Board of Directors

  • Andrew J M Richards, CBE, Ph.D., Non-Executive Chair

    Andrew Richards has extensive experience from the UK biotechnology sector in drug development, investment, commercial deals and the successful scale-up of companies.

    He is the Chairman of Congenica Ltd, Owlstone Medical Ltd, Ieso Digital Health Ltd and Closed Loop Medicine Ltd, and is a director of RNAvate and Our Future Health Trading, as well as being a council member of the UKRI Medical Research Council.

    Andrew has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Cambridge and was a founder of Chiroscience in 1992 and an Executive Director through to the Celltech deal in 1999. Andrew has a track record as a founder, active investor in, and director of, more than 25 innovative healthcare and life-science companies, including Vectura plc and Arakis Ltd. He is an experienced board director for several public companies, including Chiroscience plc, Vectura plc, IXICO plc and Silence Therapeutics plc.

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  • Sarah Howell, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director

    Sarah Howell has been Chief Executive Officer of Arecor since 2015.

    Through her leadership, Arecor has grown significantly into a publicly listed clinical stage biopharmaceutical company. Since her appointment, Sarah has led Arecor through a period of continued growth and transformation, playing an instrumental role in progressing its proprietary pipeline and strengthening important collaborations with global partners.

    Sarah has a background in clinical and commercial pharmaceutical product development, manufacturing, supply and licensing across a range of product types and therapeutic areas, with previous senior roles in the pharmaceutical industry including Vice President CMC & Technical Development at BTG Plc., and Director of Outsourced Manufacturing at UCB-Celltech. Sarah holds a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham and a Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from the University of St Andrews.

     

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  • Sam Fazeli, Ph.D., Non-Executive Director

    Sam Fazeli has served as a member of the Arecor Board of Directors since September 2017 and brings over 25 years of experience of conducting equity research as a pharmaceutical analyst, working at firms including Nomura International and HSBC.

    Currently, he is Director of Research, Global Industries at Bloomberg Intelligence in London, where he specialises in global pharmaceuticals.

    Prior to joining Bloomberg in 2010, Sam worked at Piper Jaffray, Ltd. as a pharmaceutical analyst and head of European research. Before transitioning to investment banking, he was a research scientist for seven years. Sam has been ranked a top analyst by both the UK and Pan-European Extel surveys. He holds a degree from Cardiff University, and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of London.

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  • Jeremy Morgan, Non-Executive Director

    Jeremy Morgan completed a Senior Executive Programme in General Management from London Business School and holds a BSc (Hons) in Applied Biology from Coventry University.

    He is an experienced Pharmaceutical and Biotech General Manager, having been responsible for product development and market access, as well as commercial strategy development and product launches at a national, regional and global level.

    Jeremy was Vice President of Diabetes, International, for Eli Lilly & Company from 2014-2017, leading and developing individuals and teams across Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia and working across functions, geographies and products. From 2018-2019 Jeremy served as Chief Operating Officer at market access and reimbursement specialists PHMR Limited, where he was also Non-Executive Chairman from 2019-2020. He is currently President, Kyowa Kirin International plc.

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  • Alan E Smith, CBE, FRS, Ph.D., Non-Executive Director

    Alan Smith is the former Senior Vice President and the Chief Scientific Officer of Genzyme Corporation, Cambridge MA, where he had overall responsibility for the company’s science.

    Prior to its acquisition by Genzyme in 1989, Alan was the Scientific Director of Integrated Genetics, a biotechnology company. Previously, he was head of the biochemistry division at the National Institute of Medical Research.

    Alan has published extensively on the genetic code and protein synthesis, tumour virology, cell biology and cystic fibrosis. He holds a B.A. from Christ’s College, Cambridge and a Ph.D. from the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England.

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  • Christine Soden, Non-Executive Director

    Christine Soden is a Non-Executive Director of Elementis plc, the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult and viO HealthTech Limited.

    Christine is a Chartered Accountant and holds a degree in Mathematics from the University of Durham. She has significant experience in the commercialisation of innovative technology and a strong track record of leading innovative private and public biotechnology, life science and pharmaceutical companies, both private and public.

    Previously Christine was CFO and Company Secretary of Acacia Pharma Group plc, a public quoted provider of pharmaceutical products designed to improve the outcomes and recovery for surgical patients and CFO and non-executive Director of AIM-listed Electrical Geodesics, Inc., which was acquired by Philips NV in 2017. Other CFO and finance leadership roles include Optos plc, BTG plc (former FTSE250 constituent), Oxagen Limited and Celltech Chiroscience Group plc and Medeva plc.

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