About Heptares | Board

Mr John Berriman, Chairman

John is the Chairman of Pronota NV and Deputy Chairman of Algeta ASA (listed on the Oslo stock exchange). Previously he was a Director of Abingworth Management, an international life sciences venture capital firm, where he was involved in founding, financing and serving as a Director of several biotechnology companies in Europe and the USA - many of which obtained listings on public stock exchanges. Prior to that John spent 14 years with Celltech Group and was a member of its Board when it listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1994. John has a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the London Business School. In addition to the positions mentioned above, John has in the past five years been a non-executive director of the following companies: Ablynx NV, Epigenomics AG, Alnylam Inc, Chroma Therapeutics Ltd, Solexa Ltd, XCounter AB, MicroMet Inc, and Oxxon Therapeutics, Inc.

Dr Martin Murphy, Non-executive Director

Martin joined MVM in 2002. He was previously a member of the healthcare investment team at 3i. Prior to that, he was an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company based in London and Mumbai. Martin has a degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University and completed a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at Cambridge before going on to postdoctoral work in Paris.

Martin is also a member of the boards Pulmagen Therapeutics Ltd., and Vantia Therapeutics Ltd. He was previously a director of Healthcare Brands International Ltd. and PregLem SA.

Dr Michael Steinmetz, Non-executive Director

Michael has been Managing Director of Clarus Ventures since the firm's inception in 2005. He has over 25 years of direct industry and investment experience within the healthcare sector, including being a General Partner in a healthcare venture capital firm since 1997. From 1986 to 1997, Michael was an executive at Hoffmann-La Roche where he held various positions including Vice President of Preclinical Research and Development, and Global Head of Biotechnology. Michael obtained his PhD summa cum laude from the University of Munich and held positions at the California Institute of Technology and the Basel Institute for Immunology.

Dr Anja Koenig, Non-executive Director

Anja is a Managing Director of the Novartis Venture Fund in Basel, Switzerland. She is active in Switzerland and Europe and also responsible for expanding the fund's presence to Asia Pacific. Before her appointment to the Novartis Venture Fund she held the position of assistant to the Chairman and CEO of Novartis. Prior to joining Novartis she was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Co., a global consultancy, where she worked with companies in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and biotech in the US, Europe and Emerging Markets. Anja is currently on the boards of Covagen AG, Diagnoplex Biosciences AG and MerLion Pharmaceuticals Pte Ltd. She holds a PhD in physics from Cornell University, USA.

Dr Richard Henderson, Founder, Non-executive
Director and Chair of the Scientific Advisory
Board

Originally a physicist from Edinburgh, Richard started in protein crystallography in 1966 when he was a PhD student working with David Blow at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) on the structure of chymotrypsin, which in 1967 was one of the first ever protein structures determined. As a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow at Yale, he characterised biochemically the voltage-dependent sodium channels from nerve membranes. in 1975 and back at LMB, he determined the first ever 3D structure of a membrane protein, bacteriorhodopsin. He then developed the methods for electron crystallography of 2D crystals, and used them to obtain the atomic structure of bacteriorhodopsin in 1990. He served as Joint-Head of the Structural Studies Division at LMB (1986-2000) and Director (1996-2006), while developing an interest in G-protein-coupled receptors and single particle electron microscopy. He is a fellow of the Royal Society (1983), a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences (1996), and has been awarded several prizes for his work (William Bate Hardy, Ernst Ruska, Rosensteil, Louis Jeantet and Gregori Aminoff).

Malcolm Weir and Fiona Marshall represent the Heptares Management on the Board.

Back to top