Life Sciences Forum

Dr Maria Koufali is the first NIHR Life Sciences Industry Director. She is a member of the NIHR Strategy and Engagement Board and provides pan-NIHR leadership of the strategy to transform engagement with the life sciences sector and the delivery of industry-led clinical research across the UK.

Maria brings over 20 years’ experience spanning government, the NHS, academia and industry partnerships, with a focus on system-level leadership, strategic business development and trusted relationship management with the life sciences industry. Her work is focused on driving growth and competitiveness through enhanced clinical research delivery, clearer national interfaces and long-term partnerships with industry.

Prior to this role, Maria established and led the UK Vaccine Innovation Pathway, working closely across government, the NHS, regulators and the global life sciences industry to accelerate vaccine and immune therapy trials. She has held senior leadership roles across the NHS, academia and the wider research system, and was awarded the NHS Leadership Academy Nye Bevan Award for Executive Health Leadership.

Saeeda Bashir is the Head of Clinical Trials Policy & Programmes at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Saeeda joined the DHSC in February 2024 and has over 20 years experience working in clinical research spanning across academia and the NHS.

She has experience across both primary and secondary care settings and has led on international clinical trials, academic research strategies, and major research funding bids.

Olga Kozlova is currently Director of Innovation and Engagement at Oxford University. She started her career by founding a biotech company, screening for novel antifungal drugs, following her PhD in Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh. After this, she founded the Converge Challenge, a national programme in Scotland, aimed at students and staff at universities, helping them to develop their entrepreneurial ideas and create profitable companies. This helped over 500 entrepreneurs and developed over 300 companies. Before coming to Oxford, Olga worked at the University of Strathclyde as Director of Innovation and Industry Engagement.

William Goundry is a Principal Scientist in Early Chemical Development at AstraZeneca’s Macclesfield Campus. Following his DPhil in organic synthesis at Oxford University and Post Doc at Indiana University Will joined AZ at Macclesfield in 2006. He has developed a strong track record in process design and scale up working from grams to tonnes, including Biocatalysis and flow chemistry.

Will is currently AstraZeneca’s scientific lead for the early phase scale-up of New Modalities, including antibody drug conjugates (ADC), peptides, and nucleotide based drugs. In this role he is developing the commercial routes and processes for ADC payloads, whilst directing the manufacture of clinical trial material.

He has a strong innovation track record including winning an internal AstraZeneca technology competition through delivering a pitch. He is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Manchester in the Division of Pharmacy, and an industrial lead for both the Centre for Biocatalytic Manufacture of New Modalities and the Centre for Doctoral training (CDT) in integrated catalysis. William is both a Chartered Chemist (CChem) and a Fellow (FRSC) of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Tony is the Chief Business Officer for Cancer Research UK and Cancer Research Horizons. He leads the Commercial Partnerships team responsible for the commercialisation of IP from Cancer Resarch UK-funded projects, new start-up creation, licences and corporate alliances.

Prior to this Tony was the managing director of Imperial Innovations Ltd, responsible for intellectual property sourcing, licensing and spin-out creation for technologies arising from Imperial College London. Tony has sat on the Executive Committee of IP Group and spent five years as an executive director on the board of Touchstone Innovations PLC, an investment company listed on the London Stock Exchange investing in deep science projects from UK universities.

Tony acquired 15 years of commercial and business development experience at many bioscience companies before joining Imperial Innovations Ltd, including Wellcome Group R&D, Murex Biotech, Abbott Laboratories and Kalibrant Limited. He has acted as a board director or observer for a number of start-up companies including Polytherics (became Abzena – acquired), Catapult Therapy TCR (acquired), Zihipp (sold to Metsera as part of $290m transaction for GLP-1) and Precision Robotics. He was also instrumental in the creation and development of companies such as Thiakis (GLP-1 company sold to Wyeth/Pfizer in 2008), Respivert (sold to J&J in 2010), Circassia (listed on LSE in 2014, now Niox Group PLC), EMcision (sold to Boston Scientific in 2018) and Cell Medica (acquired by Athenex).

Tony has sat on the IP boards of two European Institutes of Technology (Healthcare and Climate Change), sat on the BBSRC industry advisory panel for 2 years, was a board director of PraxisAuril/KEUK for 8 years and a board member of Cambridge Enterprise (Cambridge University) for 5 years. He is currently a director of Queen Mary Innovation (QMUL), a member of the Francis Crick Institute’s Translational Advisory Board, Deputy Chair of Cambridge Enterprise’s Translational Innovation Fund and a member of the UK government’s ‘Connecting Capabilities’ expert advisory group. He has a diploma in company direction (DipIOD) from the Institute of Directors and is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP).

Dr Richard Oakley joined Alzheimer’s Society in September 2020. As Associate Director of Research and Innovation, he plays a critical role in the development and implementation of Alzheimer’s Society’s Research Strategy, working with the Chief Policy and Research Officer to lead its growing and ambitious world-class research programme and portfolio.

Richard heads up the Research Grants, Research Communications, Research Engagement and Innovation teams. Together, they aim to ensure the Society provides essential funding and support to researchers, continues to engage people affected by dementia and communicates key milestones and developments in research across its networks and to the wider population.

Previously, Richard worked for eight years at Cancer Research, latterly as Head of Research Information and Communications, where he led on the implementation of a new communications strategy underpinned by audience insight.

Richard has a PhD in biochemistry (Bristol University) and a post doctorate in Tissue Engineering (EPFL, Switzerland).