BIOCURATE - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Director
• Chief Commercialisation Officer

Dr Alastair Hick is the inaugural Chief Commercialisation Officer at Monash University where he has been responsible for developing and overseeing the successful IP commercialisation program. The IP commercialisation program included many different interventions including proof of concept and investment funds and strategic partnerships with multiple investors and corporate licensing partners. He also oversees The Generator, which runs a wide range of entrepreneurship programs across Monash with the objective of developing entrepreneurial talent. He was the Chair of Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia from 2015-2018, on the Board from 2009-2018, and became a Life Member in 2020 and was awarded Technology Transfer Professional of the Year in 2023. He has developed and run multiple training programs for technology transfer professionals across Australia. He currently is a member of the NHMRC Health Research Impact Committee and the Hudson Institute of Medical Research IP Committee. Alastair has a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry with Biochemistry, a PhD in Chemical Ecology, an MBA from the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a Director of Monash spinouts Jupiter Ionics, Phrenix Therapeutics, Myostellar and Flex Immunotherapeutics as well as VC investor Uniseed. He was previously a Director of Amaero International prior to its IPO in late 2019 and was a founding Director of the $30M Trans-Tasman Commercialisation Fund, and a member of its investment committee.

Job Titles:

• Director
• Member of the Investment Committee
• Senior Vice President
• Head of Strategic Industry Engagement at CSL Limited
• Investment Committee

Dr Andrea Douglas is the Senior Vice President, Organisation Transformation and External Affairs at CSL Limited, located at CSL's headquarters in Parkville, Australia. Dr Douglas leads CSL's Organisation Transformation Office, which integrates and drives major organisational design changes that have broad implications to the business across areas of strategy, structure, governance, process and people. Dr Douglas also leads CSL's government affairs strategy in Australia. Dr Douglas has held various roles at CSL since 2005, including Vice President, R&D Strategy and External Affairs where she led the global R&D strategy, product portfolio, R&D investment and prioritisation processes. She was also Vice President, Licensing, Head of Global R&D Project Management and Program Director, Influenza. Before joining CSL Dr Douglas was the CEO of the Gene CRC. She also held a senior research role at WEHI where she studied the molecular genetics of breast cancer. Dr Douglas has a PhD degree in Forensic Medicine from Monash University. She also holds a Masters degree in Health Administration and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She has been a Director of AusBiotech since 2013 and the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute since 2016 and joined the BioCurate Board in February 2018. Dr Andrea Douglas is the Head of Strategic Industry Engagement at CSL Limited, located at CSL's headquarters in Parkville, Australia. Dr Douglas leads CSL's Australian Public Affairs strategy and implementation with a particular emphasis on engagement with CSL's industry stakeholders.

Job Titles:

• Associate Director of Project Management

Dr Andy Allen has academic, small biotech, and large pharmaceutical company experience spanning over 20 years, in both the UK and Australia. Andy completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Southampton and Cambridge University, respectively. As an academic researcher Andy studied protein chemistry and bacterial pathogenesis and utilized these skills working as a project leader for 10 years at Pfizer Animal Health and Zoetis developing vaccines for animals. Andy also has extensive experience in identifying opportunities for development and commercialisation and more recently supporting the translation of academic research at the University of Melbourne.

Job Titles:

• Associate Director of Small Molecule Therapeutics

Dr Belinda Huff is a medicinal chemist with 8 years drug discovery experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Belinda began working as a research scientist at Bionomics in 2012 and progressed to the position of medicinal chemistry project manager. She has been involved in a range of drug discovery projects primarily in the areas of neuroscience and oncology, including being a key scientific contributor to a project that was licensed to pharma and is currently in clinical trials. Belinda has managed projects involving many collaborators and CROs located in Australia and around the world and has developed numerous skills and tools to support successful relationships with stakeholders. Belinda completed her Bachelor of Science (Molecular Biology) with Honours at the University of Adelaide and went on to earn her PhD in organic chemistry from the University of New South Wales.

