Meet the team

Dr Jelena Aleksic

Jelena is a geneticist and serial entrepreneur, passionate about the potential of biotechnology to improve patients’ lives. She brings significant commercial and business development experience and is leading PharmEnable’s business efforts. She was the founder and CEO of GeneAdviser, an online marketplace for clinical genetic tests (now owned by the UK NHS). She also founded a life science and business strategy consultancy, SparkBio Ltd. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in Genomics and Computational Biology and has an academic background in genome regulation and rare diseases.

Marta Arimont

As a senior computational chemist, Marta is responsible for PharmEnable’s drug discovery computational pipeline. She brings expertise and experience in ligand-based and structure-based methods, as well as in the application of ML/AI techniques for drug design and discovery. She has five years of academic research experience in computer-aided drug design and structural biology. Marta is completing a Ph.D. at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam focusing on in silico drug discovery.

Dr Andreas Bender

Tom Blackburn

Tom has spent over 45 years in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with leading roles from early drug discovery to big pharma and biotech across several therapeutic areas. An internationally recognised speaker on drug discovery and biotech start-up companies, Tom has worked as a C-Level executive, company secretary and VP/director of various therapeutic projects and portfolio management organisations. His extensive experience includes venture capital, investment, strategic business development plans and due diligence for in-and out-licensing drugs for biotech and pharma. A President Emeritus and Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society, he holds a PhD, DSc from Manchester University and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB).

Dr Avene Colgan

Avene is a synthetic chemist with extensive experience in developing novel and efficient chemical methods using catalysis to access stereochemically complex molecules. She holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and a B.Sc. in Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology from University College Dublin. Her Ph.D. included a Marie Skłodowska-Curie funded industrial placement at CURIA in Spain, as part of 3D-Net – a European-wide consortium of industry and academic partners. She joined PharmEnable following her postdoc at the University of Cambridge.

Peter Curran

As a Cheminformatician, Peter is developing tools and systems to enhance PharmEnable’s platform to enable the rapid exploration of synthetically accessible chemical space. He brings expertise and experience of in silico drug discovery and scientific software development. Peter is completing his Ph.D in Computational Chemistry at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) in partnership with the University of Cambridge where he is exploring the application of fragment hotspot detection methods to small molecule library design.

Dr James Dale

James has over 18 years experience in drug discovery, with expertise in synthetic and medicinal chemistry. At PharmEnable, he is leading the drug discovery and pipeline strategy, focusing on candidate progression to develop novel therapeutics. In his previous roles at Nanna Therapeutics, Benevolent AI and Novartis, James was responsible for leading teams to successfully generate pipelines of novel medicines. He completed his Ph.D in synthetic organic chemistry at Cardiff University.

Dr Jane Dancer

A highly experienced CBO, Jane brings a wealth of knowledge about business development and driving company growth. As the PharmEnable company Chair, she has an active role in advising on business strategy and governance processes. Her past roles include Chief Business Officer at F-star, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. Prior to this, she was Vice President of Business Development at Cellzome Ltd and Director of Business Development at Cambridge AntibodyTechnology, later acquired by AstraZeneca. She holds an MA and Ph.D. in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from The Cambridge Judge Business School.

James Donald

James has extensive experience in organic chemistry centred around the synthesis of 3-D small molecules, often at the academic/industrial interface. At PharmEnable he is working to enrich virtual chemical space with synthetically tractable diversity generating methodologies. James has held postdoctoral positions in both the UK (University of Oxford and the University of York) and USA (University of Texas at Austin and Princeton University) and completed his PhD in organic chemistry at the University of York.

David Ford

David is an Oxford-based life sciences angel investor, with a passion for working with early-stage companies to realise an ambitious idea and attract investment capital for growth. He has over 20 years’ experience in asset management globally and across a range of asset classes. Since 2016, David has been focused on early-stage investing, managing the Arrowfield Capital syndicate.

Gaynor Fryers

As a PharmEnable NED, Gaynor brings significant experience in business development across both the private and public sectors. Her previous work has spanned across biologics and small molecules, medicines, diagnostics and devices, in-licensing, out-licensing, company acquisition, and sale. Gaynor was previously VP of Business Development at AstraZeneca where her UK and US teams were responsible for identifying, evaluating, and negotiating opportunities across different disease fields. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Gaynor was the VP of Business Development at Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT). She holds an MBA from the University of Manchester.

Thomas Hogberg

Thomas has over 45 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry with leading roles at AstraZeneca, ALK-Abelló, 7TM Pharma, LEO Pharma and Mind the Byte. During his career, Thomas has headed various departments and led collaborations with other companies across several therapeutic areas, from early drug discovery to marketed products. His extensive experience includes business development as well as due diligence during in- and out-licensing. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Thomas holds a PhD in organic chemistry and became Associate Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in 1985. His scientific work includes over 110 published papers and book chapters, and he is co-inventor on over 50 patent applications.

Dr Jessica Iegre

Jessica is a chemical biologist with extensive experience in drug discovery and in managing research activities and projects. Her role at PharmEnable includes project management of co-discovery alliances and identifying and supporting the in-house drug discovery programmes by negotiating agreements with external providers and collaborators. Jessica joined PharmEnable from the University of Cambridge where she worked as a research lab manager and postdoctoral researcher whilst leading the commercialisation efforts of research ideas within the research group. She completed her PhD from the University of Cambridge and had worked as a scientist at AstraZeneca before that.

