Dr Chris Hand, Chairman and CEO

Dr Chris Hand has over 20 years experience in the medical diagnostics industry in both in the development and commercialisation of in vitro diagnostic products.  He is a director of Abingdon Health Ltd, Bioscience Ventures Ltd and Alta Bioscience Ltd and is CEO of Molecular Vision Ltd, a spin-out of Imperial College, London. 

Chris founded the medical diagnostics company Cozart Bioscience Ltd and was Chief Executive of Cozart plc, following IPO on AIM in 2004, until October 2007 when the company was sold to Concateno plc for £65 million. During this time Cozart won three SMART awards from the Department of Trade and Industry, won Millennium Product Status for its ground breaking Cozart® RapiScan on-site saliva drug testing system and acquired companies in Sweden, Spain and the UK.   Chris was a non-executive director of Concateno plc until its sale to US listed Alere Inc for £147m in August 2009 and stayed with the company as consultant until June 2010. 

Prior to founding Cozart, Chris was Director of Research for the European base of DPC (now part of Siemens Healthcare Solutions) developing a wide range of immunodiagnostic kits in a variety of formats.
He has a DPhil from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oxford and a BSc in Applied Biochemistry from Brunel University.

 

Dr Brett Pollard, Chief Operating Officer

Dr Brett Pollard has been active in the healthcare industry for over 10 years initially as an equity analyst.  Before joining Abingdon Health Ltd in 2008 he was Head of Life Science Research at Numis where he led the team to Number 2 in the 2007 Extel ratings.   Prior to his role at Numis, Brett spent time at Seymour-Pierce in London and at Deutsche Bank based in Frankfurt, Germany.  

Brett has extensive corporate development experience and is a Director of Abingdon Health Limited, Bioscience Ventures Limited and Alta Bioscience Limited

He has a PhD in Molecular Virology from St Andrews University from where he also has a BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology.
 

Professor Alan Boyd, Non-Executive Director

Professor Alan Boyd is an acknowledged pharmaceutical physician and expert in all phases of drug development across a number of therapeutic areas. He is founder and director of Alan Boyd Consultants Ltd and a board member of Genable Technologies Ltd, Celentyx Ltd, BioEden Ltd.  

Alan is the former R&D Director of Ark Therapeutics (pre- and post-IPO) and was in the 1990s was Director, Clinical & Medical Affairs, ICI Pharma, Canada and Head of Medical Research for Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Royal College of Physicians in recognition of his expertise in medicine development and a Board Member of the Faculty.

In November 2009 he was appointed an Honorary Professor in the College of Medical and Dental Sciences at the University of Birmingham Medical School, in recognition of his expertise in medicines development.

 

Professor Lawrence Young, Non-Executive Director

Professor Lawrence Young is Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of College of Medical and Dental Sciences at the University of Birmingham.   He graduated from the University of Birmingham and gained his PhD there in Medicine.

Apart from a couple of brief spells in the USA, Lawrence has continued to work in Birmingham studying the role of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in the pathogenesis of cancer.  He became Head of Division of Cancer Studies and Director of the Cancer Research UK Institute for Cancer Studies in 2001.

Lawrence was awarded a DSc in 1999 and his contribution to clinical research was acknowledged with the conferment of an Honorary Membership to the Royal College of Physicians in 1998.  The use of pathological specimens to study the development of cancer has been a significant theme in Lawrence’s research and he was elected as a member of the Royal College of Pathologists in 1993 subsequently becoming a Fellow in 2000.  Lawrence was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007 and was a non-Executive Director of the Birmingham Children’s Hospital from 2008-2010

He has received major grants from Cancer Research UK, Leukaemia Research Fund and the Medical Research Council and has over 250 publications. He is listed as one of the World’s most highly cited researchers.