A serial entrepreneur having begun a career in the Life Sciences team at PA Consulting group followed by co-founding two companies in the information technology and life sciences sector. The second of these companies, Oxygen Healthcare Ltd was acquired by Piramal Enterprises Ltd (BSE: PEL). Sunil co-founded o2h ventures which involves discovery services / collaborations, seeding drug discovery, academic in-licensing and biotechnology incubation. Sunil has a degree in Biochemistry and an MBA from Cambridge University.

Prashant is a serial entrepreneur in life sciences and tech in which one of those companies was acquired by a public company. He is currently active in seed investing (a portfolio of ~50 companies), product/IP development, services, and building lab/office infrastructure. The early career was with the Strategy group at Accenture. He has a BEng, an MSc, in which he worked on the Human Genome Program at the Sanger Centre, and an MPhil in Management from the Judge Institute. Prashant is also a General Partner in the o2h SEIS/EIS Human Health Funds.

Nilesh leads the global operations of o2h group covering a wide range of innovation led investment, life-science and technology businesses. He is also overseeing the development and execution of the new o2h discovery Shirish Research Centre in Ahmedabad, India. Prior to joining o2h group, Nilesh worked with Piramal Group in various capacities including as an Alliance Manager for a risk-share oncology-based collaboration with a US Big Pharma and has also worked as the Head of Biology in Piramal Discovery solutions. Nilesh obtained his Ph.D. from Ohio University and completed a post-doc in Immunology, Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the author and inventor of >30 life science patents and publications. He received the Young Scientist of India award from OPPI in 2010.

Andy is a highly experienced and accomplished Medicinal Chemist with over 25 years of experience in major pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca. He has extensive experience across all phases of drug discovery and has played a key role in the development of five candidates that have reached clinical trials. Andy is a prolific author and inventor, with over 55 publications and patents to his name. Since 2013, he has been working full-time with o2h Limited, where he leads the scientific evaluation of investment opportunities and provides scientific support. He has also served as CSO for two early-stage collaborations within the o2h Ventures portfolio, demonstrating his ability to successfully guide drug discovery projects from concept to clinical development.

David Davies has 25 years of experience in medicinal chemistry within the pharmaceutical industry with a focus on the antibacterial area (clavulanates, penicillinates, pseudomonates and bacterial topoisomerase inhibitors). He previously worked at GSK and currently holds a part-time academic position at University College London (UCL). He served as the Head of Medicinal Chemistry at Antabio for nearly a decade, specialising in antibacterial research, and has extensive experience managing chemistry projects in multiple countries including France, UK, India and China. He is the inventor of 40 patents and has authored 37 publications.

Hemal has comprehensive experience in leading & guiding multi-FTE synthetic chemistry research and development collaborations which are in support of the fast-paced drug discovery programs. At o2h discovery, he oversees the progress and troubleshooting of all the ongoing projects and helps with evaluation as well as kick start of new programs. Hemal obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Kadi Sarva University, Gujarat. He has >17 years of industrial experience. Prior to joining o2h discovery, Hemal worked with Piramal Discovery Solutions (PDS) for 4 years during which he led the largest project covering 42 FTEs for a UK-based collaborator. He has worked with clients all around the world including UK, USA, Japan, Australia, Singapore and more.

Claudio obtained his PhD in Chemistry (Mechanisms of Organic Reactions) from the University of Rome in 2000. He went for a post-doc at Imperial College London where he worked on Alzheimer’s disease chemical probes. In 2004, he started working in several companies in the Cambridge biotech cluster where he deepened his knowledge in Medicinal Chemistry and in Fragment Based Drug Design. In 2012, he went back to academia at Cambridge University where he investigated challenging drug targets such as protein-protein interactions. He also co-founded the Entrepreneurial Postdocs of Cambridge (EPOC) society in 2015 to support postdocs in their pursuit of entrepreneurial careers. In 2017, joined Capital Cell with a role in Business Development, then Abzena in Cambridge and finally o2h in January 2021.

Dr. Catherine holds over 18 years of post-doctoral experience in therapeutic discovery, with strategic roles in biotechnology, consultancy, and CRO organizations. She has contributed to small molecule therapeutics, peptides, health tech, and engineering. She started her career at Isogenica and Bicycle Therapeutics, establishing therapeutic platforms and discovery programs. She has also consulted for various biotech and health tech start-ups to develop platform technologies at the intersection of biology and engineering. Before joining o2h, she was EVP of Business Development at Domainex, collaborating with companies in the UK, USA, and Europe. She has completed an MSc in Biochemistry from Nottingham, a PhD in Cell Biology from Cambridge, and an MBA from the Open University.

Gayathri leads the biology capabilities in Ahmedabad, India and Cambridge, UK. She also significantly contributes to the business development with the o2h customers world-wide, understanding the market requirements, contributing to technology transfer and investment evaluations. Prior to this, she has worked for >15 years in different therapeutic areas in both industry and academia. She has led multiple programs in drug discovery projects through lead optimization to candidate selection and further development to late stage clinical trials. She has worked in a multi-disciplinary environment, leading chemical biology efforts creating chemical tools that modulate novel class of “undruggable” targets. Gayathri has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Brain Research Institute, Zurich, Switzerland.

Tejas holds a master’s degree from Gujarat University, earned his PhD in India, and gained valuable post-doctoral experience at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom. His professional journey commenced at Alembic, and he has since contributed his expertise to several contract research organisations, including Evotec, o2h, and Piramal. Currently, he oversees all projects in the USA region. With a background in chemistry, he boasts over two decades of experience in the field of preclinical drug discovery.

Dharmesh obtained his Master’s degree in Chemistry from M.K University and has done MBA in industrial Management from National Institute of Management. He has about 27 years of industrial experience during which he has served many MNCs like Zydus Cadila, Piramal, Dishman Pharma, Daicel etc. He has immense expertise in the purification, isolation & characterization of heterocyclic, macrocyclic, natural products, etc. Dharmesh was also in role of Sales & BD for analytical services, pharma impurity standard, separation services & column business for domestic market.

Simon is a senior cell biologist with over 16 years’ postdoctoral experience working in academic research laboratories. Prior to joining o2h discovery, he contributed to various small molecule drug discovery projects with experience in target validation, screening and hit-to-lead stages. Specializing in high-content image analysis, Simon has supervised screens and developed novel assays for a variety of therapeutic targets in oncology. His postdoctoral career was spent at The Institute of Cancer Research and UCL Institute in London, then more recently with the MRC Cancer Unit in Cambridge.