Conference Committee

Dr O’Hare has a first class MA (hons) in Natural Sciences from Cambridge and a DPhil in Experimental Nuclear Physics from Oxford. She started her career as a Senior Analyst and Programmer in Network Services at AT&T and later worked at Syntegra as its Technology Appraisal Manager and in the Royal Mail Research Group where she was Head of Information Exploitation Research.

Her previous Enterprise post was at Reading where she established and headed up the Technology Transfer Office.  She is a member of the Institute of Physics and the British Computer Society, and a Chartered IT Professional, Chartered Engineer, Registered Technology Transfer Professional and Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce.

At London Metropolitan University she was responsible for Enterprise strategy and HEIF funding, overseeing a team of 22 staff as well as income delivery of some £15M per annum. In addition, she managed a wide portfolio of Continuing Professional Development programmes, the Metropolitan Works Centre for digital design and manufacture and the Accelerator incubator and student hatchery amongst other things. She is also Chair of the Conference Committee of the PraxisUnico Board.

Mark Baker is the Head of Research and Knowledge Transfer Services at the University of Portsmouth.  He joined the University in October 2003 with a wealth of commercial experience gained in both the private and public sectors. The key focus of Mark's role is to build research and knowledge exchange income, ensuring that the University is responsive to the knowledge needs of industry and other commercial customers.

The development, implementation and delivery of Purple Door as a simplified service that makes finding university services easier for business, is a key area of Mark's responsibility.  Purple Door has had a significant impact on the ability of the University to respond to the needs of external customers and stakeholders.

Building commercial relationships with major employers, as well as other important stakeholders is another area of Mark’s responsibility.  He is aided in this task by his considerable experience working in a range of organisations, from high technology start-up through to major blue chip companies, such as, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, where he was responsible for European market research for the PlayStation launch. He has used this experience to shape the University's commercialisation activities and is a Director of a range of University related companies including Solent Synergy Ltdand UPEL.

Mark was closely involved in the formation of The Solent Local Enterprise Partnership, one of the first Local Enterprise Partnerships to be supported by the Coalition Government.  He also led the development of two successful enterprise focused Regional Growth Fund bids that received £3.2m of funding in late 2011. Mark is currently working on ‘Made for India and China’ a new initiative designed to help UK companies penetrate the Indian and Chinese markets in partnership with the University and UKTI.

Mark received his BSc in Physics from University of Birmingham in 1994, where he then continued with a Materials PhD in collaboration with QinetiQ. In 1997, he became a permanent employee of QinetiQ, applying and developing advanced instrumentation and analysis technologies to problems within the field of structural materials. In 1999, he was seconded to UK Ministry of Defence, with responsibility for proritisation of defence research areas and budget alongside technology procurement policy to QinetiQ and UK defence industries.

In 2001, Mark relocated to Silicon Valley, CA, to provide technical oversight of analytical instrumention within the park alongside collaborators UCal, University of Berkeley and US Department of Defence. He returned to the UK in 2005 to head Bruker AXS Electron Optic group, with responsibility for product development, budget, service delivery, application development, and marketing. In 2007, Mark joined University of Warwick, offering expertise in development of strategy, policy, partnerships and market engineering to advance academic-industrial collaborations and technology transfer.

Mark is a member of the Institute of Physics and a Chartered Physicist with interests in electronic and structural materials; analytical instrumentation; industry-university interaction methods; sane business planning; leadership strategies; ‘effective governance without red-tape’ and maximising operational effectiveness in organisations.

Stephen is a solicitor who joined Anderson Law LLP in February 2011.

He is recommended in Chambers Directory 2012 as a leading lawyer in the Intellectual Property field. His expertise is in technology transfer law and he spent five years working as the senior in-house lawyer at Isis Innovation, the technology transfer company owned by the University of Oxford. Subsequently, he has acted for universities, research institutions and charities as a private practice lawyer. He also currently advises the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust on a two day a week basis. This mix of experience leaves him well placed to understand the needs and priorities of both research and commercial clients.

