Reverse engineering human nature

Young Kwon is Alchemab’s Chief Executive Officer and provides overall leadership to the company. Prior to joining Alchemab, Young held various leadership roles as a senior executive at Momenta Pharmaceuticals, most recently as Chief Financial and Business Officer, where he was responsible for business development, strategy, finance, investor relations, and commercial. During his tenure at Momenta, Young led public equity financings raising nearly $500 million, and led the company’s sale to Johnson & Johnson for $6.5 billion. 

Before Momenta, Young was a business development professional at Biogen, driving various transactions, and worked at the venture capital firm Advanced Technology Ventures, investing in early-stage biotech and medical device companies.

Young is a member of the board of directors of ADMA Biologics (Nasdaq: ADMA) and is an advisor to Lightstone Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in biotech and medical device companies. He earned a PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology from Harvard University and a BS in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jane Osbourn is Alchemab’s Chief Scientific Officer and oversees all aspects of our drug discovery activities. Prior to joining Alchemab, Jane served as Vice President of R&D at MedImmune, the biologics arm of AstraZeneca, where she contributed to the development of antibody phage display technology, authored key publications and patents and contributed to the discovery and development of a number of marketed antibody therapies including HUMIRA® (adalimumab) and IMFINZI® (durvalumab).

Jane chairs the Cambridge-based cell therapy company Mogrify, has served as a Director of Babraham Bioscience Technologies, and Cambridge Enterprise, and is a member of the Crick Translational Advisory Group. Previously, she served as a Member of the UK Medical Research Council Industry Grant Award Assessment Panel, and from 2015-2019, served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the UK BioIndustry Association.

Jane was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) and Scrip’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 for services to drug discovery, development and biotechnology. She earned a PhD from the John Innes Centre for Plant Science Research in Norwich and BA in Natural Sciences (First Class: Biochemistry) from the University of Cambridge. 

Olivia Cavlan is Alchemab’s Chief Corporate Development and Strategy Officer where she oversees global business development and partnerships and leads corporate strategy.

Prior to Alchemab Olivia was an Investment Principal at SV Health Investors and a Partner with McKinsey & Company where she was part of the leadership team in the Healthcare Private Equity and Pharmaceutical practices. While at McKinsey, Olivia co-led the global Real World Evidence practice and QuantumBlack biopharmaceutical offering where she led work on target discovery and clinical development. She has also led several global biopharma R&D transformation efforts and developed clinical and commercial strategies for a number of preclinical assets.

Olivia is a Non-Executive Director for the UK BioIndustry Association and a member of the Investment Committee for Cancer Research UK’s (CRUK) Seed fund. She also co-founded and sits on the Board of Directors of Sevenless Therapeutics, a small molecule pain company.

Olivia holds an MBChB in Medicine and a BSc in Pharmacology from Bristol University where she graduated with the top First Class Honors.

Peter Catalano is our Financial Controller and oversees our finance, accounting, and treasury functions. 

Prior to joining Alchemab, Peter served as the Senior Finance Manager – Immunology at Janssen Pharmaceuticals Companies of Johnson & Johnson, where he managed the Immunology R&D portfolio and the integration of the Momenta Pharmaceuticals finance and accounting functions following its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. 

Before Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Peter was the Assistant Controller at Momenta Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for various aspects of the finance and accounting function. Prior to Momenta, Peter served in positions of increasing responsibility at Ernst & Young.

Peter is a Certified Public Accountant in the state of Massachusetts and earned his M.S. degree in Accounting and a B.S. degree in Corporate Finance and Accounting from Bentley University.

Alex Hewitson is our Vice President of Operations, where he has global oversight of our operations footprint and our human resources function.

Prior to joining Alchemab, Alex held several senior leadership roles within AstraZeneca where he was most recently Head of Operations, ensuring business operations were maintained during the company’s transitional move to Cambridge, leading the business operational activities during the pandemic, and setting operational strategy.   

Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Alex was Programme Director and Head of Campus Delivery Programme for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) where he led the delivery of the UKs National Capability Asset in the form of the high containment laboratories at The Pirbright Institute, and development of the UK Research and Innovation Campuses, through the delivery of key specialist national assets across the BBSRC Estate Portfolio.

Alex is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Surveyor, and is a Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge. 

Paul Varley is our Vice President of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls where he oversees our discovery and research and development process and management of manufacturing and testing. 

Prior to joining Alchemab, Paul held similar roles at Kymab, Ltd., AstraZeneca/MedImmune and Cambridge Antibody Technology. Paul also worked at British Biotech, the UK National Institute of Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. 

Paul is a former member of the British Pharmacopeia (BP) Commission and Chair of BP Expert Advisory Group on Biological and Biotechnological Products. He currently chairs a MHRA/BP Medicines working party on new standards for Biological Medicines (DPS) and is also a member of the European Pharmacopeia (EP) Expert Committee on Monoclonal Antibodies. Paul is also a member of the UK Vaccine Task Force/BIA Manufacturing Advisory Group.

Paul earned a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and a BSc degree in Biomolecular Sciences (First Class) from Portsmouth Polytechnic.

Jenny Howell oversees project management at Alchemab and is responsible for managing our research and development portfolio and projects.

Prior to joining Alchemab, Jenny held strategic portfolio and project management roles at AstraZeneca, MedImmune, Alizyme Therapeutics and GSK.  

Jenny earned a BSc in applied Chemistry from Northumbria University.

Martin Butler is our Head of Operations where he oversees Alchemab’s site and scientific operations, procurement, and supply chain functions.

Prior to joining Alchemab, Martin was Global Supply Chain Director for Horizon Discovery where he managed operational activities at sites within the UK and USA and led the organization’s response to Brexit and the recent pandemic.  Before joining Horizon, Martin held a number of strategic sourcing, planning and operation roles within MedImmune and AstraZeneca. 

Henry Farmery is our Director of Informatics where he oversees Alchemab’s IT and software development.

Prior to joining Alchemab, Henry co-founded phenoteq, a deep learning company focused on building technologies to diagnose cancer. Prior to the founding of Phenoteq, Henry was the Lead Scientist at Cambridge Cancer Genomics where he built a bioinformatics platform to process ctDNA samples.

Henry earned a PhD and MPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Cambridge and a first-class computer science bachelor’s degree from the University of Kent. Henry has written and contributed to publications spanning genomics, telomere biology and the use of sequencing data within large cancer cohorts.

Donna Finch is Alchemab’s Head of Translational and Clinical Science where she oversees our target discovery and validation activities and our non-clinical and early clinical development efforts.

Prior to joining Alchemab, Donna was Associate Director, Respiratory Inflammation and Autoimmunity, R&D Biopharmaceuticals at MedImmune and AstraZeneca, leading pre-clinical biology, translational and early clinical activities of several projects from conception through Phase 2 clinical development. Prior to MedImmune, Donna held several positions of increasing responsibility at Cambridge Antibody Technology, mainly responsible for Pharmacology.

Donna earned a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology from Leicester University and a BSc in Pharmacology from Bristol University and has an extensive publication and patent record.

Jake Galson is Alchemab’s Head of Technology where he leads the development and application of novel technologies for the company. 

Prior to Alchemab, Jake was the Bioinformatics lead at Kymab Ltd, where his group developed the IntelliSelect® antibody discovery software platform. Jake is also one of the pioneers of immune receptor repertoire sequencing, serving as a member of the AIRR community, and authoring numerous key publications in the area. He has also worked at The Oxford Vaccine Group, GSK Vaccines, and University of Zürich, applying this approach to further understand basic immunology, as well as in support of vaccine development, diagnostics, and antibody drug discovery.

Jake holds a PhD in Medical Sciences and a BA in Biological Sciences (First Class), both from the University of Oxford.

Ralph Minter is our Vice President of Research and leads our antibody discovery efforts.

Prior to joining Alchemab, Ralph was Senior Director in Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering at AstraZeneca where he led discovery teams and developed candidate drugs across multiple disease areas. Before joining AstraZeneca, he was part of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), which later became MedImmune.

