Sirigen: Management

Drummond Paris

Drummond brings three-decades of pharmaceutical industry operations and management experience to Sirigen After joining Sandoz (now Novartis) in 1981 he rose to become Global Head of the Transplantation and Immunology Unit (Basel, Switzerland) and was appointed CEO & Country President of Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK in 2001. At Novartis, his responsibilities included the delivery of on-budget performance within the pharmaceutical business units; providing effective governance and performance overview in consumer health, Ciba Vision, animal health and manufacturing business. He also represented Novartis to key stakeholders. In addition to his chairmanship of Sirigen, Drummond is Chairman of Karus and President of Kowa Pharmaceuticals Europe.

Nick Kerton PhD, FRIC
Chief Executive Officer

Nick Kerton Dr. Kerton has a unique combination of experience in the specialty chemical and molecular diagnostic testing industries. Having completed a Ph.D. in Organic Synthetic Chemistry at Nottingham University with Professor Gerry Pattenden, Dr. Kerton joined the Wellcome Foundation as a Research Scientist. He left Wellcome to join DuPont, in its Clinical and Instrumentation Division. Whilst there, he progressed to the role of European Business Development Manager, responsible for the identification of new business opportunities for DuPont in the emerging biotechnology industry. Dr. Kerton then moved to Whatman Reeve Angel PLC, a £50m business, as International Marketing Director with a specific interest in developing and establishing new businesses opportunities. Subsequent to this position, Dr. Kerton moved into the area of rapid methods in microbiology as Managing Director of Malthus Instruments, a subsidiary of Radiometer of Denmark. He then became a member of the management team who established Celsis PLC and went on to launch the Company successfully on the UK Stock Market. Over the last 9 years, Dr. Kerton has moved back into the pharmaceutical and drug discovery market, joining Maybridge in 1999 as C.E.O. and led the successful sale of Maybridge to Fisher Scientific International. Dr. Kerton is currently the non-Exec Chairman of Lab 21 funded by Merlin Biosciences (UK).

Clive Minihan MA, MBA, FCMA
Chief Financial Officer

Clive Minihan Clive has over 30 years line management and consulting experience in the UK and USA. He has worked with British Petroleum and The Burton Group, and was a founding director of the strategic consulting business The Credo Group. Clive has a degree in PPE from Oxford, a Harvard MBA, and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Brent S. Gaylord PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Cofounder

Brent Gaylord Dr. Gaylord received his Ph.D. for the study of Light Emitting Conjugated Polymers for Use in Biological Detection Platforms and is responsible for directing and performing Sirigen’s critical research and development. In his work as a graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara and in collaboration with his advisor, Professor Guillermo C. Bazan and the Nobel Prize winning physicist, Professor Alan J. Heeger, Dr. Gaylord invented Sirigen’s proprietary technologies and subsequently cofounded the Company. Prior to joining the University of California Santa Barbara, he obtained a B.S. in Chemistry-Material Science Engineering and a minor in Mathematics from the United States Air Force Academy. Dr. Gaylord’s experience in chemistry and materials science is extensive, which has resulted in several major accolades including the American Institute of Chemists Foundation award.

Rusty Reed NED

Rusty Reed Mr. Reed is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Great Pacific Capital. Most recently he served in a senior finance capacity at ValueClick focusing on one of its largest subsidiaries, Commission Junction.

Prior to his position with ValueClick Mr. Reed was the Director of Corporate Development at Fastclick where he facilitated the $75M private-equity recapitalization, the Company’s Initial Public Offering and ultimately the sale of the Company to ValueClick. Prior to Fastclick, he was in the Corporate Development group at Homestore.com (now Move.com), where his team closed over $180M in acquisitions. Initially, Mr. Reed began his career on the Corporate Finance side of the Investment Banking business where he focused on capital raising for technology companies. Mr. Reed holds degrees in Psychology and Business Administration from Vanderbilt University.

Now with nearly $1 billion in financial transaction experience in the technology industry, Mr. Reed is focusing on the “high tech - high touch” investment model that he and Mr. Gross are employing at Great Pacific. Mr. Reed currently serves on the boards of Sirigen, and Procore Technologies.

Observers
Kit Hunter-Gordon
Seraphim

Rebecca Todd
Oxford Capital

Dr Ian Taylor PhD
Commercial Director

Ian Taylor a First Class Honours Degree in Biochemistry with Physiology from the University of Southampton where he stayed on to complete in 1990 a Ph.D thesis in protein chemistry and molecular biology. Ian then completed formal business training and accountancy qualifications with KPMG.

Ian was Global Sales and Marketing Director for Genetix PLC, an AIM listed company, where we was responsible for turnover of £13M and 35 people.
Prior to this, Ian had held Director and Senior Management positions at Perkin Elmer LAS, reporting to the President of Life Sciences.

Ian's most recent position was as Commercial Director for a start-up called Cellexus Biosystems PLC which specialised in disposable or single-use bioreactors.
Ian is a member of the Institute of Directors (IoD).

Adrian Palmer PhD
Director of Biology

Adrian Palmer Dr Palmer brings a blend of scientific and commercial skills to the organisation. Dr Palmer gained his Ph.D. from Durham University in the U.K. where he evaluated a promising novel approach for the diagnosis of neuroblastoma, a common paediatric tumours and one with a strong correlation of favourable outcome with early diagnosis. On the basis of his thesis he went on to 7 years of successful research funded by the British Heart Foundation. Dr Palmer was the recipient of numerous BHF grants in his time at the Institute for Cardiovascular Research in Leeds and later the department of Surgery at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Dr Palmer decided the life of the tenured academic did not hold sufficient appeal and took a technical position with Roche in the UK, where he worked with Roche Applied Science and Roche Molecular Diagnostics. During 8 years he worked in several departments, acquiring Chartered Institute of marketing qualifications and Institute membership during his term in Sales and Marketing for Roche Applied Science instrumentation. On the basis of his technical ability Dr Palmer was seconded to a global position in Penzberg, Germany before returning to the UK.
Having gained a wealth of commercial experience Dr Palmer joined Lab 21, a dynamic newly founded organisation providing diagnostic services to healthcare and pharmaceutical market segments. He initially worked in Business Development before managing the pharmaceutical business unit where he was responsible for acquiring 2 of the “Big 5” pharmaceutical companies as long term clients within his first year.

Dr Palmer was pleased to join Sirigen where he provides a strong commercial focus to the technical direction of the Company.

Glenn Bartholomew PhD
Director of Chemistry

Glenn Bartholomew received his B.S. in Chemistry from SUNY Geneseo in 1998. He received his PhD. in Chemistry at UC Santa Barbara in 2002 and went on to a post-doctoral appointment with Alan Heeger in the Physics Department at UCSB. In 2004, he started as an assistant professor at the University of Washington where his research has focused on self-assembled semiconductor junctions and nonlinear optical materials as well as new semiconducting polymers for photovoltaic applications. Glenn joined Sirigen in 2008 as Director of Chemistry.