Our team
We have an exceptionally strong and experienced leadership with the ability to deliver and drive growth; our founders and leadership team have over 100 years’ combined experience in big pharma, academia, CROs and the biotech industry.
Founding Leadership
Thomas McInally
Tom has 30 years’ experience as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry (Fisons, Astra, AstraZeneca) and is an inventor on 42 patents and 24 peer review articles in various therapeutic areas.
He led the AstraZeneca medicinal chemistry team in a 6-year collaborative research project with Dainippon Sumitomo to discover novel TLR7 agonists for respiratory diseases. The project developed four candidate drugs with one entering clinical trials.
In 2011 he moved to the University of Nottingham to teach medicinal chemistry to 4th year students and lead a project to discover novel integrin inhibitors for the treatment of fibrotic diseases. The main objective of the programme was the design and development of novel αvβ6integrin inhibitors for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Multiple series of novel compounds with various integrin selectivity profiles were identified from this research.
Chris Moody
Chris is an internationally recognised scientist with over 450 publications and 10 patents in research focused at the interface of chemistry, biology and medicine.
His early academic career was spent at Imperial College London, and following chair appointments at Loughborough and Exeter, he took up the Sir Jesse Boot Chair of Chemistry in the University of Nottingham in 2005.
He was Director of the £5.3 M EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training, co-manager of the €6.5 M Nottingham component of the EU-funded Innovative Medicines Initiative the European Lead Factory, and played a key role in establishing the Nottingham integrin project in 2011 with the co-founders.
He is now Professor Emeritus in the University of Nottingham. Prior to academia, he was involved the design of ACE inhibitors at Roche, his work laying the foundations for the subsequent discovery and marketing of the antihypertensive agent cilazapril.
Alison John
Alison is a cell and molecular biologist specialising in the identification and evaluation of novel therapeutic targets in lung disease.
She has expertise in integrin biology, pro-fibrotic signalling pathway analysis and extensive in vivo pharmacology experience assessing the efficacy of novel anti-fibrotic compounds in murine fibrotic lung disease models.
She led an in vivo programme of lung disease research at the University of Nottingham (2006-2021) including external collaborations with industrial partners to evaluate novel integrin inhibitors.
An expert in the design and implementation of pre-clinical studies with a particular focus on the identification of clinically relevant pharmacodynamic biomarkers, she currently leads a large laboratory at the Margaret Turner Warwick Centre for Fibrosing Lung Disease at the National Heart and Lung Institute, UK at Imperial College, London.
Board of Directors
Sunil Shah
With over 20 years of experience, Sunil Shah co-founded Oxygen Healthcare Ltd, which was acquired by Piramal in 2013, and later established the o2h Group, where he also leads o2h Ventures. Through its HMRC-approved SEIS and EIS funds, o2h Ventures has invested in 37 biotech companies, leveraging $10 M of its own and co-investors’ capital to help raise over £300 M and create more than 650 jobs. o2h Ventures was recognised as one of the top three most active biotech investors in the UK, according to the BIA Financial Report 2023. Sunil currently serves as Chairman, Non-Executive Director, Board Observer or investor across more than 20 early and growth-stage biotech companies. He serves on the BioIndustry Association (BIA) Board for over five years and previously served two terms on the board of Cambridge Angels.
Sunil has also initiated and overseen the o2h Kickstarter Competitions in the UK and globally, providing medicinal chemistry support to early-stage biotech ventures. Through o2h Discovery, more than 25 companies, including Alevin, Kuano, Celestial Health, Serenatis Bio and Five Alarm Bio, have been supported in advancing therapies addressing unmet medical needs.
Beyond investment, Sunil has built community-led initiatives such as o2h ChaiTimes and Biotech Bikers.
His contributions to the sector have been recognised with awards including UKBAA Angel Investor of the Year (2019), OBN Special Recognition Award (2019) and Cambridge Science and Technology CEO of the Year (2021).
Alice MacGowan
With close to 20 years’ experience in commercialising early-stage life sciences research, Alice MacGowan has worked with pharma and medtech SMEs to identify, fund and accelerate development of new technologies towards the clinic.
Alice is currently Chief Executive Officer of the University of Nottingham subsidiary Nottingham Technology Ventures Ltd, Alice has a BSc from the University of Glasgow and a PhD from the University of Sheffield, both in Developmental Biology
Thomas McInally
Tom has 30 years’ experience as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry (Fisons, Astra, AstraZeneca) and is an inventor on 42 patents and 24 peer review articles in various therapeutic areas.
He led the AstraZeneca medicinal chemistry team in a 6-year collaborative research project with Dainippon Sumitomo to discover novel TLR7 agonists for respiratory diseases. The project developed four candidate drugs with one entering clinical trials.
In 2011 he moved to the University of Nottingham to teach medicinal chemistry to 4th year students and lead a project to discover novel integrin inhibitors for the treatment of fibrotic diseases. The main objective of the programme was the design and development of novel αvβ6integrin inhibitors for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Multiple series of novel compounds with various integrin selectivity profiles were identified from this research.
Advisors
Rod MacKenzie, CMG, PhD
Rod has recently retired from a wide range of very senior positions after 35 years at Pfizer, including Group Senior Vice President of PharmaTherapeutics R&D and Senior Vice President and Head of Worldwide Research.
He also served as Site Director of Pfizer’s largest global R&D facility in Groton, CT, most recently holding the position of Chief Development Officer and Executive Vice President. He led the clinical development of Pfizer’s pipeline of innovative medicines and vaccines, including the mRNA vaccine ComirnatyTM and the antiviral PaxlovidTM for COVID-19. He was a member of Pfizer’s executive leadership team.
Rod represented Pfizer on the board of directors for ViiV Healthcare, a global specialist HIV company established by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer to deliver advances in treatment and care for people living with HIV.
He also chaired the board of TransCelerate, a non-profit biopharmaceutical industry collaborative formed to identify and solve common drug development challenges with the end goals of improving clinical trial quality and bringing new treatment to patients faster. Rod first joined Pfizer in Sandwich, U.K., as a research scientist and conducted medicinal chemistry research in several disease areas. He is the co-inventor of darifenacin, brand named Enablex™.
He was appointed Companion of The Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 for his outstanding service to public health.
Simon Cruwys
Currently, Director of Pharmacology at TherapeutAix, Germany. Previously, he was Head Innovative Medicines Unit, Grünenthal Innovation, where he led a team responsible for in-licensing molecules and delivering them to clinical proof of concept.
Prior to Grünenthal, Simon worked for AstraZeneca where he was lead for both small molecule and antibody projects. He has over 30 years’ experience in academic and industry research. As a project leader, he has a track record of delivery from lead identification through to clinical validation.