Reverse engineering human nature

Jane Osbourn is Alchemab’s Chief Executive Officer and provides overall leadership to the company. 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.

Ralph Minter is our Chief Scientific Officer 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.

Alex Hewitson is our Chief Operating Officer, 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 Chief Development Officer where he oversees our development processes including Pre-clinical Development, Toxicology, Chemistry Manufacturing and Control (CMC) and Quality.

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.

Malcolm Gates is our Vice President of Finance, with oversight of all financial matters.

Prior to joining Alchemab, Malcolm was most recently Vice President of Finance at Evonetix, a venture capital backed research company in Cambridge. Prior to that Malcolm was Group Finance Director at Cambridge Cognition, an AIM listed public company, for six years. In both of these roles, Malcolm covered a range of finance, operational and commercial responsibilities.

Before these roles, Malcolm had over 15 years working in professional services with PwC. Malcolm worked globally (being based in the UK and Australia) and also across a range of industries. Malcolm worked in both the assurance and consultancy practices, as well as internal roles in Risk and Quality and Learning and Development.

Malcolm is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), and has an MA in Geography from the University of Cambridge.

Martin Butler is our Vice President 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. 

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.

Becky is Alchemab’s Human Resources Director where she oversees all strategic and operational HR activity across the U.K. and U.S.

Prior to Alchemab, Becky served as the European HR Director at Silence Therapeutics, where she managed all aspects of human resources for the U.K. and German entities. Prior to joining Silence Therapeutics, Becky held various senior positions in biotech and pharma organisations, including EUSA Pharma, Shionogi and Eisai.

Becky holds an MA in Human Resource Management from University of Hertfordshire and a BSc in Psychology from University of Bedfordshire.

Donna Finch is Alchemab’s Vice President 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 Vice President 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.

As Managing Partner of SV Health Investors, Kate Bingham co-leads SV’s biotech franchise, which has a long history of building companies developing transformational new medicines and bringing drugs from discovery to market. Kate’s investments, many of which are examples of SV’s company creation approach to biotech investing, include a wide range of drug discovery and development companies focused on different clinical areas in the UK, EU and US. Her investments have resulted in the launch of eight drugs for the treatment of patients with inflammatory and autoimmune disease and cancer.

In 2021 Kate was awarded a DBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services as Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, where she led a team of world-class experts with the shared purpose of finding and manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines.
Kate also serves on the Board of the Francis Crick Institute and ARIA. She has a first class degree in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and an MBA from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).

Andrew 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.

Jane Osbourn is Alchemab’s Chief Executive Officer and provides overall leadership to the company. 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. 

John 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.

Kevin 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.