While at Isis, Stephen advised on all aspects of the licensing process from strategic planning to negotiation and drafting and was involved in the formation of over a dozen spin out companies.  He also advised the University on research and collaboration arrangements and on intellectual property related questions.

Since returning to private practice, he has continued to advise university clients as well as winning clients from the broader commercial, academic and research sectors and taking on a two day a week role with the NHS. Within the NHS, Stephen advises on IP and research related agreements.  This has proved to be a broad remit encompassing film shoots and archaeological work as well as CDAs, research collaborations and licensing. In the commercial field, he has acted for high-tech businesses of all sizes and represented individual inventors, academics and entrepreneurs on a wide spectrum of intellectual property and commercial matters.

Since 2003, Dr Alan Burbidge has managed the commercialisation of life-sciences technologies developed at the University of Nottingham. He has a strong track record in evaluating new technologies securing development and investment funding culminating in the negotiation of licence deals and/or the establishment and further development of spin-out companies. He has acted as non-executive director of university spin-out companies. His close involvement in the initiation and management of major institutional research bids which have a strong element of knowledge transfer has led to awards totalling over £25m.

Prior to this role he was a plant molecular biologist with over a decade of post-doctoral experience. His blue-skies work led towards applied uses for his research results and initiated his keen interest in technology transfer. Soon after securing a five-year research fellowship, he changed career to stimulate interest in technology transfer amongst the academic community and pursue the commercialisation of University inventions.

Ewan trained as a microbiologist gaining his first degree from the University of Dundee followed by a PhD from the University of Kent, Canterbury. He then undertook postdoctoral work at the School of Pharmacy in London followed by 12 years as a research scientist at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket investigating and publishing on equine viruses affecting performance horses – this period included a 2yr EMBO Fellowship at the University of Utrecht and also time in South Africa at the Veterinary Institute, Onderstepoort.
 
Key results of his molecular biology research were submitted as patent applications covering novel diagnostic tests and vaccine components; the absence of any technology transfer office meant that this became a DIY job and he eventually secured licence deals on behalf of his employer with an international veterinary products company which went on to develop diagnostic and vaccine products.
 
Having experienced front-line tech transfer Ewan changed career path and moved from the laboratory in Newmarket into his first Business Development post in Research & Innovation Services at the University of Dundee in 1996. Three years later he moved to Edinburgh University and then again in late 2001 to the University of St Andrews to head up Research & Enterprise Services. His office is responsible for assisting academics in making research applications, negotiating research contracts and agreements, assessing and protecting IP resulting from university work and transferring technology to users through both licence deals and spin-out company formation. His role at St Andrews is to manage the efficient delivery of research support services and technology transfer and to keep senior university managers advised in regard to the numerous external changes in research and KT policy and put appropriate strategies in place to deliver best benefit to the University. 

After graduation Paul joined Real Time Control, an SME founded by US entrepreneur Barney Carroll, where he worked on the development of one of the first laser scanning retail checkout systems in the UK. 

In 1984 Paul joined the University of Hertfordshire as MBDA Fellow in Microelectronics Design where he published many papers and was granted US and European patents in data encryption technology.  Paul negotiated a licensing deal to transfer a design technology initially developed for MBDA to a start-up SME. The resulting product became the market leader, selling worldwide to clients such as ARM, Intel and IBM and transforming the fortunes of the company, whose IPO raised £12M.  Paul subsequently ran the UK- and EU-recognised SME support centres for electronics in the South-East region, where his team helped 1000 SMEs over a period of 10 years, producing over 150 consultancy reports and leveraging over £3M of UK and EU SME grant funding for business partners.

Working as a training consultant over a period of 10 years, Paul taught over 2000 professionals in locations ranging from Oulu, Finland to San Jose, USA, working for key players such as Nokia, Philips, Ericsson and Hewlett-Packard.

Paul now works in the University of Hertfordshire’s Enterprise and Business Development unit, with responsibility for developing strategy in the field of knowledge transfer and innovation. Under his direction the University has significantly raised its knowledge transfer profile and has been awarded the maximum allowable performance-related funding. 

