Management Team
PsiOxus Therapeutics has a highly experienced management team.
Chief Executive Officer: Dr John Beadle
Dr John Beadle was Entrepreneur in Residence at Imperial College London, where he helped to establish Myotec Therapeutics as a spin-out business. He became CEO of Myotec in late 2008, rapidly securing seed financing followed by a £5.6 million series A funding round from Imperial Innovations and Invesco Perpetual in early 2010. During this time, John was also Executive Chairman and CEO of Hybrid Biosystems, securing further seed financing for this Oxford based start-up. In 2010, John's leadership of these two private companies led to their combination to form PsiOxus Therapeutics Ltd. John was previously the co-founder of the vaccine company PowderMed. In 2004 he helped to raise £20 million from leading UK and US Venture Capital Funds and was then Chief Medical Officer and board director leading to the trade sale of PowderMed to Pfizer for over US$300 million in 2006. John has previously held roles at PowderJect, Pfizer and Glaxo SmithKline where he was most recently VP of Global Medical Operations. John was trained in Medicine at the University of Witwatersrand and received his MBA with distinction from the London Business School.
Company Secretary and Finance Director: Theodora Harold
Theo Harold is a chartered accountant with significant experience as Finance Director and Company Secretary with early stage and growing companies in the biotech sector. She has a background in both industry and corporate finance with 14 years of experience in SMEs in the biotech and hi-tech sectors and has held roles with Cytomyx Holdings plc, RioTech Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Hybrid Biosystems Ltd and Myotec Therapeutics Ltd. Prior to this, Theo trained with PricewaterhouseCoopers and read Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Chief Scientific Officer: Dr Kerry Fisher
Dr Kerry Fisher is a Scientific Founder of Hybrid Biosystems Ltd. As well as serving on the Board he has held roles as Chief Scientific Officer and CEO. He is a gene delivery specialist working with therapeutic viruses for the treatment of cancer and for vaccination against infectious disease. His areas of interest include pharmacology and medicinal virology, with a particular interest in the modification of viruses for clinical use. Kerry achieved a 1st class undergraduate degree from the University of Aberdeen and completed his PhD in 2001 at the University of Birmingham. Since graduating Kerry has published over 40 articles and won several awards for his work. As well as his role as Chief Scientific Officer at PsiOxus Therapeutics, Kerry also holds an academic position as Lecturer at the University of Oxford.
Chief Operating Officer: Priya Mande
Priya Mande has over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector. She was previously Head of Portfolio & Programme Management at PowderMed responsible for vaccine DNA immunotherapeutic projects, collaboration with academic institutions and Joint Ventures with other Pharma companies targeting influenza, chronic viral diseases and cancer. Priya was also the Vaccine Research Project Leader for Influenza at Pfizer before becoming COO of Hybrid BioSystems in 2009. She has previously held roles at Glaxo Wellcome and Glaxo SmithKline where she was most recently senior Director of R&D Business Projects. Priya studied Biochemistry at Brunel University, received a MBA with distinction from the London Business School and has a Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors. Priya received an international collaboration award for project leadership at the 26th US Army Science Conference in 2008.
VP of Pharmaceutical Development: Dr Jeetendra Bhatia
Jeetendra Bhatia has over 15 years of experience in pharmaceutical development & manufacturer. His areas of interest include development of novel therapeutics, GMP manufacture and formulation. Jeetendra has developed both recombinant and microbial vaccines for the treatment of cancer and other infectious disease and has published scientific articles. Jeetendra completed his PhD in 1999 at the University of London, whilst working for the Cancer Research UK, Department of Oncology at The Royal Free Hospital, London. Whilst at the Royal Free Hospital, Jeetendra set up a GMP facility which manufactured a cancer therapeutic used for a Phase I/II clinical trial. The facility was later ISO9001 certified by the MHRA. He has previously held roles as Senior Development Manager at Avidex Ltd and Emergent BioSolutions where he was most recently the Head of Process & Analytical Development before moving to PsiOXus in May, 2011.
Head of Research: Tamara Nicolson
Tamara J Nicolson, DPhil, started her career at CSL in Melbourne, Australia. There she worked as a Scientist and Microbiologist in the area of flu and other viral vaccines, with qualifications and training in GLP and Cat III operations. Following this, she spent 3.5 years at Pfizer Global R&D focusing on HIV-1 Drug Discovery in Sandwich, Kent. She worked in successful CCR5 and gp160 glycoprotein drug targeting programs. Following some time spent with the UK drug regulatory body; the MHRA, in London, Tamara then spent around 2 years at AstraZeneca in preclinical drug development, which included a collaboration and secondment to the US FDA. Tamara then went onto work in a Senior Research and Development position at Calimmune, a US-Australian biotechnolgy company set up to investigate stem cell gene therapy for HIV-1. This position included helping to direct the basic research operations as well as drug discovery, preclinical and clinical operations. She has a DPhil from Imperial College London, where she focused on the cell biology and biochemistry of Diabetes, including investigations in to zinc and calcium ions, transporters and ion channels. As part of the DPhil, she worked with biophysics collaborators from Holland, with a leading role in developing a panel of novel sub cellular targeted zinc FRET probes which, for the first time, work to measure zinc at physiological concentrations.