Board of Directors

Duncan Lawrence MBA PhD is Managing Director. A pharmacologist by training, Dr Lawrence has over 20 years experience in the contract research industry developing novel medicines for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. His experience covers most aspects of drug development and registration having worked some of the world’s premier CROs. His management experience includes membership of the Board of Directors that took Inveresk Research to IPO, acquired ClinTrials and merged with Charles River Laboratories. He has an international network of industry contacts.

Sam Taylor FCMA is the Chairman. He has over 40 years experience in the healthcare industry, both in the UK and overseas. He was involved in the funding of early kidney and liver transplant surgery at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, UK and the funding and development of the new Medical School in Southampton, UK and its supporting specialist units. For a number of years he was a Vice President of American Medical International Inc and the founder of his own private healthcare company and is a business angel in life science businesses.

Alec Mackie CA acts as Finance Director and Company Secretary. During some 20 years in accountancy practice on his own account he developed an interest in small scale corporate finance work which lead to the establishment of Barwell Plc as an investment holding company. He brings to the Company some 15 years experience of investing in start-up and fledgling companies, including a number of pharmaceutical and biomedical companies.

Dr Frances Macdonald PhD – Non Executive Director. Frances holds a PhD in physiology. She has extensive experience of the pharmaceutical industry, having worked for 16 years with Roche and Syntex in a series of posts with responsibility for drug development, marketing support, regulatory affairs (including negotiations with the relevant regulatory authorities as part of a specific drug development project) and pharmaeconomics (including market evaluation, pricing and life-cycle planning).

In 2001 she founded Actelion Pharmaceuticals UK, growing it over a period of 7 years to take the company's first 2 products to market. This included Tracleer (bosentan), an orphan medicine for pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Since 2008, she has acted as a consultant to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, principally focused on improving access to market of new drugs in development.

She also represents the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) on the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), the health technology assessment body advising Scottish health boards on recommendations for the use of new medicines and has, in the past, chaired the ABPI Smaller Companies Forum and acted as an ABPI Board Member.