We are ambitious, and we want to change the landscape of bispecific and multispecific biologics to make better and unforeseen drugs.
CEO
CEO
Arne is Co-Founder and CEO of Valink Therapeutics. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, his prior research was on the development of a novel technology for stable modification of endogenous proteins. He has continuously sought to apply his research, and Valink combines his passion for protein engineering with his eagerness to deliver novel therapeutics.
CTO
CTO
Irsyad is Co-Founder and CTO of Valink Therapeutics. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford as a protein engineer and subsequently worked on several cancer projects in the pharmaceutical consulting sector, which shape the direction of Valink's LiliumX platform. His DPhil work explored modular protein assembly technologies as a precursor to LiliumX.
Head of Discovery
Head of Discovery
Melina is responsible for the drug discovery and development applications of LiliumX’s technology. She previously focused on the development and evaluation of novel antibody-drug conjugates in solid tumours in collaboration with Femtogenix. She joined Valink (then LiliumX) from the Drug Discovery Team at the Institute of Cancer Research, where she investigated drug resistance and validated novel targets in breast cancer.
Senior Research Scientist
Senior Research Scientist
As Senior Research Fellow, Reto provides an extensive background in cellular and molecular biology. He previously worked at Imperial College London and spent over 10 years at the Francis Crick Institute and Cancer Research UK, where he characterized the role of DNA and protein damage in cancer development. He gained his PhD from the University of Basel, while working at the Roche Center for Medical Genomics, and was subsequently awarded a Research Fellow Award at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France.
Research Scientist
Research Scientist
Protein Scientist
Protein Scientist
Saraswathi Ponnam holds an MRes in Molecular and Structural Biology from UCL. She has since undertaken the role of a Research Assistant at King's College London, specializing in the meticulous examination of structural and functional aspects of cardiovascular proteins and cardiac muscle regulation. Her methodology involves a wide array of biochemical and biophysical techniques, contributing towards multiple drug discovery projects.
Protein Scientist
Protein Scientist
Jack completed his MSc in Molecular Medicine at the University of Sheffield. Since then, he worked at AbCam to help establish their Protein Sciences team. This involved developing a high-throughput antigen screening platform, and working on several tech transfer projects between sites. Jack is responsible for developing and overseeing protein production at Valink.
Research Associate
Junior Research Associate
Junior Research Associate
A recent graduate of UCL, having studied BSc Bioprocessing of New Medicines (Science and Engineering), Nvard has experience working with mammalian cell cultures and conducting full plasmid management, as well as working with bioinks and bioprinting. Nvard has experience with mammalian cell culture, bioprinting, and bioprocess scale down.
DIRECTOR
DIRECTOR
Alex is a Cofounder and CEO of Diagonal Therapeutics and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in Atlas Venture. During his 20+ year career in biotechnology, he served as COO of Dragonfly Therapeutics, CDO of Morphic Therapeutic, VP of Therapeutics at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, and Associate Director of Drug Discovery at Biogen. Alex is an author of over 100 patents and manuscripts. He is an Associated Editor of the mAbs and serves on the Board of Directors of the Antibody Society. He has received an Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation and Technology from MIT Sloan School of Management, a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University, an M.Sc. in Molecular Biophysics, and a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
DIRECTOR
DIRECTOR
Alex holds a PhD degree in computational chemistry and MBA from Mannheim Business School. Alex brings more than 10 years of experience in the biotech space, being a co-founder of drug development startup himself and then moving to the VC side. He successfully invested in Biotech and Medtech startups from a VC fund RBV Capital and from CVC arm of tier 1 reinsurance company SCOR.
OBSERVER
OBSERVER
Rob is a cofounder of London-based Hoxton Ventures and is currently cofounding H Tree Capital, a specialized seed tech:bio fund. He has over thirteen years in the VC industry and was previously a product manager at Google in Silicon Valley. He holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. His notable investments include Babylon Health, Preply, Spacelift.io and several dozen others.
Hoxton Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm based in London and investing in European technology startups that can scale into large, global winners. It focuses on startups that either disrupt existing industries or invent entirely new market categories. It was the first institutional investor in Babylon Health, Darktrace and Deliveroo, and its portfolio companies have grown to an aggregate value of over $32 billion. Hoxton typically invests between $500,000 and $5 million into pre-seed and seed stage companies, and follows its capital through the life of the company. For more information please visit https://www.hoxtonventures.com.
OBSERVER
OBSERVER
Georgia is passionate about working closely with startup founders to realize their vision through focused development, operations and fundraising resource and strategies. A seasoned M&A professional, Georgia has a deep network of corporate and institutional investors to leverage in order to help early stage companies scale.
Georgia is the founding partner of Magnet Ventures, seed investor and board member of INNFOS (exited), investor of Cloudminds (exited), seed investor of AI-Biotech companies: Valink Therapeutics (formerly LiliumX), Flux Biosciences, Regard (formerly HealthTensor), Atom Bioworks.
ADVISOR
ADVISOR
Charles Conn is a seasoned business builder and investor. Before co-founding Monograph Capital, a life sciences venture firm, he was CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation, a £600m deep science venture firm formed in partnership with Oxford. Charles is a technology entrepreneur and former public company CEO (Ticketmaster/Citysearch/Match.com).
He serves as Chair of Patagonia, and was previously CEO of the Rhodes Trust; before that he was senior advisor to the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. He began his career at McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Boston University, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
ADVISOR
ADVISOR
Innovative strategy, partnerships and market shaping executive with 15+ years of leadership experience in U.S., European, and global healthcare environments (NCDs, neuro, onco). Proven record of designing and executing strategies that simultaneously shape commercial and reputational ambition; driving high-impact campaigns that catalyze healthcare system changes; and fomenting large-scale partnerships that connect the dots between influential stakeholders and improved patient outcomes. Yale Ph.D, Fulbright Scholar, former NIH/WHO, and trade group veteran with deep networks across UN, EU and US political, academic, and health tech spheres.
Known for creative, high-impact campaigns that underpin P&R decisions; and driving innovative partnerships that address health disparities, particularly between pharma and tech.
ADVISOR
ADVISOR
Jose has over 10 years’ experience in antibody discovery and preclinical development in biotech and pharma. Jose is currently Director, Lead Adaptate Pre-Clinical at Takeda, where he is responsible for progressing programmes from discovery through clinical development. He was previously at F-star Therapeutics where he led immune cell engager programmes from inception to pre-IND, and beyond into Phase I, spanning multiple internal and external drug candidates, publications, and patents. He also held key platform, technology, and pharmacology development roles within F-star.
Before joining Adaptate (acquired by Takeda), Jose also held other scientific roles within AstraZeneca and Cambridge Antibody Technology. Jose has a very keen interest in multispecific antibodies and multifunctional proteins, and the possibilities this type of drugs hold in addressing areas of highly unmet clinical needs.
ADVISOR
ADVISOR
Keith Mostov is a Professor of Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He also founded or co-founded several biotech companies, including Novellus DX. Prof. Mostov was a Rhodes Scholar, received his MD from Weil-Cornell Medical College and PhD with Nobel Laureate Guenter Blobel at The Rockefeller University.
Subsequently, he was a Whitehead Fellow and Principal Investigator at the Whitehead Institute, before moving to UCSF. He has worked on polymeric immunoglobulins, as well as epithelial polarity and morphogenesis.
Contact Us
Imperial Translation & Innovation Hub
84 Wood Lane
London
W12 0BZ
England
Imperial Translation & Innovation Hub
84 Wood Lane
London
W12 0BZ
England