Keith Thompson is non-executive Chairman of NK:IO. Keith founded the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in 2012. He was responsible for shaping the environment and developing key infrastructure and assets for the development and commercialisation of the UK cell and gene therapy industry. He was awarded a CBE in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to Science and Innovation. In April 2020 Keith served as an industry advisor to the UK Vaccine Task Force. He is Chair of the Pharma Advisory Board at Deep Science Ventures, a venture studio that systematically builds and optimises new companies addressing some of the most pressing health challenges of the age.

Andy Baxendale is Chief Operating Officer at NK:IO. Prior to joining the company, Andy acted as a consultant to the biopharma industry supporting start up development strategy, partnering and fundraising activities. He headed the PARP Inhibitor Business Unit for Cycle Pharmaceuticals from where he designed and delivered the proof-of-concept strategy in vascular calcification and additional indications. He was previously Global Programme Leader at the Centre for External Innovation at Takeda and led the asset externalisation team in the completion of licensing and business transactions, resulting in the creation of three companies. Andy has also worked for Fulcrum Pharma, UCB, Daiichi Medical Research and GSK.

Hugh Brady is a co-founder and Director of NK:IO. He is Professor of Immunology in the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London. He has extensive expertise in immunology. All of his research career has focused on studying haematopoiesis and the development and function of the cells of the immune system. Hugh’s postdoctoral training was at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London and as a Long Term EMBO Fellow at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. He has used his immunological expertise to study the role of the immune system in both infectious disease and cancer. His current research is focused on how to both manipulate NK cells and to produce them in therapeutic contexts and his research group has conducted pioneering work in the area of immune cell function and immune cell development. Their work on transcriptional regulation of NK cell production forms the basis for the work underway at NK:IO. 

He is Academic Lead of the Flow Cytometry Facility, Imperial College London and involved in several initiatives in health research at Imperial including the Centre for Drug Discovery Science, the Cancer Research UK Centre of Excellence and the Advanced Therapeutic Medicinal Products Centre of Excellence.

Matthew Fuchter is a co-founder and Director of NK:IO. He is a Professor of Chemistry, co-Director of the Centre for Drug Discovery Science and co-Director of the MRes in Drug Discovery in the Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London. He is also the UK representative to the EuCheMS Division of Organic Chemistry and an Editorial Board Member of the journal RSC Medicinal Chemistry. He is involved in numerous multidisciplinary centres of excellence at Imperial including the Institute of Chemical Biology, the Imperial College Network of Excellence in Malaria, the Cancer Research Centre of Excellence, the Antimicrobial Research Collaborative and the Antimicrobial Research Collaborative. 

Matthew has conducted pioneering work in the area of medical chemistry and chemical biology, translated these early stage studies into IP and candidate drugs and is a leader in drug discovery within Imperial College. His research is mostly focused on the medicinal chemistry of transcriptional targets. His group has made significant progress in the discovery of unique small molecule inhibitors of a variety of epigenetic enzymes and used these to define new concepts in therapy. Prof Fuchter was one of the lead researchers in a large effort at Imperial College to develop inhibitors of the transcriptional kinase target CDK7. The molecule – Samuraciclib – is now entering Phase II for multiple cancers, and has been FDA fast tracked. He has won many international research awards for his work, including the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Corday Morgan Prize (2021).

Mike Murphy is a non-executive Director of NK:IO. He is the Portfolio Manager of Meltwind Advisory LLP, the due diligence and portfolio management team for Jonathan Milner, founder and former CEO of Abcam PLC. Jonathan invests as an Angel across the life sciences, supporting early-stage companies throughout their journey with investment and guidance.

 Mike gained his doctorate in Physics at Cambridge University and has since worked for Cambridge start-up companies in engineering, computer science, and biotechnology, most recently Owlstone Medical. He has served as board director or observer on behalf of Jonathan Milner across a range of biotech start-ups.

Biotech leader with broad and deep experience in science, strategy and management in a wide range of therapeutic areas, platforms and modalities, gained over 35 years in pharma, biotech, charity/academia and investment. Led major international organisations and initiatives in GSK R&D that had significant impact on pipeline and platforms, and co-led development of global R&D IP strategy. Founded and built three biotech companies: Microbiotica, a leader in microbiome precision medicine spun out of the Wellcome Sanger Institute; Crescendo Biologics, a transgenic bispecific antibody company spun out of the Babraham Institute; and NK:IO, an NK cell therapy company spun out of Imperial College. Trustee for 7 years of the biomedical charity LifeArc and played a part in Keytruda royalty monetisation team that brought £1.8bn, enabling LifeArc to become a major force in UK biomedical translation. Previously Director of UK BioIndustry Association, adviser at Imperial College and Venture Partner at UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund, 6 years on MRC DPFS Committee for translational funding.

Tanya joined the NK:IO Board of Directors in July 2023. Tanya is currently Investment Principal at Cancer Research Horizons, a specialist oncology drug discovery, development and commercialisation company wholly owned by Cancer Research UK., where she is responsible for new ventures activity, new company creation, investing in early-stage start-up propositions and companies via Cancer Research Horizons’ Seed Fund and managing existing portfolio companies. Tanya has extensive experience in business development and partnerships across therapeutics, diagnostics and MedTech in oncology (discovery to early clinical), spanning a range of translational and commercialisation models including licensing, strategic partnerships, and new company creation. Tanya joined the predecessor of Cancer Research Horizons in 2002 after a period at The British Council.

Tanya holds a PhD from King’s College London and a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Sheffield.