Martin Wickham is a research driven Executive accomplished in senior-level management opportunities with a background in multi-disciplinary commercialisation and research opportunities within the Food and Pharmaceutical space. Martin was previously Head of Nutrition at Leatherhead Food Research, UK, and Model Gut Platform Leader at the Institute of Food Research, UK. Martin is a Biophysicist with over 20 years’ experience in modelling human digestion. His research interests were centred on understanding human gut physiology, through the development of in vitro models of digestion, with particular emphasis on the human response to complex food and pharmaceutical systems. He is a BBSRC/ Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellow, has a PhD from the University of East Anglia and has an MBA from the Durham University Business School.

After completing his degree in Chemical Engineering, Rob Barker started his professional career in engineering before progressing to broader management positions including operations, new product development and commercial management at a senior level.

Rob previously headed the European manufacturing, sales and marketing for Probiotec Limited with a portfolio including branded and private label products within the functional foods, vitamins and minerals sectors. Rob has over 20 years’ experience in multi-national corporations as well as early stage and start-up companies. This sees him well placed to help drive Reacta forward as the business expands by installing a world class team in this exciting new area of pharmaceutical food manufacture.

With over 10 years’ experience in preclinical drug discovery, across numerous therapeutic areas and target classes, Helen has successfully progressed programs from early hit identification and hit to lead through to late lead optimisation and candidate selection.

These activities have included the review of HTS and biological screening data, selection of appropriate hits and chemical series for progression, completion of Proof-of-Concept (POC) studies, management of outsourced chemistry and biology, and selection of candidate compounds for preclinical development.

Norman is a qualified Chartered Management Accountant and has 20 years’ experience in arranging early stage business angel and venture capital funding. Following training in accountancy with GKN, he joined PriceWaterhouseCoopers, working on many consultancy assignments with both SME and multi-national companies. Following this, he returned to industry with director roles in the paper manufacturing and food manufacturing sectors in the UK. Norman founded Acceleris Limited in 2000, an FCA regulated fund management and corporate finance firm specialising in EIS led investment transactions. He is a director of Seneca Partners, the parent company of Acceleris and holds other board positions in companies for which Acceleris has arranged finance.

Adrian joined Perscitus in 2015. Prior to this he led the technology deal teams for several high-profile Family Office investors since 2012 having worked at Truffle Capital (leading VC investor in the European markets) since 2006 where he was jointly responsible for the Energy and Cleantech portfolio. Before this he worked at 3i in the Growth Capital team since 2005. Before turning to finance, he began his career as an engineer in various high-tech industries including submarine control systems and was on the core team for the EU hydrogen fuel cell bus program at Excellsis (acquired by Ballard Power Systems) where the company grew from 30 people to over 200 in 2 years. He holds a degree in Engineering (from McGill University), a Masters of Applied Science (UBC) and an MBA (EM Lyon Grand Ecole).