Meet The Team

CEO

David Findlay

David has a 30+ year track record of commercial success in the pharmaceutical industry with experience across sales, marketing, market analytics, global commercial strategy, business development, R&D and international policy. He successfully developed, launched and managed medicines globally and locally, including niche medicines and $1bn+ blockbusters with access in 100+ markets. He was Global Commercial Lead for anti-infectives at GSK, spending time embedded with the R&D organisation in Collegeville, Pennsylvania and subsequently at GSK’s London HQ. As well as developing and delivering disease area, pipeline and product strategies, David led investment positions for drug development phases and in-license products, gaining significant (£10M +) investments for drug development and manufacturing facilities. David has recently run his own consultancy business that delivers commercial and R&D support to SMEs, providing pipeline and access strategies, including market assessment and opportunity analysis, developing investment positions, country/regional access plans and aligning strategies with regulatory frameworks.

WhatsApp Image 2022-03-17 at 5_edited_ed

Interim CSO

Colin Suckling

Professor Suckling was Freeland Professor of Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde from 1989 to 2012. Much of Colin’s work has been strategic, including the development of inter-institutional and interdisciplinary research partnerships, notably the research collaboration with the University of Glasgow (WestCHEM), which was recognised publicly with his award of OBE in 2006. Colin has extensive experience into the commercialisation of research both through his work as a senior officer of the University and specifically in the commercialisation of discoveries related to the synthesis of leucovorin, a compound extensively used as part of cancer chemotherapy. Together with his team, he discovered and patented innovations related to the MGB Project. He will be a scientific advisor for RTx and leading on the strategic development aspects of RTx. Colin was a member of the Scottish Medicines Consortium (2012-2014).

COO

John Mulgrew

Mr Mulgrew has a strong track record as project manager bringing together a unique combination of skills and experience around innovation, technology, business development and innovation management in both global and start up organisations. He has successfully delivered a wide-range of large-scale capital-intensive programmes and technology transfer in regulated manufacturing (pharmaceutical, medical device and food) industries. He was manager within corporate engineering at Intergra LifeScience and an industry project manager at the Centre for Continuous Manufacturing and Advanced Crystallisation based at Strathclyde working on collaborative R&D and tech transfer. He has extensive experience managing complex technical programmes and collaborative R&D projects, as well as building and maintaining high-performance cross-functional teams. Mr Mulgrew has knowledge and experience in licensing and spin-out creation, academic-industry R&D, leveraged and collaborative funding, business plan development, manufacturing operations and innovation management.

Scientific Advisor

Iain Hunter

Professor Hunter’s expertise is in molecular microbiology and microbial physiology. As Principal Research Scientist at Pfizer Global, he led a team using molecular genetics in drug discovery and strain improvement. He joined Strathclyde in 1995 as Professor of Molecular Microbiology. Translational activities include startup of CRO Bioflux (1987), SAB at formation of Biotica (1996, now Isomerase Therapeutics) and SAB at formation of AciesBio (2006). He will be a scientific advisor for RTx leading on the biological and clinical development aspects of the RTx platform.

Non-Executive Chair

Stephane Mery

Dr. Stephane Robert Mery is Non-Executive Director of the Company ImmuPharma. He is currently CEO of Contronics Ltd, and until recently he was Partner at Beringea LLP, a $400m US/UK venture capital fund, where he was responsible for healthcare investments in Europe. Previously, he was the Fund Manager/CEO of the Bloomsbury Bioseed Fund, a Biotech and Medtech investment fund, which was behind the birth of successful companies such as Spirogen (sold to MedImmune), Abzema (listed on AIM), and Canbex, (recently sold to Ipsen). Prior to this, Stéphane was Associate Director, Worldwide Business Development, for SmithKline Beecham (GSK). Before GSK, he was involved in the start-up of Double Helix Development, a successful strategic consultancy company. Stéphane is a Doctor in Veterinary Medicine, a trained Veterinary Pathologist, specialising in Nasal Toxicology at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) in North Carolina, and holds an MBA from INSEAD (Fontainebleau).

Scientific Advisory Board

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Professor Rich Roberts

Rich Roberts is the Chief Scientific Officer at New England Biolabs, Ipswich, Massachusetts. He received a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1968 from Sheffield University and then moved as a postdoctoral fellow to Harvard. From 1972 to 1992, he worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, eventually becoming Assistant Director for Research under Dr. J.D. Watson. He began work on the newly discovered Type II restriction enzymes in 1972 and these enzymes have been a major research theme. Studies of transcription in Adenovirus-2 led to the discovery of split genes and mRNA splicing in 1977, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1993. During the sequencing of the Adenovirus-2 genome computational tools became essential and his laboratory pioneered the application of computers in this area. DNA methyltransferases, as components of restriction-modification systems are also of active interest and the first crystal structures for the HhaI methyltransferase led to the discovery of base flipping. Bioinformatic studies of microbial genomes to find new restriction systems are a major research focus as is the elucidation of DNA methyltransferase recognition sequences using SMRT sequencing and a new approach to m5C containing recognition sequences.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Professor David Denning

