People
ImmunoSolv operates on two sites – in Edinburgh BioQuarter and Aberdeen – under an experienced management team:
Dr Ruth Murray, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Ruth Murray is a co-founder and CEO of ImmunoSolv. After her PhD, Ruth worked as a research scientist in virology, immunology and cancer research for seven years, before qualifying as a solicitor in 1996. She then worked for major commercial legal firms in England, and latterly in Edinburgh, where she gained considerable experience in commercial and intellectual property law, leaving commercial law practice to become ImmunoSolv’s first employee in April 2007. She has led the team to develop ImmunoSolv from a small start-up to a growing company with an existing and growing revenue stream plus a portfolio of patent protected, step-changing, technology platforms, providing capacity for high-value company growth.
Professor Chris Gregory, Chief Scientific Officer
Chris is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of ImmunoSolv. He is also Professor of Inflammatory Cell Biology and Deputy Director of the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research (in which he leads the Inflammation and Cancer Group), Queen’s Medical Research Institute, University of Edinburgh. His research interests are in the role of cell death and inflammatory processes in tumourigenesis and anti-tumour immunity and in how dying cells condition their microenvironment. He has more than 25 years’ experience of researching cellular immune mechanisms, especially the regulation of apoptosis in the context of B-cell neoplasia. He also has significant experience of commercialisation of academic research, company formation, financing and management. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications (including those appearing in the top journals such as Nature, Cell, Immunity and Science) and is an inventor on numerous patents/applications.
Dr Keith Charlton, Chief Technical Officer
Dr Keith Charlton was formerly co-founder and CEO/CSO of Grampian Bio-consultants which merged with ImmunoSolv in 2010. Keith is a molecular biologist and antibody engineer with over 14 years experience. He was a co-founder and Director of Innovations of Haptogen Ltd., a Scottish biotechnology company focused on developing human therapeutic antibodies to targets that are difficult to address with conventional antibody generation approaches. He has considerable expertise in the development of recombinant antibodies from novel sources against haptens and other challenging antigens, and their development for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. His work has been widely published in the scientific press and presented at numerous international meetings, and he has been invited to contribute to publications aimed at the research community detailing the very latest advances in antibody engineering technology. Keith has acted as a consultant to large pharmaceutical companies and smaller UK biotech SMEs.
Dr Gillian Broadbent, Chief Operating Officer
Dr Gill Broadbent is a co-founder and COO of Grampian Bio-Consultants which began trading late 2008 and became a spin out from Aberdeen University in early 2009 prior to its merger with ImmunoSolv in 2010. Gillian was previously co-founder and Director of Research and Development at the antibody engineering company Haptogen Ltd, acquired by Wyeth in October 2007. During her time at Haptogen, Gill was responsible for successfully completing contracts to tight deadlines with pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, Ministry of Defence and numerous diagnostic companies, as well as being responsible for the management of a 3 year anti-infectives collaboration between Haptogen and Daewoong. Gill has over 14 years experience in antibody engineering, and in the development of combined antibody and whole cell based biosensors. She has presented at International meetings and her work has been published in numerous scientific papers. She has produced antibodies to a number of difficult targets for use in both the diagnostic and therapeutic arena.
Dr John Pears (Non-Executive Director, Clinical)
John is currently Director of Safety Science at AstraZeneca (AZ), one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies; in this job he has world-wide responsibility for developing and applying state of the art scientific techniques to the anticipation and evaluation of safety in man. Since joining AZ as a physician in 1992 he has held a variety of global development and commercialisation roles from leading the development, regulatory approval and launch of a major primary care brand to running first time in man studies which has given him significant exposure to science, regulatory and commercial aspects of the pharma industry. More recently he worked evaluating business opportunities for AZ in non-traditional therapeutic areas involving setting business strategies and reviewing licensing opportunities. John was awarded his medical degree and subsequent Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Edinburgh during 9 years of academic clinical practice before joining the Pharmaceutical industry.
John Pool (Chairman)
John has extensive experience in the capital project, devices and pharmaceutical markets in healthcare, having succeeded in initiating and managing start-up companies, project-managing major projects abroad, fund-raising (private and public), investor relations and corporate governance. John sits on the board of both private and public companies.
