The Team
David M Parry PhD - Chief Operating Officer
Dave has over 17 years experience in pharmaceutical discovery gained within the biotech and biopharmaceutical industry. Following a BSc in chemistry from University of Durham and a PhD in organic synthesis from Exeter, Dave spent two years in the USA working in the labs of Prof Philip D Magnus FRS. Starting his career as a medicinal chemist with Celltech Dave rapidly developed an interest in drug discovery technologies and made the move to Chiroscience in Cambridge to head up their combinatorial chemistry effort. After the acquisition of Chiroscience by Celltech he continued to strengthen both his scientific and management skills leading the Exploratory Chemistry section at the Cambridge site, responsibilities including high throughput chemistry, analytical chemistry and the computational chemistry group. When UCB acquired Celltech in 2004 Dave had the opportunity to play a key role in small molecule discovery technologies and joined Cyclofluidic from UCB where he was most recently Director, Technology within Research.
Chris Selway - Chief Technology Officer
Prior to joining Cyclofluidic, Chris was employed at Pfizer Global R & D in Sandwich, UK as a Senior Principal Scientist. He brings considerable experience in pharmaceutical discovery technologies development and had been leading the development of a microfluidic synthesis-assay platform for hit to lead discovery within Pfizer. Following graduation with a BSc in Chemistry from Loughborough University Chris has accumulated 26 years experience in pharmaceutical research at Pfizer, and has broad knowledge and expertise in chemical technology development and modern organic synthesis techniques. He was a founder member of the Pfizer Library Design and Production group with responsibility for development and implementation of automated systems for synthesis, analysis and purification of compound libraries. In 1997 Chris was awarded a Pfizer Individual Achievement Award for outstanding contribution to parallel synthesis and chemistry automation and in 2000 was awarded a Pfizer Team Achievement Award as member of the Autopurification Team for innovative design and delivery of a world leading system for the efficient purification of library compounds. More recently Chris has focused on applying flow chemistry and microfluidic technologies to enhance the drug discovery process. Externally, Chris is currently collaborating with Professor Steve Ley at Cambridge University, with a focus on flow chemistry; and is a member of the organising committee of the United Kingdom Automated Synthesis Forum (UKASF).
Dr Peter Luke - Director representing Pfizer
Peter Luke gained a BA in Biochemistry from the University of York and, subsequently a PhD (Biochemistry) from the University of Bristol. His academic interests involved understanding the biophysical nature of protein – DNA interactions, specifically with respect to restriction endonucleases. Peter then joined Anglian Biotechnology, a small company specialising in resourcing the needs of the molecular biology community. Peter then joined Sigma-Aldrich as group leader responsible for purification of reagents from natural sources.
Peter joined Pfizer in 1989 as founding team leader in the newly formed Molecular Sciences department with responsibilities for protein biochemistry/ crystallisation, assay design/ validation and compound screening. Peter joined Strategic Alliances in 1996 and as Senior Director is now responsible for Global Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD) Technology Alliances including Development, PDM (pharmacokinetics, dynamics and metabolism) and DSRD (drug safety research and development).
Dr Graham Warrellow - Director representing UCB
Graham Warrellow, VP Chemistry UK, UCB has over 25 years drug discovery experience in major pharma and biotech with specialisation in CNS, Oncology and Inflammation. He is an inventor on over 50 patents and a co-author of over 30 publications and has been involved in taking 13 compounds into preclinical and clinical development.
After feeling the excitement of research work in the Kodak Research Labs in Harrow, Graham earned his PhD in synthetic chemistry at Imperial College whilst employed as a medicinal chemist at Wyeth Research. The move to Celltech in 1991 allowed him to enjoy the biotech buzz for 10 years before leaving to join Almirall in Barcelona. He returned to the UK in 2005 to take up his current position as VP Chemistry at UCB. Graham is currently interested in the use of structural biology to drug design and the application of biologicals know-how to cutting-edge NCE discovery. He has a keen interest in the creation of innovative working cultures and the application of novel technologies to drive biopharma success.
Non-Executive Directors
Dr J. Mark Treherne
Mark has been actively involved in the biopharmaceutical industry for 25 years and was a co-founder and Chief Executive of Cambridge Drug Discovery Limited (CDD), leading the acquisition of CDD for £28 million by AiM-listed BioFocus plc, where he then became a Commercial Director of BioFocus, driving significant growth of its profitable services business. Since leaving his full-time position at BioFocus plc in February 2002 to remain on the Board as a non-executive director, Mark has now served on the Boards of over 10 private and public biopharmaceutical companies. In addition to Cyclofluidic, he is currently on the Boards of NeuroDiscovery Limited, Domain Pharmaceuticals SA, Population Genetics Technologies Limited, Senexis Limited and Xention Limited. Dr Treherne has now helped raise more than £90 million for various biopharmaceutical businesses over the last 10 years. Dr Treherne was also formerly Chairman of ERBI Limited, which is a not-for-profit organisation that represents the biotechnology companies based around Cambridge in the East of England.
Dr Treherne initially trained as a neuroscientist and electrophysiologist at Cambridge University and previously led the Neurodegeneration research group at Pfizer’s research facility at Sandwich, UK, until 1997.
Bill Matthews BA (Econ) FCA
Since 1998 to 2007 Bill was Fund Manager of the University of Cambridge Seed Funds and the Quantum Fund. These funds invested at the seed and early stage in technology based University spinouts. He continues to work on a part time basis with Cambridge Enterprise and other clients. The seed funds invested in a substantial number of businesses some of which have already achieved exits
From 1982 to 1998, Bill was Finance Director of Cambridge based companies Team Consultancy, TI Research and Sinclair Research. Prior to that, he was based in the USA and Canada with Price Waterhouse Associates as a management consultant. Early in his career Bill was with ICI and Sony (UK) Limited in the UK and the accounting profession overseas. Bill brings considerable financial management expertise to Cyclofluidic.