Previous positions include Non Executive Director at Restaurant Innovations, Executive Team Member at i10 and Development Engineer at Real Time Control Plc. 

Paul was awarded a Business Fellowship by HEFCE - one of only eleven such Fellowships granted across England.

John is a Chartered Engineer and entered the HE sector in 2002 after a career in the automotive and electronic instrumentation sectors.  He has experience of setting up several companies both as corporate and HE spin outs as well as starting his own successful company which was funded by 3i.  At Oxford Brookes University he has led the drive to support innovation, enterprise and greater interaction with business within the University and has been instrumental in developing and building collaborative partnerships across the SE region including CommercialiSE and the Oxfordshire Innovation and Growth team.  He is on the board of Venturefest Oxford and the PraxisUnico Conference Committee.

Carina specialises in licensing, development and commercialisation of IP, spin-out company formation and commercial contracts. She has a long standing relationship with the University of Glasgow having advised it for nearly 12 years during which she has spent time on secondment to its Research & Enterprise Office.  During that time Carina advised the University of Glasgow on its innovative 25 year partnership agreement with IP2IPO and has advised the University of Glasgow on the formation of more than 25 spin-out companies. 

Carina also regularly advises other universities including Dundee University and UCL Business plc, the technology transfer arm of University College London, and University spin-out and start up companies.  She is a regular speaker on training courses on academic technology transfer and spin out company formation.

Carina has particular expertise in life sciences, having specialised in this area for the past 9 years.  She has advised clients on strategically important agreements with large pharmaceutical, diagnostics and medical device companies and on regulatory issues relating to medicines, medical devices, clinical trials, human tissue and MHRA inspections.  She also advises on product disposals and acquisitions, in and out-licensing, large scale clinical trials, co-development and collaboration agreements, and manufacturing, supply, marketing and promotional agreements.

Angela Kukula is Director of Enterprise at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. The Enterprise Unit manages all intellectual property and commercial issues at The Institute including arranging collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, negotiating clinical trial agreements, patenting, licensing and the formation of spin-out companies. Angela has a BA in Biochemistry from Oxford University and PhD in Immunology and Genetics from the Institute of Child Health University of London. She also has an MBA specialising in technology management and an LLM in commercial law.

After a post-doc position at Osaka University in Japan, Angela spent a number of years managing international collaborative R&D programmes in the Pharmaceutical industry, before moving into technology transfer. Prior to joining ICR, Angela was Head of IP and Commercialisation at Aston University where she was responsible for all of the University’s technology transfer activities.

Angela has managed portfolios of over 100 patent families and has concluded a large number of licensing and commercialisation deals. She has also been instrumental in the establishment of several spin-out companies. She regularly lectures on innovation and intellectual property matters and sits on a number of national and international research and exploitation bodies.

Patricia has been Head of Business Development at Royal Veterinary College since 2002, leading a team of six to develop all aspects of the College’s commercial interactions.  In addition, she is Deputy Director and Company Secretary of the London BioScience Innovation Centre – the bio-incubator owned by the College.

Patricia has worked in technology transfer in the biosciences from academia to industry for nearly twenty years – originally at Imperial Cancer Research Fund, followed by a short time at British Technology Group, focusing there on marketing for the pharmaceutical group.  She then joined Royal Postgraduate Medical School, managing consultancy; clinical trials; research collaborations; and technology licensing.  In 1997, RPMS merged to become part of Imperial College.  Patricia subsequently became Head of the Medical Sciences Team of the merged technology transfer companies – IC Innovations Limited, which concentrated activities in spin-out creation.

Patricia has a BSc in Biochemistry and previously worked in research administration, scientific public relations and marketing.

In summer 2011 Robin took on the challenging role of Director of Newcastle University Ventures. This small team has been established to focus on the successful development of Newcastle University spin-out companies, working closely with the academic founders to develop robust business propositions, providing access to good quality initial management and helping to secure the required level of investment and/or development funding. Prior to that Robin spent five years as Head of Commercial Development at Newcastle University with overall responsibility for consultancy and commercial services and for developing the University’s IP, licensing and spin-out  portfolios.

