyclacell Pharmaceuticals Inc

Paul has 25 years of experience in pharmaceuticals and in 2002 joined Cyclacell, a spin out company from the University of Dundee. The company is developing several oncology therapies, and has a number of programmes in clinical development. It has raised $250m to date, and is listed on the US NASDAQ stock exchange.

Prior to joining Cyclacell, Paul served as a financial executive with a number of large pharmaceutical companies, and in 1996 moved to Shire Pharmaceuticals where he was Director of Corporate Finance and Group Financial Controller. He helped guide Shire through 6 corporate acquisitions after which it was valued at $5bn. Paul is a qualified chartered accountant, a member of the Scottish Government's Life Sciences Advisory Board and sits on the Advisory Board of Scottish Enterprise Tayside. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Dave Tudor

Head of Pharma Ops, GSK

Dave's career has been spent with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Scotland and elsewhere. Since 2011, he has headed up the primary pharmaceutical operations for GSK, looking after a global network of 9 sites with an annual spend of greater than £0.5Bn and over 2,000 staff. Previously, Dave was Site Director for GSK's site at Montrose, and he has significant experience in primary manufacturing leadership, technical development, quality control and project management.

A graduate of Cambridge and Glasgow, Dave holds a PhD and an MBA and he is a member of the Scottish Government's Life Sciences Advisory Board.

Doreen Davidson

Senior Director HR, Charles River Laboratories

Doreen is responsible for the HR and Training functions for the European Preclinical Services (covering Edinburgh, Ireland and Germany) of Charles River Laboratories. She manages a team of staff responsbile for all HR policies and activities including recruitment & selection, appraisal and training, education / industry links (work placements, school and university liaison, careers events etc) and industrial relations issues.

In addition, Doreen is Secretary to the Trustees of the Inveresk Research Pension & Life Assurance Plan; a members of the Court of the University of Edinburgh, Chair of the Scottish Life Sciences Association HR Special Interest Group and a member of the People Workstream of the Scottish Government's Life Sciences Advisory Board. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association

Earlier in Doreen's career, she worked as Group Personnel Officer for Brown Boveri South Africa Pty, where she was responsible for the HR function for the company's 5 locations in the Witwatersrand area of Johannesburg. She has a BA from University of Edinburgh.

Gavin Clark

CBO, MGB Biopharma Ltd

Gavin's extensive career spanned positions in a number of major companies including Janssen, Bayer and Novartis before he became successively Global Licensing Manager for GSK, Commercial Director of Phares Technology and VP Business Development for Tibotec-Virco Group NV. In 2002 he founded Proclea Partners, with clients in the CNS, Infectious Diseases, Oncology, and Systems Biology fields.

Since 2007 he has been Non-Executive Director of Angel Biotechnology, and in 2009 he set up Marlin Bioconsulting of which he is MD. Since 2010, he has also been Chief Business Officer of MGB Biopharma, a Glasgow based angel-backed company which licensed infectious diseases technology from University of Strathclyde. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Seona Burnett

Partner, Pinsent Masons

Seona's life science practice covers all types and aspects of non-contentious intellectual property matters including in-licensing and out-licensing and commercial contracts including manufacturing agreements, research and development agreements, agency and distribution agreements, clinical trials and support agreements and services agreements. In addition Seona advises on sales promotions, advertising and sales, promotional and marketing compliance.

Seona's clients include a leading global medical devices manufacturer, Epistem Holdings Limited, BioOutsource Limited, University of Aberdeen, Clintec Limited and Encap Drug Delivery. Seona is secretary to the Licensing Executives Society (the association of IP licensing professionals) in Scotland and is also a tutor to the IP LLM course at the University of Edinburgh and lectures on intellectual property to undergraduate students at the University of Aberdeen studying its bio-business degree. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Scott Johnstone

CEO, SLA

Scott has been CEO of the Scottish Lifesciences Association since 2011. At the start of his career, he gained extensive technology transfer and R&D experience with a broad range of companies including Fisons (UK), Kevex based in California and ARL based in Switzerland. From 1998 to April 2004 he was co-founder and MD of YAbA Ltd and secured over £2.5 M of venture capital to develop and manufacture human and veterinary diagnostic products. Scott was a Technology Entrepreneur to the Scottish Enterprise proof of concept programme, and a past member of the Scottish Government's Life Sciences Advisory Board where he chaired its Technology Workstream from 2009-2011. He was also Director of BIA (Scotland) berfore moving to the SLA.

Scott holds an Honours Degree in Engineering from Edinburgh Napier University and a MBA in Business Administration from Edinburgh University. He is a scientific member of Medical Research Scotland, advisory board member of Quantics Ltd and on the industry advisory boards for Edinburgh Napier University’s school of life sciences and the SU2P programme linking Scottish and US Universities. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

John A Brown

Director of Policy, SLA

John A Brown joined what is now the Scottish Government in 1968, and in 1986 joined what is now its Business Directorate in a series of industry facing roles working with key sectors. After working on electricity privatisation, renewable energy policy and nuclear privatisation in the early 1990s, John became head of the Directorate's energy team from 1996 until 2002. At that point, he switched to leading the Tourism and Architecure Policy team, before moving again in 2009 to head up the Business Directorate's team responsible for life sciences. In all of these jobs, he worked closely with a wide range of stakeholders, including companies, Ministers and the enterprise agencies, as well as with the UK Government and Brussels.

In his job as Director of Policy for the Scottish Lifesciences Association, John is making use of that experience to strengthen the interface between Scottish life sciences companies and the public sector, making sure that the contribution of this key sector to the further growth of the Scottish economy continues to be recognised and valued. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

Michael Dalrymple

Director of Business, MRC Technology

As Director of Business Development, Mike coordinates business development strategy for MRC Technology, a technology transfer company whose largest client is the Medical Research Council (MRC).

After a career in academic research, Mike’s first job in the commercial sector was at Inveresk Research. In 1990, Mike joined PPL Therapeutics where he rose from molecular biology team leader to Head of New Product Discovery. After 8 years at PPL, through a period of rapid company growth, an IPO on the LSE and the creation of several famous sheep, Mike left to become CEO of the MRC Collaborative Centre in Edinburgh, an organisation that was subsumed into MRC Technology in 2000.

Mike has taken a number of senior roles within MRC Technology: Director of Applied Research, Director of Intellectual Property and, most recently, Director of Business Development. He was directly involved in creating the MRC’s Development Gap Fund (a proof of concept seed fund for MRC Units), the Centre for Therapeutics Discovery (MRC Technology’s early stage drug discovery facility) and leading a number of major licensing deals. Mike has also been the MRC nominee director on the boards of several companies including Domantis, Aptuscan, Anacrine and Virogen (the latter as Chairman). On a personal level he is the long suffering supporter of a well known and hugely unsuccessful Scottish football team and has an interest in the history of the Royal Navy in the Firth of Forth. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Scottish Lifesciences Association.

The voice of Scotland's life sciences industries

Advisory Board Members