Board of Directors

Keith G McCullagh is chairman of Xention’s Board of Directors. Dr McCullagh is an experienced bioscience entrepreneur. From 2003 to 2008 he was Chief Executive of Santaris Pharma A/S, an RNA medicines company, and since 2000 he has served as Non-Executive Chairman of Pharmacy 2U Ltd, the UK’s largest warehouse pharmacy, which is pioneering e-prescription transfer and fulfilment. From 1986 to 1998 Dr McCullagh was Chief Executive of British Biotech plc, a company he built into one of Europe’s leading biopharmaceutical businesses. Prior to founding British Biotech, he was UK Research Director for GD Searle & Co, Inc, now part of Pfizer. Dr McCullagh is also vice chairman of Affitech AS, a Scandinavian antibody therapeutics company. He holds a degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Bristol and a PhD in pathology from the University of Cambridge.

Kenneth T Cunningham was, until recently, Chief Executive at SkyePharma plc. He was previously Chief Executive of Arakis Ltd, Vice President of European Affairs at Alza International Inc, and Vice President of Clinical Development and Medical Director at Sequus Pharmaceuticals Inc. Before moving to Sequus, he was Medical Director at Glaxo Wellcome. He received medical training at St Mary’s Medical School and is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Physicians.

Wolfgang Hartwig was most recently Executive Vice President and Head of Global Pharmaceuticals Research and Development at Bayer Healthcare. He previously held a variety of positions within the Bayer Healthcare organisation including Head of Global Pharmaceuticals Research and Head of Global Diagnostics. He has served on numerous management and advisory boards including the Senatausschuss of the Helmholtz Association, the National Genome Research Initiative, and boards of Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Millennium Pharmaceuticals. He holds a doctoral degree in organic chemistry from the University of Göttingen and is Honorary Professor at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University of Münster.

Alexander Pasteur is a Principal at MVM Life Science Partners LLP. Prior to joining MVM in 2005, Dr Pasteur was a member of the life sciences investment team at the Cambridge Gateway Fund. He was previously a consultant with OC&C Strategy Consultants Ltd in London and holds a PhD in chemistry from Cambridge University. Dr Pasteur is also a director of Vantia Therapeutics Ltd.

Sander Slootweg is a Managing Partner at Forbion Capital Partners, a Netherlands based venture capital firm which was spun out of ABN AMRO Capital in 2006. He holds a degree in Business Administration from Nijenrode University and Business Economics from the Free University of Amsterdam. Before joining ABN AMRO Capital in 1999, he gained broad experience as an investment banker at ABN AMRO in both Europe and the US. Mr Slootweg currently serves on the boards of Pulmagen Therapeutics Ltd, Biovex Inc and Provesica Ltd.

Bruno Montanari joined Crédit Agricole Private Equity's Venture Capital team in January 2010.  He began his career as an investment banker in the healthcare groups of Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch in London before joining the venture capital community initially with CDP Capital and later with Atlas Venture where he was a Principal in the Life Sciences group.  Dr Montanari holds a PharmD from the Université René Descartes Paris V and a Masters in Strategic Management from HEC, France.

Graham Fagg is a Partner at Seroba Kernel Life Sciences, a Dublin-based European venture capital firm. Previously, he held management positions at Ciba (now Novartis, Basel) in drug discovery, business development and corporate venturing, and ultimately was Head of Research Planning and Manager of Ciba’s partnership with Chiron; and at Catalyst BioMedica, a subsidiary of the Wellcome Trust (London), where he was founding Managing Director. Dr Fagg also serves on the board of Quanta Fluid Solutions (UK). He is also a Partner at Rosetta Capital, an international secondary investment group, where he has served on the boards of portfolio companies Aditech (Sweden) and Painceptor (Canada) and remains responsible for Novagali (France). Dr Fagg holds a PhD from University College London.

Jonathan Gee is responsible for healthcare and life sciences investment activities at Spark Ventures (formerly Quester). He has over twenty years experience working with high growth technology companies as an investor, board member and chief executive. He has made investments in drug discovery, diagnostics, medical imaging and analytical instrumentation, and manages a portfolio in these areas. He led the investment by Quester in GlycArt Biotechnology, acquired by Roche in July 2005. He is responsible for two of Quester’s university-linked funds, Lachesis, and the Isis College Fund. Prior to joining Quester, as Chief Executive of Imperial College Innovations, he was responsible for spinning out over 30 new start-up companies and served on the board of eight of these, including Microscience Ltd, recently acquired by Emergent Technologies and now NYSE quoted. He has an operational background in marketing in the diagnostics industry where he was International Product Group Manager for Unilever’s successful OTC testing company, Unipath. He gained his management training in Unilever, which he joined following a PhD in cancer research at Oxford University.

Tim Brears, PhD is Xention’s Chief Executive. Previously he was a Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Gendaq Ltd., a spin-out of the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and after the acquisition of Gendaq by Sangamo BioSciences, Inc, became Vice President for Business Development at Sangamo. From 1993 to 1999 he was Director of Licensing/Business Development at Novartis Inc. (formerly Ciba-Geigy Corporation) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. He holds a PhD in molecular biology from Cambridge University, and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.