Editing Avacta Group Plc (section)

=== Management ===
The Avacta Group Board of Directors provide experienced strategic and practical guidance to the Company to help ensure that the interests of all shareholders are met and that corporate good practice is followed. 

==== Dr Eliot Forster Non-executive Chairman ====
Eliot was appointed as Chairman to the Board in June 2018, bringing with him three decades of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of F-star and also Non-executive Director of Immatics NV, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing TCR-based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer (NASDAQ IMTX). Prior to joining F-star, Eliot was Chief Executive Officer at Immunocore, Creabilis Therapeutics and Solace Pharmaceuticals Inc. The early part of Eliot’s career was at GSK and Pfizer. 

Eliot holds a PhD in neurophysiology from the University of Liverpool and an MBA from Henley Management College. He is an Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool and at the University of Pavia. He is a Board member of OSCHR (UK Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research) and the National Genomics Board. 

Eliot is a member of the Remuneration Committee and the Audit Committee. 

==== Dr Alastair Smith Chief Executive Officer ====
Alastair was the Founder of Avacta and has been Chief Executive Officer since its inception in 2005. Alastair has extensive management, strategic planning and transactional experience, having led the public and private M&A activities of the Group including the IPO of the Group in 2006 via a reverse merger. He is well known in the UK public markets; a respected and trusted executive with many years’ experience of investor relations in the UK, Europe and the US. He has successfully delivered multiple follow-on fundraisings for the Group. 

Alastair is also Non-executive Chairman of SPARTA Biodiscovery, an Imperial College spin-out providing cuttingedge analytical instrumentation to biopharmaceutical developers to enable nano-formulations of next-generation therapeutics. 

Alastair is a scientist by training with a degree and PhD in Physics from Manchester University. Following a period of working in the US, he returned in 1995 to take up an academic position at Leeds University, becoming Professor of Molecular Biophysics at the age of 38. Over a ten-year period, through close collaboration with life scientists, he built one of the leading biophysics research groups in Europe before leaving his academic career in 2007 to focus full time on delivering value to Avacta shareholders. 

==== Tony Gardiner Chief Financial Officer ====
Tony joined Avacta in 2016 as Chief Financial Officer and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. He has over 25 years’ experience of senior financial and operational management roles across several different sectors including extensive M&A transactional and fundraising experience. Between 2007 and 2011, Tony was the Chief Financial Officer of AIM-listed Fusion IP plc, an IP commercialisation company, which was subsequently acquired by IP Group plc in 2014. He played a key role in supporting the growth of the business and oversaw all finance activities as well as directly supporting life sciences and health technology companies in Fusion’s portfolio. 

Prior to joining Avacta, Tony worked for AHR (formerly Aedas), an international architecture and building consultancy practice, where he had been Finance Director since 2011. Tony has also held senior finance roles within Eversheds LLP, KCOM Group plc and Hickson International. 

==== Dr Trevor Nicholls Non-executive Director ====
Trevor brings considerable experience in the commercialisation of innovative life science technologies from his previous roles as Non-executive Chairman of Oxford Nanopores Technologies, Chief Commercial Officer at Affymetrix, founder and Chief Executive Officer of UK biotech company Oxagen Ltd and Commercial Director of the Life Sciences business at Amersham International (now part of Danaher Corporation). 

Trevor, prior to his retirement at the end of 2020, was Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International, a not-for-profit intergovernmental organisation whose mission is to improve lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment. 

Trevor is also Non-executive Chairman of Fargro Limited a provider of products and services for Horticulture, Nonexecutive Chairman of Iota Sciences Limited, a spin-out company from the University of Oxford which is commercialising innovative microfluidic technology for the life sciences sector, a Non-executive Director of Conidia Bioscience Limited, which develops and sells patented lateral flow tests for the detection of microbial contamination of aviation and diesel fuels, and a Nonexecutive Director of Wobble Genomics Ltd, a spin-out of the Roslin Institute, specialising in DNA analytics and diagnostics. Previously Trevor has been Non-executive Chairman of Activiomics Limited, a biomarker discovery specialist, as well as a Non-executive Director of hVivo plc, a clinical research organisation. Trevor is Chair of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Audit Committee. 

==== Paul Fry Non-executive Director ====
Paul was appointed as a Nonexecutive Director in February 2020. Paul has extensive financial experience across several industries including biotech, pharmaceutical and telecommunications. Paul is currently Chief Financial Officer of Argenta, a global CRO and CDMO specialising in animal health. Prior to this he was Chief Financial Officer of Vectura Group Ltd, an industry-leading inhaled drug delivery specialist which up until 2021 was listed on the FTSE Main Market. 

Paul was also Chief Financial Officer of Immunocore Limited, a leading biotech company focused on the development of a new class of immunotherapeutic drugs based on proprietary T-cell receptor technology. Paul has also served as Director of Global Finance Operations at Vodafone plc and spent more than 25 years at GlaxoSmithKline (‘GSK’), where he held several senior roles including Head of Global Finance Services and Chief Financial Officer for GSK’s Italian pharmaceutical business. 

Paul holds a degree from Oxford University and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accounts.

Paul is Chair of the Audit Committee and a member of the Remuneration Committee.

==== Dr Mark Goldberg Non-executive Director ====
Mark was appointed as a Non-executive Director in August 2021 and is a medical oncologist, haematologist and a biotechnology executive. Mark currently serves on the boards of ImmunoGen, GlycoMimetics, Blueprint Medicines, and Walden Biosciences. 

Mark was part of the executive management team of Synageva Biopharma from 2011 until 2014. Prior to that, he served in various management capacities of increasing responsibility at Genzyme Corporation from 1996 until 2011, including as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development. Prior to joining Genzyme, he was a full-time staff physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he still holds an appointment. He is currently a Lecturer in Medicine (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. 

Mark is also a long-time American Cancer Society (ACS) and ACS Cancer Action Network volunteer. He was a member of the American Cancer Society New England Division Board from 2010 to 2017 and has been a member of the national Board of Directors of the American Cancer Society since 2019, currently servicing as Scientific Officer of the board. 

Mark received his AB from Harvard College (magna cum laude) and his MD (cum laude) from Harvard Medical School (Harvard MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology). 

==== Dr Christina Coughlin Non-executive Director ====
Christina was appointed as a Nonexecutive Director in March 2022. Christina is the Chief Executive Officer of Cytolmmune Therapeutics LLC, which is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on development and commercialisation of novel cancer immunotherapy products designed to use the patient’s own immune system to eliminate cancer cells. Christina has a broad background in biotechnology and global pharmaceuticals, with a comprehensive drug development background from pre-IND to filing experience and has a track record of building drug development teams in global companies. 

Christina previously served as Chief Medical Officer to Rubius Therapeutics. Inc, where she led the clinical development, translational medicine and regulatory efforts in the allogeneic red cell therapy platform. Prior to Rubius, Christina was with Tmunity Therapeutics, Inc., where she served as Chief Medical Officer and was responsible for the development of autologous CAR-T and TCR-T cellular therapies. 

Christina has held other leadership roles in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology fields in her career including Chief Medical Officer at Immunocore, where she led the development of Kimmtrak™, recently approved for the treatment of metastatic uveal melanoma. Christina was also an Oncology Asset Team Leader at Pfizer and Clinical Program Team Lead at Novartis. She received her MD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and completed fellowships in Haematology and Oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and in the Translational Research Group under the direction of Carl June, MD at the University of Pennsylvania.