Chairman

Dr Simon Barnes

(Tate & Lyle Ventures, London)
Simon Barnes is a Managing Partner of Tate & Lyle Ventures, an independent venture capital fund backed by Tate & Lyle. He has a background in life sciences venture capital, first with the London office of Atlas Venture and subsequently with GIMV Venture Capital. He has focused throughout his career on investing in university spin-outs in Europe including Renovo and CropDesign. Simon was trained as a plant biochemist and has a first class honours degree in Natural Sciences and a PhD from Cambridge University. He spent two years as a NATO Research Fellow at The Rockefeller University in New York. He holds an MBA with Distinction from the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London.

Non Executive Directors

Professor Dr Axel Kleemann

Professor Dr Axel Kleemann was a member of the Management Board of ASTA Medica AG from 1987 until 2000 with responsibility for Research & Development, Production, Engineering and Drug Safety. He obtained his PhD in chemistry at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Since 1987, he has been an honorary professor of chemistry at the same institution. Furthermore, Professor Kleemann is co-author of the standard reference book Pharmaceutical Substances. He is co-founder of Act.On GmbH Pharma Consultants in Germany, chairman of the Board of Directors of Protagen AG, Germany, and a member of the Board of Directors of several other non-listed biotech and fine chemical companies.

Mr Patrick Krol

(Managing Partner, Aescap Venture, The Netherlands)
Patrick Krol is a healthcare marketing and market intelligence specialist and entrepreneur. As founder and managing director of Firm United Healthcare from 1995 until 2004 he was responsible for growing the company to become a market leader. During this period he also co-founded two other healthcare ventures: Interactive Healthcare and Healthcare Management School. After selling his share in all three companies in 2004, he became director of healthcare of Fleishman-Hillard in London, a member of Omnicom (a NYSE listed communications group).

From 1995 until 2005 Patrick guided over 35 pharma and biotech companies to successfully introduce or grow their products. In 2003, Patrick received an MBA in Executive Management and Consultancy. In the same year he became a visiting teacher of the business school of the University of Wageningen teaching 'Strategy in the pharmaceutical Industry'. Since 2004 he holds a board seat at Shire Pharmaceuticals International Licensing.