Board & policies

Roger joined the Board in December 2021 and became chairman in July 2022. He is a non-executive director, senior independent director and remuneration committee chair at Jupiter Fund Management plc.  He is also a non-executive director and senior independent director at Mitie Group plc.

Roger started his career in investment management at GT Management in 1981 and subsequently held positions at Morgan Grenfell and Invesco as Chief Investment Officer. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Henderson Group plc in 1999 and led the company for a decade. More recently, Roger was the Senior Independent Director and Remuneration Committee Chairman at IG Group Holdings plc and St James’s Place Plc, Chairman of Electra Private Equity PLC and Chairman of Pioneer Global Asset Management S.p.A. He was also a Non-Executive Director of JPMorgan Elect plc.

Geoff Hsu joined the Board in May 2018. He is a General Partner of OrbiMed, having joined in 2002 as a biotechnology analyst. Prior to joining OrbiMed, he worked as an analyst in the healthcare investment banking group at Lehman Brothers. Mr. Hsu received his A.B. degree summa cum laude from Harvard University and holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Prior to business school, he spent two years studying medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Steve Bates was appointed to the Board in July 2015 and is the Senior Independent Director and  Chairman of the Management Engagement Committee. He is a Director of GuardCap Asset Management Ltd. He has a wealth of experience as an investment manager and sits on or is adviser to various committees in the wealth management and pension fund areas. Previously he was head of global emerging markets at JP Morgan Asset Management and, more recently, the Chairman of Vietnam Opportunities Fund, JP Morgan Elect PLC and of Third Point Investors Limited.

A former Board member of the Francis Crick Institute and of the Biotech Industry Association, Lord Willetts was the Member of Parliament for Havant from 1992-2015 and was Minister for Universities and Science from 2010-2014. Before that, he worked at HM Treasury and the Number 10 Policy Unit. He also served as Paymaster General in John Major’s Government.

Lord Willetts is a board member of Darktrace plc, Verditek plc, Tekcapital PLC and Satixfy Communications Ltd. He is Co-chair of Synbioven, a company which invests in synthetic biology. He is President of the Resolution Foundation and serves on the board of UK Research and Innovation. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and of Nuffield College, Oxford.

Julia Le Blan joined the Board in July 2016 and is Chairman of the Audit Committee. A Chartered Accountant, she has worked in the financial services industry for over 30 years. She was formerly a tax partner at Deloitte and sat for two terms on the AIC's technical committee. Julia is a non-executive director of British & American Investment Trust PLC.  She was previously a non-executive director of BMO UK High Income Trust plc, Impax Environmental Markets plc, JP Morgan US Smaller Companies Investment Trust plc and Aberforth Smaller Companies Trust plc.

Dr Shepherd is the founder and a Director of Bellows Consulting Limited which operates in the biomedical translational sector, providing strategic advice and assisting clients in moving their projects closer to the market.

Previously Dr Shepherd was a senior member of the Innovations Division at the Wellcome Trust where she was responsible for the establishment, management and oversight of the Translation Fund, a £30M a year investment into new product development covering therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics, medical devices and regenerative medicine over a range of clinical indications. Working closely with project teams, from academic, not-for-profit and commercial organisations, she provided critical guidance and oversight in steering over 50 funded programmes from basic research towards or into the clinic.

Dr Shepherd has also held positions at AstraZeneca in Late-Stage Development and Manufacturing; at Global Prior Art (a patent specialist in intellectual property) based in Boston (US) carrying out competitor analysis, due diligence and prior art searching; and Brown University carrying out post-doctoral research into complex formulations.

Dr Shepherd is a Member of the CARB-X Advisory Board (www.carb-x.org), and a reviewer for Innovate UK.