Our people

LifeArc’s CEO Dr Melanie Lee, PhD, CBE. Prior to joining LifeArc Melanie pursued a 30 year career in healthcare R&D and gained leadership experience both from the biopharmaceutical industry and from the medical research charity sector.  Melanie’s previous roles have included Chief Scientific Officer at BTG (most recently) as well as senior positions at GSK, Celltech and UCB.  She has previously held Trustee appointments at Cancer Research Technology and Cancer Research UK and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Sanofi.

Message Melanie

Dr Edward Bliss is General Counsel and Company Secretary of LifeArc and heads up LifeArc’s Legal division. In this role he is responsible for all governance, licensing, compliance, and in-house legal affairs.

Edward joined from Shire Pharmaceuticals plc, where he was Legal Director and lead counsel for Shire’s European Neuroscience business division, and provided legal support to its product wide Nordic and Russian businesses. Prior to Shire Edward was General Counsel and Company Secretary at Ark Therapeutics Group Plc, a research based, late development stage gene-therapy company listed on the London Stock exchange.

Edward joined Ark from private practice with the international life sciences law firm Covington and Burling LLP working in the firm’s London offices and practiced a wide area of IP licensing, commercial agreements, corporate transactions and regulatory matters relating to the pharma and biotech industries.

A solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, Edward also holds a Batchelors degree in Physiology, Masters degree in Neuroendocrine Cell Biology and PhD in Neuroscience.

Message Edward

Justin Bryans is Executive Director, Drug Discovery, at LifeArc.

Justin trained as a chemist at the Universities of York and Oxford and has worked as a medicinal chemist for over 25 years in biotech and pharma, including Parke-Davis and Pfizer, delivering clinical candidates for a wide range of diseases.

He is cited as an inventor on over 50 patents and has authored over 50 publications. He joined LifeArc in 2005 and currently leads the drug discovery team collaborating with academics on cutting-edge science to deliver high quality molecules as potential drugs for diseases.

Justin undertakes teaching on drug discovery at Queen Mary University of London (where he holds an honorary professorship), University College London and the Wellcome Trust. He also sits on a range of committees and advisory panels including those at Cancer Research UK and the University of Leicester. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Message Justin

Mike heads up the Centre for Diagnostics Development (CDD), LifeArc’s translational activity seeking to develop novel diagnostic tests from cutting edge basic research. In addition, Mike is leading the creation of a scientific foresighting function at LifeArc to identify future charitable investment areas in translation and runs a small scientific due diligence team that assists the company in new project assessment and acquisition.

Message Michael

Andrew Farquharson, M.Sc., European Patent Attorney, is LifeArc’s Executive Director of Technology Transfer.

Andrew leads the team responsible for identifying, protecting and progressing promising life science research to improve human health. He has many years’ experience of intellectual property law and government affairs in the pharmaceutical industry and private legal practice. He joined LifeArc in 2015, having spent most of his career at AstraZeneca, where he worked in the UK and the USA in his role as Senior Director of Biologics IP and Director of External IP Affairs.

He has also worked independently for the Wellcome Trust and many small biotechs, as well as supported biopharma trade associations EFPIA and IFPMA in the development of their IP and access strategies. Andrew was appointed by the EU Commission to the expert group advising the Commission on EU legislation and its impact on the life sciences sector.

Message Andrew

Fiona has joined LifeArc as an interim Executive Director, helping to deliver on the HR agenda which will enable the business to deliver its corporate goals and business strategy.

Fiona brings with her over 20 years’ leadership experience, working as an HR Director in both a permanent and interim capacity across a number of sectors and businesses.

Fiona has a passion for partnering with businesses to release the potential and performance of its people to meet business goals. Her experience includes enabling organisations to be effective, including the development of leaders the management of talent and working to deliver strategic change, she has a relentless focus on brilliant execution and delivery.

As a committed people leader and coach, Fiona delivers results through others via direct leadership, performance coaching, sharing best practice and developing strong partnerships with business leaders.

Message Fiona

Andrew Mercieca is LifeArc’s CFO. He manages our Finance department and also oversees our IT service.

Andrew qualified as a Chartered Accountant with EY in 1991 and went on to gain extensive experience in the finance profession. He joined LifeArc in 2014 where his more recent achievements include helping to lead the $1.3bn royalty monetisation for Keytruda in 2019. 

Prior to joining LifeArc, Andrew held a number of senior finance positions across both the pharmaceutical and technology sectors. Previous roles included VP Finance International at Syniverse, a global mobile technology provider, where he was responsible for financial leadership of EMEA and Asia-Pacific. Prior to this, he was Senior Director, Accounting and Reporting, at Astellas Pharma. He has also held senior positions at Merck KGaA and Samsung.

Andrew was appointed as a Trustee of LifeArc at our AGM in November 2019. He also serves as a trustee of the charity Plan Zheroes.

Message Andrew

David Holbrook is Head of Seed Funds at Lifearc. 

