Jerry Benjamin
Chairman
Jerry is a general partner at Advent Venture Partners. He spent the first 20 years of his career in Monsanto's healthcare and petrochemical businesses, including a period as director of corporate venture capital. Over the past 18 years he has successfully developed Advent's involvement in the healthcare and medical sectors, having supervised investments in more than 30 private companies, many of which are now publicly quoted. He has been welcomed as a non-executive director by companies including Dura Pharmaceuticals, Gensia Sicor, Micromet, Oxford Glycosciences, Orthofix International NV, Phoqus Group, Powdermed, Professional Staff plc and Vanguard Medica Group (now Vernalis).

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Geoff McMillan
Chief Executive Officer
Geoff McMillan is founder CEO of Speciality European Pharma. He is also non-executive chairman of Maelor plc, a non-executive director of Galapagos NV and a consultant to Advent Venture Partners. Geoff has more than 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. He was previously CEO of Biofocus until October 2005 when it was merged with Galapagos NV. Prior to this he held a number of senior commercial positions with Elan, Roche and Xenova, having started his career in marketing and sales with Smith and Nephew.

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Tony Playle
Non-executive Director
Tony is a seasoned healthcare professional with more than 35 years' experience in the major functions of global pharmaceutical companies, latterly with Aventis in Paris, and in-depth experience of Europe. Recently, he has taken up posts with small healthcare companies. He is non-executive director of Phoqus Group, an AIM-listed company; a director of Acpharma Ltd; a director of Labopharm Inc, a Toronto and Nasdaq-listed drug delivery company; and a director and managing director of its wholly-owned subsidiary Labopharm of Europe. He also acts as a consultant, and was instrumental in creating Amdipharm, a private company with a turnover of €100m.

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Shahzad Malik
Non-executive Director
Shahzad is a General Partner at Advent Venture Partners, where he has been active in numerous biopharmaceutical and medical device investments in Europe and the US. A number of these are now publicly traded or have been acquired. Shahzad came to Advent in 1999 with a strong grounding in science and clinical medicine. Prior to joining Advent he spent six years practising medicine, before joining the London office of management consultants McKinsey & Company. Here he served international clients in the healthcare and investment banking sectors. Shahzad gained an MA from Oxford University and an MD from Cambridge University. He subsequently specialised in interventional cardiology.

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