In addition to antibody discovery, Ralph is known for pioneering new technology platforms within the biologics field, including phenotypic, or target-agnostic, antibody screening which has yielded many novel therapeutic targets, some of which are now being tested in clinical trials.

Ralph earned his PhD in Immunology from Durham University and a BSc in Pathology and Microbiology from Bristol University. He has authored more than 40 papers.

Professor Ashrafian is a Managing Partner at SV Health Investors and co-founded Alchemab in 2019. Alongside Alchemab he has founded six other SV companies; Cellinta, Enara Bio, Mestag, Sitryx, TrexBio and Zarodex. Houman serves on the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) Investment Committee and as a Director of Karus Therapeutics and Imbria.

Previously, Houman co-founded the services company Cardiac Report in 2003, as well as Heart Metabolics in 2008. He went on to become Vice President and head of the Clinical Science Group at UCB Pharma.

Outside of SV, following completion of his cardiology training, Houman was appointed as an Honorary Consultant Cardiologist in 2011 at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. He is Visiting Professor and head of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Oxford. Additionally, Houman is co-founder and Chairman of Weatherden, a boutique clinical development company.

Dr. Levin joined RA Capital Management in 2015, is a Managing Director on the Investment Team and spearheads a drug discovery effort that has led to the formation of several new companies. Beginning in 2012, and prior to joining the Investment Manager, he was a Vice President at H.I.G. BioVentures. Previously he served as the Director of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Clinton Health Access Initiative. Andrew holds a BSE in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MD from Harvard Medical School.

Young Kwon is Alchemab’s Chief Executive Officer and provides overall leadership to the company. Prior to joining Alchemab, Young held various leadership roles as a senior executive at Momenta Pharmaceuticals, most recently as Chief Financial and Business Officer, where he was responsible for business development, strategy, finance, investor relations, and commercial. During his tenure at Momenta, Young led public equity financings raising nearly $500 million, and led the company’s sale to Johnson & Johnson for $6.5 billion. 

Before Momenta, Young was a business development professional at Biogen, driving various transactions, and worked at the venture capital firm Advanced Technology Ventures, investing in early-stage biotech and medical device companies.

Young is a member of the board of directors of ADMA Biologics (Nasdaq: ADMA) and is an advisor to Lightstone Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in biotech and medical device companies. He earned a PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology from Harvard University and a BS in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Hamer is a Managing General Partner at DCVC Bio, a San Francisco venture capital fund focused on building the next generation of life science companies. He has held positions as Managing Partner and Founder of Monsanto Growth Ventures and Managing Director and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Burrill & Co. Prior to venture capital, John held senior management positions at Paradigm Genetics Inc./Icoria (NASDAQ::PDGM), including CSO, CEO and EVP for Business Development. John has a PhD in Microbiology from the University of California, Davis and was Professor of Biological Sciences at Purdue University where he was a Packard Fellow and NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow.

Dr. Lee is Chief Executive Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics and Non-Executive Director of Mestag and NodThera Ltd. Kevin joined Bicycle Therapeutics from Pfizer, where he served as senior vice president and chief scientific officer of the Rare Disease Research Unit. In that role, he held responsibility for more than 20 novel programs across the full spectrum of research and development, established Pfizer’s rare disease strategy, conceptualized and implemented the company’s gene therapy strategy with the creation of the Genetic Medicine Institute and founded the Rare Disease Research Consortium. Prior to joining Pfizer, Kevin worked at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Before joining GSK, he lectured at Warwick University Medical School and founded Cambridge Biotechnology (acquired by Biovitrum) and Neurosolutions.

Kevin holds a degree in pharmaceutical sciences from Nottingham University, and a PhD in pharmacology from Cambridge University. He undertook postdoctoral training as a Wellcome Trust International Prize Fellow before joining the Parke Davis Research Unit in Cambridge, UK. Kevin also holds an MBA from Warwick Business School and has been awarded an honorary Chair in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of Warwick.