Meet The ErebaGen 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 10 years of laboratory research and has been instrumental in the development of ErebaGen’s core technologies. Prior to founding ErebaGen, Doug has been awarded an MSci in Chemistry (University of Bristol), and a PhD in Chemistry (University of Bristol) working under the supervision of Prof Russell Cox at the Leibniz University of Hannover. His postdoctoral work with fellow co-founder Prof Greg Challis paved the way for the development of our proprietary platform, and to date he continues to drive our R&D programs with his broad knowledge of chemical biology. He has experience across all areas of biosynthesis including synthetic chemistry, protein engineering and microbiology. He was awarded a highly competitive RSE/BBSRC Enterprise Fellowship in 2021, enabling him to progress ErebaGen’s platform to its full extent. Alongside his extensive scientific work, he has been central to establishing our commercial strategy alongside our Board.
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 chairs ErebaGen’s scientific advisory board and his 25 years of experience in the field are critical to helping guide the scientific strategy and grow the company leading our group of advisors. Over the course of his academic career, Greg has accumulated numerous awards for his contributions to the field of chemical biology, including the Royal Society of Chemistry Interdisciplinary Prize (2017) and the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2013). 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.