Message David

Catriona is Associate Director for Technology Transfer and is Head of the Philanthropic Fund.

Message Catriona

Pauline is Investment Principal, LifeArc Seed Fund at LifeArc

Message Pauline

Andrew Farquharson, M.Sc., European Patent Attorney, is LifeArc’s Executive Director of Technology Transfer.

Andrew leads the team responsible for identifying, protecting and progressing promising life science research to improve human health. He has many years’ experience of intellectual property law and government affairs in the pharmaceutical industry and private legal practice. He joined LifeArc in 2015, having spent most of his career at AstraZeneca, where he worked in the UK and the USA in his role as Senior Director of Biologics IP and Director of External IP Affairs.

He has also worked independently for the Wellcome Trust and many small biotechs, as well as supported biopharma trade associations EFPIA and IFPMA in the development of their IP and access strategies. Andrew was appointed by the EU Commission to the expert group advising the Commission on EU legislation and its impact on the life sciences sector.

Message Andrew

Kevin is responsible for identifying early stage targets, small molecules and monoclonal antibodies for our drug discovery group and the licensing of mature programmes to industry.

Message Kevin

Derek is responsible for identifying early stage targets, small molecules and monoclonal antibodies for our drug discovery group and the licensing of mature programmes to industry.

Message Derek

Roberto is responsible for identifying early stage targets, small molecules and monoclonal antibodies for our drug discovery group and the licensing of mature programmes to industry.

Message Roberto

Zhang is responsible for identifying early stage targets, small molecules and monoclonal antibodies for our drug discovery group and the licensing of mature programmes to industry, particularly in China.

Message Zhi

Mike heads up the Centre for Diagnostics Development (CDD), LifeArc’s translational activity seeking to develop novel diagnostic tests from cutting edge basic research. In addition, Mike is leading the creation of a scientific foresighting function at LifeArc to identify future charitable investment areas in translation and runs a small scientific due diligence team that assists the company in new project assessment and acquisition.

Message Michael

Ciaran manages the diagnostics group which helps develop early stage diagnostic tests at our Centre for Diagnostics Development based in Edinburgh.

Message Ciaran

Justin Bryans is Executive Director, Drug Discovery, at LifeArc.

Justin trained as a chemist at the Universities of York and Oxford and has worked as a medicinal chemist for over 25 years in biotech and pharma, including Parke-Davis and Pfizer, delivering clinical candidates for a wide range of diseases.

He is cited as an inventor on over 50 patents and has authored over 50 publications. He joined LifeArc in 2005 and currently leads the drug discovery team collaborating with academics on cutting-edge science to deliver high quality molecules as potential drugs for diseases.

Justin undertakes teaching on drug discovery at Queen Mary University of London (where he holds an honorary professorship), University College London and the Wellcome Trust. He also sits on a range of committees and advisory panels including those at Cancer Research UK and the University of Leicester. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Message Justin

Katy is an Associate Director in LifeArc’s Centre for Therapeutics Discovery. She manages a team of biologists carrying out assay development and screening.

Message Katy

David heads up the BioTherapeutics team. The group develops therapeutic antibodies, this includes antibody generation, humanisation, affinity maturation and biophysical characterisation of candidates.

Message David

Andy manages a team of medicinal, analytical and computational chemists who carry out early stage drug discovery, including hit-to-lead development at our Centre for Therapeutics Discovery.

Message Andy

Message David

Andrew Farquharson, M.Sc., European Patent Attorney, is LifeArc’s Executive Director of Technology Transfer.

Andrew leads the team responsible for identifying, protecting and progressing promising life science research to improve human health. He has many years’ experience of intellectual property law and government affairs in the pharmaceutical industry and private legal practice. He joined LifeArc in 2015, having spent most of his career at AstraZeneca, where he worked in the UK and the USA in his role as Senior Director of Biologics IP and Director of External IP Affairs.

He has also worked independently for the Wellcome Trust and many small biotechs, as well as supported biopharma trade associations EFPIA and IFPMA in the development of their IP and access strategies. Andrew was appointed by the EU Commission to the expert group advising the Commission on EU legislation and its impact on the life sciences sector.

Message Andrew

Rachael works as part of the team delivering the LifeArc Philanthropic Fund, is Development Gap Fund Manager and provides technology transfer services to the LMB PNAC (shared).

Message Rachael

Georgia covers LMB Cell Biology, LMB PNAC (shared), LMB Neurobiology (shared) and MRC Mitchondrial Biology Unit (shared).

Message Georgia

Sam covers LMB Neurobiology Division, Mammalian Genetics Unit,  Mary Lyons Centre (MRC Harwell).

Message Sam

Madhu looks after IP issues for our charity partners.

Message Madhu

Anji manages all IP, contractual and technology transfer matters arising from the MRC Prion Unit.

Message Anji

Message Francois-Xavier

Steven covers Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (MMC & HGU) and MRC Clincal Sciences Centre (shared).

Message Steven

Alex works with researchers in the Neurobiology and Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry divisions of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Message Alex