Developing advanced biocatalysts that leverage
nature's ingenuity
Meet The team
Dr Fiona Marston
CEO
Fiona is a biotechnology entrepreneur who founded and developed biotech businesses over a period of >20 years. As co-founder and CEO of Novacta Biosystems, Fiona successfully led a company focused on discovery & development of human therapeutics by engineering bioactives from microbes, advancing a candidate from discovery through to clinical development. Most recently, Fiona was Director of the Centre of Excellence in Infectious Diseases Research focused on commercial translation for the University of Liverpool, LSTM and associated NHS Trusts. The team established partnerships with R&D income >£4mill in under two years. Prior to this she was CEO of Absynth Biologics. Early in her career Fiona founded the investment incubator Healthcare Ventures, for the Rothschild Bioscience Unit and J&J Development Corporation investing in European entrepreneurs. Fiona has a BSc Hons (Biological Sciences; UEA), PhD (Biochemistry; UKC), MBA (London Business School) and was awarded an OBE in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours
Dr Doug Roberts
Co-founder - CSO
Doug has worked as a lab researcher for 10 years and has helped developed ErebaGen’s core technology. He has experience across all areas of natural products including synthetic chemistry, protein engineering and microbiology. He was awarded the RSE/BBSRC Enterprise Fellowship in 2021 to support with the development of ErebaGen.
Prof Greg Challis
Co-founder - Non-Executive Director
Greg is co-founder of ErebaGen and is the Professor of Sustainable Chemistry (Chemical and Synthetic Biology), a joint position at the University of Warwick and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is recognised as a world leading expert in natural product biosynthesis and activation of silent biosynthetic gene clusters. He will chair Erebagen’s scientific advisory board and his >20 years of experience in the field will be critical to help guide the scientific strategy and grow the company leading our group of advisors. Greg has a BSc (Chemistry, Imperial College London) and DPhil (Oxford).
Board Members
David Williams
David Williams brings extensive expertise in business strategy, R&D, and commercial development, with a proven track record of managing investor exits and securing $5bn in deals across pharma and biotech.
Bernd Gerhartz
Bernd Gerhartz brings over 30 years of protein biochemistry expertise, accrued through his career at Novartis, Abcam, and Better Dairy, alongside a strong track record of successful patents.
Jason Mellad
Jason Mellad, CEO and co-founder Start Codon, previously CEO of Cambridge Epigenetix, brings expertise across biotech, venture capital, and business development.