OBN Announces Major Appointments to Strengthen its Board and Operations Team

OXFORD, England, February 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

OBN announces today that industry professionals Denise Goode and Sally Waterman have been appointed to its Board of Directors. Professor Chris Hawes will step down to take up a role on the OBN Advisory Group. The OBN commercial and BioTrinity teams have been strengthened with several new staff members.

OBN Board of Directors

Denise Goode, Executive Business Development Director, currently on garden leave from AstraZeneca's Business Development team, brings extensive financial, commercial and industry dealmaking experience. A chartered accountant and biologist by training, Denise joined AstraZeneca in 1994. Since then, Denise has worked in a broad portfolio of strategic and finance roles, and brings over a decade of both buy- and sell-side business development transaction expertise.  

Sally Waterman has held R&D leadership and operational roles in a wide range of biopharmaceuticals companies, including Protherics, KS Biomedix and Vernalis since 1995, prior to which she had a career in regulatory affairs in big pharma and the service sector. She joined PolyTherics as COO in 2009 and is currently Senior VP Corporate Development. Sally has been involved in several M&A transactions and has considerable experience of integrating businesses.

OBN Chairman David Laskow-Pooley comments, "We are delighted that Denise Goode and Sally Waterman have agreed to join the OBN Board. Year-on-year, the life sciences industry faces new challenges. It is vital we provide our members with the best available intelligence and understanding so they can position themselves precisely for investment and commercial success. Denise and Sally bring that depth of knowledge from different and complementary lifecycle viewpoints."  

"As Chris Hawes leaves the Board, we wish to acknowledge his instrumental role in founding OBN, then the Oxfordshire Bioscience Network, and his steadfast support and valuable contributions over the last decade. Thankfully Chris will remain in the OBN fold as a member of our Advisory Group."

OBN Operations Team

Carl Mahon and Neil Halliday have joined the Business Development team. A former OBN intern, Carl recently returned after completing an MSc in Biotech with Business.  Neil brings many years' experience gained in life science and informatics sales, having held senior sales roles at Informax, Inforsense and GeneData, and more recently as a sales and business development consultant working primarily with start-up business. Membership Administrator Jane Humphreys brings marketing and IT expertise from Oracle and Dell to OBN's Membership department where she will be updating databases and systems.   

Two key consultants - Rebecca Todd and Val Tate - are contributing to the build up to BioTrinity 2014. Rebecca Todd, Director of Investor Relations (IR), was most recently Director of Healthcare Ventures at Imperial Innovations plc. Val Tate, Director of Communications, with over 13 years' corporate communications consulting experience through BioValue, has broad PR and IR experience with a number of organisations including Antisoma, Skyepharma, the UK BioIndustry Association and Novartis.

The OBN Events Team now delivers over 30 networking and partnering events each year, including its flagship BioTrinity event. Strengthening the team are Abigail Wood, who has several years' experience in the not-for-profit sector, and Emily Highton joining from the healthcare provider environment.

About OBN

OBN (http://www.obn.org.uk) is the membership organisation supporting and bringing together the UK's emerging life science companies, corporate partners and investors within and beyond the Golden Triangle biocluster (formed by Oxford, Cambridge and London), providing networking, partnering, group purchasing, advocacy and advice. Through BioTrinity (http://www.biotrinity.org), UK's largest annual biopartnering and investment conference - this year expected to attract over 1000 delegates from 30 countries - OBN will generate more R&D-company-to-investor interactions than any other membership organisation in Europe.

Contacts
OBN
Jon Rees, CEO
Tel: +44(0)7795-233883
jon.rees@obn.org.uk

Citigate Dewe Rogerson
Chris Gardner/Sita Shah    
T: +44(0)20-7638-9571
chris.gardner@citigatedr.co.uk / sita.shah@citigatedr.co.uk