Dr Sarah Kidd

Sarah is a medicinal chemist with wide experience in diversity-generating methodologies, as well as in the identification and optimization of novel small molecules for drug discovery. Sarah joined PharmEnable from the University of Leeds where she worked as a postdoctoral researcher developing novel inhibitors of an RNA helicase. She undertook a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Cambridge which was funded by AstraZeneca and involved collaborative projects with Diamond Light Source and the Structural Genomics Consortium.

Anika Liu

As computational chemist, Anika is contributing to PharmEnable’s database growth efforts. She has completed BSc and MSc degrees at the University of Heidelberg in Molecular Biotechnology, with a focus on Bioinformatics, and research experience across multiple experimental and computational research groups. Currently, Anika is undertaking a GSK-funded PhD in Computational Toxicology at the University of Cambridge, trying to understand the mechanisms behind drug side effects better in order to help to identify them earlier in drug development.

Dr Christine Martin

Christine joins PharmEnable as the Investor Director from Cambridge Enterprise. As Head of Life Science investment at Cambridge Enterprise, Christine works to help create companies across the breadth of the life sciences, with a focus on drug discovery. She has a background managing technology transfer at Cambridge University and has also managed the University of Cambridge-GSK open innovation drug discovery initiative. She also enjoyed 11 years working at Biotica, a University spin-out. Christine has an MA and DPhil from the University of Oxford, has authored over 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and is an inventor on over 20 patents.

Dr Natalia Mateu

Natalia is an organic and medicinal chemist leading the development of the PharmEnable scientific portfolio. Her strong chemistry background, with a particular focus on diversity generating methodologies, has shaped the scientific methods that form the foundation of PharmEnable’s unique offering. She brings over 14 years or organic and medicinal chemistry research within the pharmaceutical sector and academia, from the University of Cambridge and Janssen/J&J. She has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Valencia.

Peter McPartland

Dr Dragana Mitic Potkrajac

Dragana has extensive experience in managing research activities and projects, market analysis and competitive intelligence, and scientific knowledge extraction and data integration. Her role at PharmEnable focuses on boosting the company’s business development efforts. She has over 10 years of experience working in biotechnology, including at Cambridge Cell Networks and Metisox Ltd, collaborating on projects with academics and industrial partners, in the field of toxicology across a range of different diseases. She completed a PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Düsseldorf.

Carme Mont

Carme has extensive experience in science communications, branding and marketing within the life sciences industry. As a consultant, she leads PharmEnable’s communications and outreach strategies. Carme holds a Neuroscience MSc and PhD from Autonomous University of Barcelona and spent over four years at University of Oxford as an academic visitor. Prior to consulting, she was a Science Liaison Coordinator at MedImmune/AstraZeneca and an Account Director at AS&K.

Charlotte Salmons

Charlotte has over 20 years experience providing PA and Customer Service support across many sectors including banking, legal, recruitment and the National Health Service. At PharmEnable, she liaises directly with the management team and manages their diaries, alongside assisting the wider team with a variety of admin support. She works closely with our Office Manager to ensure the smooth running of the day-to-day business.

Ruth Shepherd

Ruth brings 25 plus years of HR experience to the PharmEnable business. Her experience spans a variety of sectors and she has spent the past 5 years supporting growing businesses to achieve their strategic and operational goals. She is an EMCC qualified coach and an Insights Practitioner, both of which approaches run throughout her more generalist HR work.

Dr Hannah Sore

A medicinal chemist by training, Hannah is recognised for championing innovative methods for discovering much needed new drugs. She brings over 20 years of research expertise within the life sciences and drug discovery sector at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Astex Therapeutics and at the University of Cambridge, including 10 years consulting and business experience across healthcare sectors at Frost & Sullivan and HFS Scientific Ltd. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in Organic Chemistry and has authored over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and is an inventor on 13 patents.

Prof David Spring

Dave Spring is a world-leading expert with decades of experience in methodologies for diversity-oriented synthesis, leading a large and active academic research group in this space. He is a Professor at the University of Cambridge within the Chemistry Department and a Fellow of Trinity College. His research interests originate from a desire to understand and exploit biological systems using organic synthesis. He holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford for work on the biosynthesis of manzamine alkaloids under the supervision of Sir Jack Baldwin. He also worked at Harvard University with Stuart Schreiber before joining the faculty at Cambridge.

Stephanie Sutton

Stephanie has over 30 years of professional experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. At PharmEnable, she is responsible for company operations and works closely with the management team and the Board. Stephanie has a proven track record in supporting biotech companies having worked with a number of start-ups, including Storm Therapeutics and is Executive Assistant to Dr Andy Richards CBE. At GW Pharmaceuticals, she became their first in-house medical information officer, having gained experience in a number of different functions over the years including pharmacovigilance, quality assurance and regulatory affairs. She completed her BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science and Psychology with the Open University.

Dr Ian Tomlinson

Dr David Vidal

David is a chemist by background, with over a decade of experience in developing methods for computational drug discovery. At PharmEnable, he is leading the technology development, focusing on implementing innovative modelling techniques and algorithms as part of our drug discovery platform. In his previous role at Mind the Byte, he led the R&D department; a multidisciplinary team of scientists and software engineers developing new modelling technologies for in silico drug discovery. He completed his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Barcelona.