Team - Avvinity Therapeutics Limited

Meet Our Team

Nick Staples, PhDChief Executive Officer

Nick Staples, PhD - CEO

Nick has more than 20 years’ industry experience in the Life Sciences, Healthcare and capital markets worldwide. He has led a range of international transactions and strategic projects including M&A, fundraising (more than £150 million to date), licensing, divestments and new business ventures.

Prior to his current role, Nick was the CEO of Locate Bio, and previously the Chief Business Officer at Artios Pharma and also Chief Business Officer at TopiVert Pharma.

He also held include senior corporate and business development roles at Vectura plc, SSL International plc and Protherics plc, was a life sciences equity analyst at WestLB Panmure and a management consultant in life sciences at PA Consulting.

Chris Pickford, PhDChief Scientific Officer

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Chris Pickford, PhD - Chief Scientific Officer

Chris is Chief Scientific Officer, leading the scientific team to deliver drug candidates into the clinic.

Before joining Avvinity Therapeutics, Chris was Head of Drug Discovery at Centauri Therapeutics, a research biotech specialising in infectious diseases; Research Director at Agalimmune, an immuno-oncology biotech; and a project leader for Salvensis, a neglected diseases drug discovery company.

In addition Chris worked for 12 years as part of Pfizer’s Research and Development organization, leading infectious diseases projects from new target identification to first-in-human trials.

Chris studied for a biochemistry degree at the University of Birmingham and obtained a PhD from the National Institute of Medical Research, London.

Francois Bertelli, PhDHead of Platform

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Francois Bertelli - Head of Platform

Francois is Head of Platform development, leading the optimisation of the Alphamer platform by bringing new targeted delivery modalities, conjugation design and linker-effector ideas and their application to novel targets.

Francois has over 20 years of experience in the Pharma industry, having worked at Pfizer, Abbott, Spirogen, MedImmune, Astrazeneca, and LifeArc where he gained experience of both small molecules and Antibody Drug Discovery. Francois is an expert in Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCS) and Immuno-Oncology (I/O) where his antibody and small molecules background bring the two fields together. He has an antibody development CMC background and most notably he made major contributions to transitioning several ADCs into the clinic.

Francois holds a Protein Engineering PhD from the University of Paris-Sud Orsay University in the field of Enzymology followed by postdoctoral work at Park Davis/Warner Lambert, Cambridge, focusing on pain and inflammation.

Virtual company, with all the capabilities

In addition to our full time employees, the company is supported by a number of industry experienced consultants and we work with high quality contract research organisations around the globe. This way, we get access to the very best people and capabilities, in a cost effective way. As the company develops, our aim is to establish our own laboratories and bring more skills in house.