ZIHIPP - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director Corporate Operations
Dr Cooke is responsible for corporate, legal/IP and business development activities at Zihipp. He has worked in tech start-up companies for over 15 years. Previously Dr Cooke was Business Director at Plaxica, a process engineering and green chemistry company that developed renewable platform chemical technology.
Dr Cooke was Director, Intellectual Property & Licensing, at Thiakis, a biotech company focused on obesity and metabolic disease, where he worked on business development and intellectual property strategy prior to the sale of the company to Pfizer in 2008. Previously Dunstan was a Technology Executive at Touchstone Innovations (now IP Group plc), the technology transfer, investment and incubation company.
Dr Minnion is responsible for the day-to-day management of all R&D, manufacturing, analytical and preclinical activities. He has long experience in the management of a research team focusing on basic research and drug development, taking candidate drugs from the lab bench to clinical trials. He gained his doctorate from Imperial College London and worked previously for Inpharmatica Ltd. He leads the discovery phase of the drug discovery programmes. Dr Minnion is the scientific lead and manager of the outsourcing of CMC activities, formulation development, safety pharmacology and bioanalysis managing the partnerships with CMOs and CROs. He is also responsible for regulatory strategy and the preparation of regulatory documents.
Dr Malviya is responsible for the project management of all clinical activities. This involves coordinating and supporting the activities of the trial management group, external CROs and other collaborative groups by planning and implementing systems vital to the completion of the project. She has undertaken this position for the past five years at Imperial College London, and her role includes clinical trial administration to ensure that the studies are conducted to strict scientific and regulatory standards. She gained her doctorate from UCL and has over six years' post-doctoral experience, including two years researching gene therapy in the US, and has co-authored 17 research papers.
Mr Khandan-Nia is responsible for providing project finance oversight to the company. Mr Khandan-Nia's background combines scientific research, know-how and financial business management. He has been Departmental and Laboratory Manager for Metabolic Medicine at Imperial College London for the last 25 years where he is responsible for contract management and the commercial activities of the department, including investment fund raising. He has managed budgets totalling c.£50 million and produced their resulting accounts.