Board Members

Simon Douglas

Simon then became the CEO of the embryonic start-up company, DNA Research Innovations Ltd (‘DRI’), growing the company for four years which was acquired by the Invitrogen Corporation Inc for $65 million in 2004. After a period with Invitrogen Simon joined Fusion Antibodies in 2006 as the CEO and in 2011 moved to his current Chairman role. During that period he was also the Executive Chairman of Scottish based Lab 901 where he completed several rounds of funding and sold the business in 2011 to Agilent Technologies Inc. He is also currently the CEO of the VC backed diagnostic Company Biofortuna Ltd.

Richard Buick, PhD

Richard Buick has more than 19 years’ experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. After graduating with a 1st Class Honours degree in Genetics, he spent 4 years at Randox Laboratories, discovering novel antibodies for diagnostics from synthetic libraries. Richard joined Fusion Antibodies in 2002, where he was responsible for overseeing the Company’s Contract Research Services and production of all reagents required for the research and development of internal drug assets. Richard has a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast in Immunology. He joined the Company as a Director and was appointed CTO in 2011, managing all scientific projects and Fusion Antibodies’ patent portfolios. In addition, Richard has, since 2015, been appointed as a legal expert witness in a number of drug patent dispute cases.

James Fair

James Fair has over ten years’ experience working in the bioscience sector. A mathematics graduate, James qualified as a chartered accountant in 1992 having trained with a Big Four firm. He has been head of finance with Fusion Antibodies for 8 years on a secondment basis and joined the Company as a Director full time on 1 August 2017, where he is responsible for all aspects of financial management including internal and external financial reporting. He has been involved in the growth of the business and previous raisings for the Company.

James’s previous experience has included senior management positions in internal audit, business and professional practice where his recent experience was in advising and supporting start-up and spin out companies from Northern Ireland entrepreneurs and local Universities.

Sonya Ferguson

Sonya Ferguson is an experienced senior director working in the pharmaceuticals industry. She is currently Senior Director of Q2 Solutions, a Quintiles Quest joint venture, which is a leading global clinical trials laboratory services organisation. Her previous roles include Quintiles itself and over 18 years with Randox Laboratories. Ms Ferguson joined the Company as a Director in 2016 and is a member of the Company’s remuneration committee.

Colin Walsh

Colin Walsh is Chief Executive and founder of Crescent Capital and has been an active venture capital investor in the high-tech sector for the past twenty eight years. He has considerable experience of business strategy and governance issues, mentoring senior management plus the restructuring, growth and development of companies across many sectors. He has served on numerous boards including both as a director and chair of Andor Technology plc, an AIM listed company and Trafficmaster plc, a LSE main market listed company. A former chair of the CBI for Northern Ireland, he joined the Fusion Antibodies as a Director in 2007 as a representative of Crescent Capital. Colin is the chair of the Company’s remuneration committee.

Tim Watts

Tim has worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors since 1990 with experience in both Big Pharma and both public and privately-held SMEs.  Most recently, from August 2018 to September 2021 he was at AIM-listed Shield Therapeutics plc (L.STX), a company focused on commercialising its innovative iron deficiency therapy, where he was initially CFO and then latterly CEO and a director from April 2020.  From 2012 to 2017 Tim was CFO and a director of Oxford BioMedica PLC (L.OXB), a world-leading cell and gene therapy company, when the management team grew the Group’s market capitalisation from £30 million to £330 million and laid the foundations for the business it is today.  Prior to Oxford BioMedica, from 2007 to 2011 Tim was CFO of Archimedes Pharma, a private-equity backed specialty pharma company, and before that from 1990 to 2007 he was in a variety of increasingly senior roles at AstraZeneca, including Group Financial Controller from 2002 to 2006.

Tim is also a non-executive director at Cellesce Limited, which has invented and patented a unique bioprocess for the expansion of human-derived, normal and cancer organoids for a multitude of applications including drug discovery and organ-on-a-chip applications. Previously Tim was also a director of the UK’s BioIndustry Association from 2013 to 2017.

Matthew Baker, PhD

Matthew Baker, PhD has more than 20 years’ experience developing biologics in biotech and pharma companies and is a research expert in B- and T-cell immunology, including drug immunogenicity. He was the Chief Scientific Officer of Abzena until 2016 and previously held a Non-Executive Director role at Oxgene. He is currently CEO of NeoPhore, a private company focused on the discovery and development of novel small molecule therapies to treat cancer through stimulation of the immune system. Matthew brings detailed immunology and virus-based mammalian display knowledge as well as industry and market insight.