Our Advisory Board

Nigel Pitchford, Chief Investment Officer, Imperial Innovations

Nigel is the Chief Investment Officer, and is responsible for the Group’s investment activities. He joined Innovations in January 2012. He was previously a Partner at DFJ Esprit, and prior to that spent 12 years at 3i, becoming a Partner in 2006, and ultimately leading the venture team’s healthcare activities across Europe and the US. As well as sitting on the board of Imperial Innovations Group plc, Nigel is also a board member of Oxford Immunotec Global plc (Nasdaq: OXFD), Veryan Medical, Polytherics, Psychology Online and Epsilon 3 Bio.

Dr Adam Stoten, Deputy Head of Technology, Isis Innovations Ltd.  

Adam joined Isis in the role of Deputy Head of Technology Transfer in 2013, with specific responsibility for commercialisation of life/medical science technologies originating from Oxford research. Adam has worked for more than a decade in the pharma/biotech sector in commercial roles encompassing business development and licensing, new venture formation, product development, lobbying/advocacy and general management. Between 2010 and 2013 Adam worked as Deputy General Manager for the Oxford-Emergent Tuberculosis Consortium Ltd, a joint venture he helped establish between the University of Oxford and Emergent BioSolutions Inc, which conducted the first ever efficacy study of a new TB vaccine in infants.

Dr Mike Capaldi, Commercialisation Director, Edinburgh BioQuarter

Dr Capaldi has a strong scientific and commercial background with over 26 years experience in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries within the UK, Europe and the United States of America. He leads a team of up to 15 professionals to progress an ambitious £12m commercialisation project that will bridge the gap between industry demands and the world class research being carried out in Scotland.

Dr Capaldi manages industry relationships with global pharmaceutical and biotech companies as well as leading efforts to generate new spinout companies from the University of Edinburgh’s College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, based within the Edinburgh BioQuarter. This will in turn translate research into therapies for patients.

Axel Heitmueller, Director, Strategy and Commerce, Imperial College Health Partners

Axel has been involved with Imperial College Health Partners since its conception in 2011 as an Interim Director and joined the partnership full-time in August 2013 as Director of Strategy and Commerce.

Prior to joining the partnership, Axel was Executive Director of Strategy and Business Development at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He brings a broad range of experience from academia and central government where he was Deputy Director and Chief Analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in Cabinet Office and No 10.

Keith Powell, Chairman, Domainex, BioMoti and Canbex

Keith has been in Biotechnology since it started. Having worked for GSK and ICI/Zeneca in genetics/molecular biology he led several large groups including Discovery, finally running the patent group. He then left for the USA and worked in a company on the West Coast, Maxygen, leading the small molecule group through the IPO and growing a business which eventually spun out as “Codexis”. On coming back to the UK, Keith worked with a fund called BBSF and acted as CEO for several of the companies in the portfolio, including Spear, sold to Advent International. He led Domainex through a merger with NCE to form a successful business in protein structure-based chemistry. Polytherics was built through organic growth since 2005 to a company of >30 people. Keith is currently chairman of Domainex, Biomoti and Canbex.

David Grainger, Venture Partner, Index Ventures

David develops exciting new drugs, with novel mechanisms of action, challenging conventional wisdom on how drugs should be developed at every step. He is a Venture Partner at Index Ventures, one of the leading life sciences Venture funds worldwide. He is also a Director of half a dozen biotech companies, many of which where he was a founder, including XO1, TCP Innovations, Epsilon-3 Bio and RxCelerate. He is an inventor on more than 150 patent applications, including more than 20 granted US patents. These inventions range from novel chemical entities for use as anti-inflammatory drugs, to new methods for diagnosing diseases and novel functional foods.

Currently, he acts as Chairman and Chief Scientist at XO1, a biotechnology company developing an antibody against thrombin exosite 1 yielding anticoagulation without increased risk of bleeding.

Martin Walton, Chief Executive Officer, Excalibur Group

Martin is CEO responsible for all the investment and business activities of Excalibur and its subsidiary companies. In addition to managing Excalibur’s existing activities, this involves the evaluation, implementation and oversight of new initiatives conceived with and by group chairman, Professor Sir Chris Evans OBE.

Martin joined the company in early 2011 after a 25-year career in the capital markets, as an investment banker for several major banks and also as an investor in medical and other sectors, having run investment and trading businesses, private equity portfolios and hedge funds with assets in excess of $8bn, in the UK, USA, Ireland, Canada and China.