Progenta
Founder Biographies
Dr John Cassells
(42) has an impressive track record of technical and management consultancy,
innovation, and company start-up. He has a rare combination of technical depth
and business acumen and is very knowledgeable across a wide range of
disciplines outside of his core biotechnology background. He brings an open
mind to problems and situations and quickly gets to grip with the fundamentals
from which realistic solutions are provided and effected.
Following a PhD in
Biochemistry, John worked for Tate & Lyle as a post-doctoral research
scientist. He started his consulting career with Scientific Generics, moving
on to The Technology Partnership (TTP) in 1991. He worked on a wide variety of
strategy, biotechnology, chemistry and engineering projects as a consultant
before establishing a role in business creation. He has founded three
businesses for TTP Group, based on his own ideas, and has created significant
value through this. The technologies underpinning the instrumentation
businesses, Myriad and Acumen Biosciences, were developed through two
international consortia of pharmaceutical companies and involved recruiting
nine companies predominantly from the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies.
Having seen his most recent prodigy (Acumen Bioscience Ltd) grow into a
successful company he resigned as Technical Director to focus on his own
ideas. He co-founded Progenta
(http://www.progenta.co.uk/),
a company specialising in diligence, company start-up, technical and
management support in life science and related technology sectors, in 2003.
(e-mail John:
jcassells@progenta.co.uk)
Dr Richard Philpott
(45) is an experienced businessman, manager and CEO with a strong
life science and technical management background. During 17 years as a
biotechnology industrialist he has worked for and managed several small
companies and held director level positions with large organisations. He has
an excellent track record of commercialising technologies, management and
problem solving.
Graduating in
Microbiology, Richard’s PhD in Microbial Biochemistry was sponsored by Porton
Down (PHLS) where he subsequently worked as a senior scientist. He joined
Alcan International in 1987 as a project manager where he led the development
of various separations products and also trained
(Chartered Institute of Marketing) as a Chartered Marketeer. He
subsequently held several commercial positions, gaining
valuable experience in technology
business. Whatman acquired the Alcan subsidiary in 1991 and Richard
became Director of R&D for Whatman International Ltd
in 1996. In this role he restructured and
commercially focused a function that had very much lost it’s way
and also ran an international business unit. He then
moved on to work directly with the Whatman CEO, as
Director of Strategic Developments,
providing
diligence and follow-up support for acquisitions (including the interim
management of newly acquired companies), licensing and strategic client
relationships as well as managing IP. TTP Group plc
(Cambridge, UK)
headhunted him in early 2001 to lead the commercialisation of technology
developed and pioneered by John
Cassells. As CEO of Acumen Bioscience Ltd he was responsible for
putting together a commercial organisation that successfully established a major
new drug-screening platform in the international market. He
co-founded Progenta (http://www.progenta.co.uk/),
a company specialising in diligence, company start-up, technical and
management support in life science and related technology sectors, in 2003. (e-mail
Richard:
rphilpott@progenta.co.uk)