The Board

A member since 2002, Andrew was appointed Chair of PLG in October 2022.

Andrew is also currently serving as Vice-President of the International Partnering in Life-Sciences Society (IPLS), the umbrella group for similar Business Development groups across Europe.

Dan is a senior healthcare executive with 25 years international business development and commercial operations leadership experience in pharma, CRO, clinical diagnostics, biotech and life science research.

Dan has worked in Canada, Germany and France and graduated from Brunel University in Applied Biochemistry. In 2011 Dan won the PLG/AstraZeneca BD Executive of the Year award.

Dr. Kay Tait has worked in the UK pharmaceutical industry for approximately 15 years and currently works as a Transaction Director in AstraZeneca’s Business Development and Operations team. Kay is involved in all aspects of transaction negotiation and execution across multiple therapy areas. Prior to that, Kay worked as a Business Development Director covering both search and evaluation, as well as transaction, for AstraZeneca’s Oncology business.

Kay has a wealth of business development experience ranging from in and out-licensing, acquisition and partnering. activities from early stage discovery through to on-market commercial opportunities. Before her business development career, Kay worked in R&D at AstraZeneca. She also holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology and a first class honours degree both from the University Manchester.

Bethan Jacobs, our Treasurer, was formerly a Manager at NatWest Bank. For the last five years, she has worked as a Manager at Citizens Advice Bureau.

Keith Buchanan Smith, PhD, has worked on collaborations and licensing in various industries including fine & heavy chemical, forestry, music, food, biotech, large pharma and consultancy as well as 3 business start-ups. He is also a professional touring musician.

Dr Toby Richardson is Senior Director, Early Innovation Partnering Immunology, EMEA at Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

Toby worked in the business development team at The Institute of Cancer Research for over ten years, leading all aspects of projects including the review, protection and exploitation of intellectual property generated by many different research teams. This required the negotiation of numerous agreements with other academic organisations, charity funders, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in many different territories. These were typically been to enable major drug discovery and development collaborations.

Toby has also worked on secondment within AstraZeneca’s oncology strategic partnering and business development team. As well as a PhD in oncology Toby holds a first class double honours degree in biochemistry and chemistry.

Frances is a Partner at Cooley, her practice focuses on representing public and private life sciences companies and industry investors in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical technology sectors on a broad range of matters, including licensing and other complex commercial and intellectual property arrangements, as well as UK and European Union Regulatory and data privacy matters related to those transactions.

Frances provides pragmatic, commercially driven, and digestible advice to help clients achieve their business objectives and strategic goals.

Frances frequently writes and speaks on topics related to legal issues in the life sciences sector, including for publications such as Law360 and Privacy Laws & Business.

Adrian is a seasoned IP lawyer who relishes immersing himself in his client’s technology, product roadmap and patent/IP strategy. He is regularly involved in the negotiation and drafting of technology licence agreements and other contracts with a heavy IP element, such as R&D collaborations, joint ventures, grant funding agreements and other commercial arrangements. He also advises on the EC and UK competition law aspects of these agreements, and issues relating to technical standardisation, essential IPR and patent pooling.

Adrian has a wealth of experience in handling the IP aspects of University spin-outs, IPOs and other major corporate transactions and disputes, including for FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 corporations. He is also a valued patent litigator, having recently advised on disputes involving pharmaceuticals, somatic cell therapy, semiconductor chip design, inkjet printing technology, digital compression algorithms, LCD flat-panel technology, telecoms and pharmaceuticals. He also frequently helps clients with disputes involving confidential information, database rights, trade marks, copyright and designs.

Adrian publishes and speaks regularly on a variety of intellectual property issues.

Campbell has served on the PLG Board since 2004 and was Chairman from 2010 until February 2016. He worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 35 years, the last 25 of which were at AstraZeneca where he held several senior business development positions. Campbell has experience of all aspects of business development but his main focus has been on transactions where he has completed over 50 deals.

Campbell has a BSc in pharmacology from Edinburgh University and a PhD in cardiovascular pharmacology from the University of Wales. He was formerly with Beecham Pharmaceuticals (now GSK) before joining ICI Pharmaceuticals (now AstraZeneca) in 1989. He took up his first business development role in 1996.

Campbell has been an independent business development consultant (Wilson BioPharma Consulting) since early 2014. He is also part of Medius Associates and is a non-executive director of Frontier IP.