David Denning is Professor of Infectious Diseases in Global Health at The University of Manchester and is an internationally recognised clinician with expertise in fungal diseases. He was the founding Director of the UK’s National Aspergillosis Centre in Manchester (2009-2020), the world’s only such centre. He serves as the Chief Executive of Global Action for Fungal Infections (GAFFI). Dr Denning managed the National Aspergillosis Centre, Manchester from 2009-2020 He has published extensively (>700 academic papers) and lectures worldwide. His writings have been cited over 75,000 times and he has successfully led many major international collaborative science, diagnostic and treatment projects and clinical guidelines, with subsequent publication in Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. David is Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Aspergillus Website (1998-) and the educational LIFE website. He has chaired the Scientific Committees of several international fungal infection meetings and co-chairs the alternate year Advances Against Aspergillosis meetings, attracting ~400 delegates from >120 countries. He is a longstanding member of the Infectious Disease Society of America Aspergillosis Guidelines group, the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Aspergillosis Guidelines group and the British Society for Medical Mycology Standards of Care Committee.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr Rob Young

Rob Young joined Wellcome in February 1990, following BA/DPhil degrees at University of Oxford and a Post Doc at Ben May Institute, University of Chicago. His career of increasing responsibility led to becoming a Scientific Leader and being elected a GSK Fellow. He charted significant contributions to six development candidates in antivirals (HIV/HBV/Herpes), iNOS and Factor Xa, before a move to early-stage discovery (2006) fulfilling leadership roles numerous H2L programs, using diverse technologies including HTS, fragments, focussed & designed screens, and DNA-encoded libraries. Substantive transnational working included close ties with the GSK Diseases of the Developing World group. Rob was appointed/co-opted to numerous GSK cross-disciplinary initiatives and communities including in silico predictive modelling, DMPK, Physical Chemistry, Stability and Safety. Rob is an author/inventor on more than 100 publications/ patent applications. Rob is an honorary visiting Professor at The University of St Andrews, with more than 20 years in roles with the Chemistry department. He was widely recognised for his training and mentorship roles at GSK, in particular through the GSK-Strathclyde PhD programme.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Fraser Scott

Dr Scott is a Senior Lecturer at University of Strathclyde in the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Dr Scott has a PhD in Drug Development in which he investigated Nucleic Acid Binding Compounds utilising medicinal chemistry, microbiology, statistical analysis, computational drug design, formulation science and synthetic organic chemistry. Fraser was the project champion for the Minor Groove Binder Project at University of Strathclyde which laid the foundation for the Rostra platform of molecules.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Jo Craig

Jo Craig is Senior Vice President CMC for NeRRe Therapeutics and uses her extensive experience, expertise and leadership to ensure delivery of chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC). Jo previously held the same role for KaNDy Therapeutics, a Women’s Health company, which was acquired by Bayer Pharmaceuticals in September 2020.
Prior to joining NeRRe, Jo spent over 30 years at GlaxoSmithKline where she was latterly VP of Technology & Strategy, Product Development & Supply. Her career has spanned many roles in CMC product development, achieving UK and global leadership. Jo set up and led a new global process robustness group at the interface of R&D and Manufacturing and has also headed the New Product Introduction Quality group.

Jo holds a BPharm (first class honours) from the School of Pharmacy, University College, London and is a registered Pharmacist. She is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, an Eminent Fellow of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (APS), UK and current Chair of the APS Board. Jo also contributes as a member of the Medicines Manufacturing Advisory Group (UK) and, as a former member of the Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnership (MMIP), has been influential in aligning Pharma and UK Government on future areas for investment.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Professor Mike Bromley

Michael Bromley is a Professor in Medical Mycology at the University of Manchester and is the Director of the Manchester Fungal Infection Group. His research focuses on drug discovery and drug resistance in fungal pathogens. While working at F2G Ltd and throughout his academic research career he has been involved in the evaluation of the antifungal drug Olorofim. He is currently leading a collaborative project to generate a genome-scale knockout mutant library in the filamentous fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus and is developing and employing functional genomics technologies to understand genetic and environmental drivers of pathogenicity and drug resistance in fungi. He has >75 publications and patents including in Science, Nature Communications and PNAS.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Professor Stephanie Dancer

Stephanie Dancer is a medical microbiologist in NHS Lanarkshire and Professor of Microbiology at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. She edited the Journal of Hospital Infection for over 20 years, five of them as editor-in-chief, and now edits for Infection, Disease & Health and the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. She trained at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London followed by postgraduate studies at Guy's Hospital, where she gained a thesis on the epidemiology and biochemistry of toxin-producing staphylococci. She spent six years as Infection Control Officer for Argyll before moving to Health Protection Scotland as their inaugural microbiologist (2002-5). There, she set up MRSA surveillance for Scotland, evaluated real-time PCR for MRSA screening and helped establish the Scottish Microbiology Forum. She is a current or recent member of NHS Scotland Decontamination; UK NICE (infection control & antimicrobial prescribing); UK HTA (screening and diagnostics); ESCMID groups on infection control, MRSA & multi-resistant Gram-negative bacilli; and 2023 ECCMID conference committees (2012 and 2023). She has published books, book chapters and over 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals on hospital cleaning, antimicrobial management, infection control and MRSA. At present, she balances editorial duties with research and teaching, specifically infection prevention and control of healthcare pathogens.