Robin’s earlier career was in engineering design and manufacturing, with a focus on Computer Aided Engineering (CAE). He established and ran a software development and consultancy company delivering bespoke CAE solutions to business. He has also had lecturing roles at both Durham and Newcastle universities.

Robin is a non-exec director of several Newcastle University spin-out companies and is a member of the PraxisUnico Conference Committee .

Rupert Osborn is a co-founder of IP Pragmatics and was appointed CEO in January 2009. He has worked for 15 years at the interface between early stage biotechnology developers (eg. academic/public sector institutions, SMEs) and downstream multi-national exploitation partners. A plant molecular biologist by training he spent 10 years with Zeneca Agrochemicals (now Syngenta) working in both research and then business development/licensing before moving to take up a business development position at a public sector owned intellectual property development and licensing company.

At IP Pragmatics Rupert manages a growing IP consulting and services business which assists universities, government research organisations and companies with the assessment and exploitation of early stage life science technologies. A significant proportion of this work is for organisations outside of the UK including universities in Japan, Australia and in mainland Europe.

Rupert has a MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from the University of Warwick.

Wendy completed a Degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Dundee, before moving to Germany to conduct post-doctoral research at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg.  Following two years as a bench scientist, Wendy realised that, although scientific research was extremely interesting, a life at the bench was not for her and began to search for alternative career options, which would enable her to combine her scientific expertise with new skills.

Wendy joined Cardiff University as a Technology Transfer Officer in 2000 and gained experience of all aspects of technology transfer.  She has been particularly involved in the work-up, formation and early development of several spin-out companies, which led to her close involvement in the negotiation of the Cardiff University – Fusion IP plc Agreement in 2007.  Wendy is currently a member of the Fusion Cardiff Ltd. Board, which manages the portfolio of Cardiff University spin-out ventures and their associated fundraising.

In 2008, Wendy became Technology Transfer Manager at Cardiff University and is responsible for managing the Technology Transfer Team, which conducts the technology transfer activity for the University - from opportunity identification and assessment through to licensing, seed-corn funding and spin-out formation and company exit.   Cardiff University is currently dealing with a portfolio of more than 200 technology transfer projects, including over 80 patent families, 40 active licence agreements and 20 spin-out companies.

Don brings his serial entrepreneurial and international management experience to the University of Southampton in the position of Director of Research and Innovation Services (RIS). 

Don joined the University in 2007, initially with a remit to foster strategic relationships between University of Southampton, key corporations, and other external partner organisations.  Prior to joining the University, he had an eight year relationship with them, beginning with his licensing of technology to form Southampton Photonics, Inc. (SPI).  SPI’s funding of on-going research programs within the University and its leveraging of University technology led it to become a world leader in fiber lasers.  In 2000, Don was a driving force in the founding of SPI, leading the team in defining the company and its products, hiring the senior management and technical teams, and raising over $50 million in first round venture capital. 

Don is the former Managing Vice President of worldwide telecom research and consulting for the GartnerGroup.  Before Gartner, Don was founder and President of On-Stream Networking which commercialised the first multi-megabit drop and insert multiplexer.  In the early 1980s, Don started Optical Networking Inc. (ONI) which developed one of the first wireless LANs.  He also started SpanWorks which established IrDA as a global communications standard. 

In addition to founding five companies, Don has held executive positions with a number of multi-national manufacturing companies.  Managing Exxon Enterprises’ Advance Techology Group, he oversaw the investment of $100s of millions in the first semiconductor fabrication facility dedicated to microprocessors, and in the development of new data communications and information display technologies.     Don also held management positions at Racal, DSC Communications, Texas Instruments, and Stanford Research Institute. 

Don graduated from the University of Texas, Phi Beta Kappa in Physics, and has an MBA in Technical Management also from the University of Texas.

In addition to his RIS responsibilities, Don is active in the local community, as a director of the Southampton Chamber of Commerce Policy Board, the Southampton Asset Management Board, and the SETsquared Partnership.  But most importantly, Don is the manager of the Hiltingbury Harriers mini-soccer team, on which his son, Toby, plays.