Job Titles:

• Director of Project Management

Dr Cathy Drinkwater has extensive experience in both academic research and industry drug development. Following completion of her PhD at the Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne, Cathy went on to postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University School of Medicine (California) and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (Melbourne). Since then she has worked in the commercial sector, as Principal Scientist at AMRAD Corporation (later Zenyth Therapeutics) and Project Manager at CSL, and at the "interface", with the Cancer Therapeutics CRC. During that time, she was responsible for a number of early discovery and development projects, working with research teams to enhance their collaborative efforts and facilitate the timely delivery of their outcomes. Cathy has experience in a range of therapeutic areas including endocrinology, neurobiology, oncology, immunology and inflammation.

Job Titles:

• Executive Director, Research and Development

Dr Christopher Chan has significant experience in leading and managing pre-clinical research and translational development of scientific programs, asset and pipeline growth, portfolio management, and program commercialization strategy.

Job Titles:

• Director of Partnerships

Dr Eric Hayes has academic, commercial drug development and pharmaceutical R&D support services experience, spanning over 25 years, in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. Eric completed undergraduate and post-graduate studies in medical pharmacology at the University of British Columbia and the National University of Singapore. As a scientist, Eric has deep experience in preclinical drug development and supportive assay/model development. He has a breadth of therapeutic area experience including CNS, respiratory, metabolic, infectious diseases, cardiovascular and genitourinary diseases. As an entrepreneur, he has assisted academic and commercial individuals and institutions with discovery, development and commercialisation of a variety of life-sciences technologies with a strong focus on human therapeutics development.

Job Titles:

• Senior Scientist, Protein Sciences

Dr Heique Bogdawa is a biochemist with over 15 years protein engineering experience in the development of high-quality biological reagents and target validation assays for drug discovery.

Job Titles:

• Director of Biology

Dr Jaclyn Sceneay is an immuno-oncologist with experience in small molecule and PROTAC drug discovery, and microbiome therapeutics. Prior to BioCurate, Jaclyn has worked in biotechnology at both Seres Therapeutics and Bristol-Myers Squibb in Boston, Massachusetts. Jaclyn has experience leading cross-functional drug discovery programs from early target validation through hit-to-lead activities for SMI and PROTAC therapeutics, and in development of translational research models to perform IND-enabling studies for novel microbiome therapeutics. Jaclyn completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and undertook postdoctoral studies at both QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Job Titles:

• CEO

Kathy brings over 25 years of experience in senior leadership and advisory roles primarily in the life science sector, with deep experience in technology transfer (IP, licensing, partnerships), venture capital, creating and advancing spin out companies, and operating in the nexus between research and the pharmaceutical industry. Kathy joins BioCurate from Monash Innovation (Senior Director Commercialisation), having led the growing Commercialisation team, and managed a large and dynamic portfolio of early stage assets. She has had a strong transaction focus, brokering numerous deals with major pharmaceutical companies, as well creating more than 25 Monash spin offs for the development of new therapeutics, many of which have secured multi-million dollar investments. She has strong corporate governance experience, having held 17 Directorships and 5 Observer positions. Previously, Kathy was Senior Investment Manager at Queensland Investment Corporation, which managed several funds both in Australia and USA, investing in more than 20 biotech/life science companies and generating significant returns for Australian investors. Kathy has also held senior roles in technology transfer at the University of Queensland and a number of its spin out companies. Kathy has also made substantial non-commercial impacts during her career, including through her role as Director, Research & Advocacy at Ovarian Cancer Australia. She was crucial in developing a National Action Plan for high impact research and to inform, engage and amplify the voices of women with ovarian cancer, through consumer-driven research. Kathy brings over 25 years of experience in senior leadership and advisory roles primarily in the life science sector, with deep experience in technology transfer, venture capital, creating and advancing spin out companies, and operating in the nexus between research and the pharmaceutical industry.

