People

Managed by a team with a track record of success, with the support of a Board of blue-chip investors, one of VHsquared’s assets is the strength of its people.

Management Team
Board

Rod Richards

Suhail Nurbhai
Scott Crowe
Bridget Lacey, CBO

Gary Whale

Rod Richards
Bryan Morton

Deborah Harland
Hamish Cameron
Johan Kordel
Andrew Lane

Bridget Lacey, CBO

Bridget has extensive international corporate and business development experience across the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. With strong financial and strategic commercial skills she has identified and led a large number of deals, covering product in-licensing and acquisitions, product or business divestments and corporate M&A.

In her corporate and business development roles Bridget has worked for GSK, Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, GE Healthcare, Shire, ViroPharma and Circassia, completing deals and driving strategic portfolio and investment decisions. She is a qualified ACA and earlier in her career worked in corporate finance at Ernst & Young.

Rod Richards

Rod Richards, CEO

Rod has extensive experience of building biotechnology companies which under his leadership have developed clinical-stage biological and small molecule products. He has assembled strong and commercially focussed research and development teams, and has raised over £80m/$120m in private/venture financing to date.

As founding CEO of VHsquared, Rod led the spin-out of the company from Unilever and the Wellcome Trust in 2010. Prior to that, he was the CEO/founder of several biotechnology companies, including PharmaKodex Ltd and Microscience plc, which he sold successfully to US and European public pharmaceutical businesses. Earlier in his career Rod held senior business development and commercial R&D roles at GSK (Glaxo Wellcome & SmithKline Beecham)

Bryan Morton

Bryan Morton, Chairman

Professor Bryan Morton CBE is Chairman of VHsquared, with over 30 years’ experience as an entrepreneur, Board member and senior manager in the pharmaceutical industry. He brings specific expertise in strategy, business development and private equity/venture capital deals.

Bryan was previously CEO of EUSA Pharma, a global speciality oncology company, which was acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals in 2012 for $700 million. After founding EUSA in 2005, Morton was able to fund the company’s growth by raising $265 million from several prominent life science investors, including Goldman Sachs, Essex Woodland, 3i, Advent, SV Life Sciences, Neomed and Novaquest. In 2003, Morton founded and was appointed CEO of Zeneus Pharma Ltd, a European speciality oncology and critical care company. He sold Zeneus to Cephalon for $360 million, delivering generous returns to Apax Partners, an early investor. Prior to running Zeneus, Morton was president of Convatec, EMEA and spent over 20 years in positions of increasing responsibility at Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK).

Suhail Nurbhai

Suhail Nurbhai, CMO

Suhail has over 20 years of clinical leadership experience at both large and small companies in Europe and the USA.

After qualifying in medicine and specialising in gastroenterology he joined Pfizer where he spent 12 years in clinical development in the UK and the USA. He was VP and Head of Clinical and Analytical Science at Takeda in Europe during the development of vedolizumab (Entyvio) – now on the market for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Suhail has also been VP and Head of Clinical Development in a venture-backed start-up GI company in Boston, and immediately prior to joining VHsquared in 2014 he was SVP and Chief Development Officer for Shionogi in Europe.

Scott Crowe

Scott Crowe, CSO

Scott is a recognised expert in immuno-inflammation (I&I) R&D with considerable expertise in antibody engineering and the development of I&I products.

His achievements in this area include the establishment and direction of the antibody engineering laboratory at Wellcome Biotech, where he led development of the first humanised therapeutic antibody Campath-1H (Lemtrada). Subsequently Scott led a number of research divisions at Glaxo Wellcome, and later as VP & Head of I&I Biology at GSK he was responsible for activities from target selection through to proof-of-concept. Scott is a founder of VHsquared.

Gary Whale

Gary Whale, COO

Gary has extensive experience of strategic and operational management of cGMP manufacturing for biologics (including oral biologics). This includes analytical/manufacturing processes throughout development to commercialisation and regulatory approval expertise.

Prior to joining VHsquared in 2014, he led process development and manufacturing throughout product development as a Director at Emergent Biosolutions & Microscience.

Deborah Harland

Deborah Harland, Partner at SR One

Deborah Harland is a Partner at SR One, and joined in 2005 to establish the firm’s European investment office. She brings to SR One extensive operational, drug development and licensing experience gained through numerous roles held in clinical development, medical affairs and business development during her more than 25 year tenure in the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition to VHsquared, Deborah is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Mission Therapeutics, Bicycle Therapeutics, Atopix Therapeutics, f-star and Asceneuron. She was previously a member of the Board of Directors of Addex Pharmaceuticals (IPO, SIX Swiss Exchange, 2007), Pharmakodex Limited (sold to Orexo) and Syntaxin Limited (sold to Ipsen) and an observer on the Boards of Ablynx (IPO, Euronext Brussels 2007) and 7TM Pharma. Deborah received her BSc. (Hons.) in Pharmacology from the University of Bath, her PhD in Pharmacology from the University of London, and her MBA from Henley Management College.

Hamish Cameron

Hamish Cameron, Operating Partner at SV Life Sciences

Hamish Cameron is an Operating Partner at SV Life Sciences, joining in 2008 as a Venture Partner. He has been Interim CEO at X2-Pharma, Delenex Therapeutics and TopiVert Pharma and Chief Commercial Officer at ESBATech. He is currently a Director at Affinium, Artios, Delenex, TopiVert and VHsquared. Before joining SVLS, Dr Cameron was CEO of Cambridge Antibody Technology.

Prior to that, he held a series of senior R&D positions at AstraZeneca/Zeneca including Head of the Cardiovascular Therapy Area, Senior Vice-President Medical Research and was a member of the R&D Leadership Team. Dr Cameron started his industry career with Janssen, after working in clinical practice and research in the UK. Hamish was trained as a physician and holds MBBS and BSc (Hons) Pharmacology degrees from the University of London. He is a member of the UK Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow and past Board member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine.

Johan Kordel

Johan Kordel, Senior Partner at Lundbeckfonden Ventures

Johan is a Senior Partner at Lundbeckfonden Ventures. He was previously co-founder and CEO of Sound Biotech ApS and co-founder and Senior Vice President of Research and Business Development of Biovitrum AB.

Prior to these positions he worked almost a decade in the pharmaceutical company Pharmacia with management, research, early development, portfolio management, business development and alliance management. Johan has co-founded other biotech companies and been appointed to numerous board positions both in private and public companies. He is an associate professor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Lund, Sweden. Johan is a board member of Acacia Pharma, BoneSupport, Enterome, Iconic Therapeutics, River Vision, VHsquared and Ziarco.

Andrew Lane

Andrew Lane, Director at Unilever Ventures

Andrew Lane is a Director at Unilever Ventures. He joined Unilever as a marketing trainee in 1985 after studying Biochemistry at Cambridge University and has a general management, marketing and finance background.

Andrew worked on setting up Unilever’s Corporate Venture Group prior to the establishment of Unilever Ventures, which he co-founded in 2002. His primary focus is investment in Personal Care. He is currently on the Boards of iluminage Beauty, Arecor and VHsquared and was on the Board of BAC, CyDen and Pharmakodex before Unilever Ventures successful exit from these companies.