Job Titles:

• Executive
• Independent Director
• Member of the Investment Committee
• Investment Committee

Marie Lindner, MD has worked in executive roles in pharmaceutical, biotech, venture capital, start-up and medtech companies with experience across therapeutic areas and modalities and between business and clinical development for over 30 years. She was recruited to start a team at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, focused on finding new trends in science and medicine. Marie, now retired, maintains several consultancies and is active on a number of boards. Before Novartis, Marie led gasteroenterology licensing at Shire, after five years as a Venture Partner at BioAdvance, a startup biotech VC group, serving on 8 startup boards. Previously she worked in business and clinical development at five other medium-large biotech and pharma companies, co-founded two startups and played a senior role in a cell therapy company. Marie was board certified in internal medicine and clinical nutrition, was a resident in general surgery and internal medicine and a fellow in atherosclerosis/lipid metabolism/nutrition. She was a faculty member at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr Marie Lindner has worked in executive roles in pharmaceutical, biotech, venture capital, start-up and medtech companies with experience across therapeutic areas and modalities and between business and clinical development for over 30 years.

Job Titles:

• Associate Director
• Associate Director, Medicinal Chemistry Discovery and Stakeholder Management

Dr Tifelle Reisinger is a medicinal chemist with drug discovery experience in the pharmaceutical industry and contract research organisations (CRO) in France, UK and Australia.

Job Titles:

• Partnerships and Strategy Manager

Francis Kirby has project management experience in the academic and corporate sector together with a research background in the fields of Neuroscience and Immunology. Francis has worked for the past two years in KPMG's R&D Advisory practice as well as across the Commercialisation and Grants team working directly with university researchers to commercialise their studies. Prior to this, he worked in both an academic research and project management capacity at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research at Monash University, and the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Melbourne. This breadth of experience has given Francis a strong understanding of the research environment, commercial considerations and industry funding opportunities together with skills in communication, researcher engagement and project management.

Job Titles:

• Executive
• Operations Manager

Michele Neisemann has extensive experience in executive administration, human resources, operations, and project management in the R&D sector.

Job Titles:

• Director
• Executive Director of Research
• Non - Executive Director of the Bionics Institute

Ken is passionate about building and growing innovative businesses driven by science, engineering and technology. Ken's current roles at the University of Melbourne are Executive Director of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (RIC) and CEO, UoM Commercial Ltd where he is focused on growing the research business, developing external partnerships, streamlining operations and increasing innovation through the translation and commercialisation of knowledge and intellectual property. He graduated from Cardiff University with a first-class degree in applied chemistry before spending 20 years in global executive leadership roles for BP based in the UK, New York, California and Melbourne. More recently Ken was MD of the private-equity owned hrl: technology group, a specialist engineering and testing business operating nationally and across SE Asia, before joining its board of directors as a Non-Executive Director in 2017. Ken is also a Non-Executive Director of the Bionics Institute and a Council Member of the Australian British Chamber of Commerce. Mr Ken Jefferd is the Executive Director of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (RIC) and CEO, UoM Commercial Ltd at the University of Melbourne where he is focused on growing the research business, developing external partnerships, streamlining operations and increasing innovation through the translation and commercialisation of knowledge and intellectual property.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Investment Committee
• Investment Committee

Josephine has over 19 years of hedge fund, family office and global asset management experience including over 10 years of listed, pre-IPO and early stage Pan-Asia healthcare investment experience. She has been CIO and portfolio manager with combined assets under management worth over US$5 billion. She is the founder and CIO of Aionious Capital Limited, a dedicated healthcare investment company which invests and provides business development and commercialization strategies in the Pan-Asia region, specifically in China. She brings in an extensive network of experts in operation, clinical, market positioning and regulatory knowledge in the Pan-Asia healthcare landscape. Her investments in healthcare companies at different stages has led to a few successful commercialization launches of pharmaceutical products, regulatory approvals for decontamination solutions for hospitals and research centers, and the signing of strategic partnerships in commercialization transactions and IPOs. Previously, she was Head of Asia Absolute return and alternative strategies at UBP; Managing Partner of Light & Salt Capital Management; Regional Portfolio Manager at Robeco HK Limited and Yu Ming Investments and General Partner at L-R Global Partners LP in New York. Ms Josephine Wu has over 19 years of hedge fund, family office and global asset management experience specialising in healthcare across the Pan-Asia region.