Our Scientists

Rod graduated from the University of Aston in Birmingham in 1972 with a degree in Chemical Engineering and is a Chartered Chemical Engineer. Rod spent his early career in R&D, process development, and plant commissioning with Laporte Industries and Diamond Shamrock Agrochemicals. He then gained international experience as Managing Director of Bevaloid Far East in Hong Kong, and Regional Director Asia Pacific for Rhone Poulenc Animal Nutrition and CEO Contract Manufacturing for Inchcape, both based in Singapore. Since 1998, Rod has worked in the SME private company sector with technology businesses, including biotechnology as CEO of Biotal Ltd. Rod set up his own business consultancy in 2010, and has worked closely with CatSci Ltd since 2012.

Rod is responsible for challenging the Board to ensure the business strategy and all commercial opportunities are properly progressed, while also supporting Board colleagues more broadly to secure the sustainable growth of the Company. His position also demands oversight of the Board to ensure that the decisions taken are compatible with the highest standards of customer service and compliant with current best practice.

After completing his PhD in 2007, Ross joined AstraZeneca as a Senior Analytical Chemist in process R&D. Ross’ analytical expertise and entrepreneurial mindset was pivotal to the establishment of CatSci Ltd in 2011. Ross became CEO in 2015 and has since led the company’s pivot from a catalyst screening company to the award-winning innovation partner for medicines development that it is today. His strong company vision of CatSci becoming the leading partner for the development and manufacture of new medicines to deliver life-changing therapeutics to those in need has critically fuelled CatSci’s growth.

Ross has also recognised the promise of oligonucleotide therapeutics with RNA pipelines predicted to expand explosively in future years. However, there is still significant work to be done to de-risk both their discovery and development programs. That is why, CatSci recently launched their oligonucleotides capability dedicated to producing scalable and sustainable oligonucleotide manufacturing. Furthermore, Ross led CatSci’s partnership with Argonaute RNA and joined the company’s board as a Non-Executive Director to help drive the paradigm shift needed for the manufacturing process of oligonucleotides.

Ross has made CatSci an employee-first company that values and empowers all of the team. He has instilled a science-led and continuous improvement culture, striving for self and company innovation and evolution. His firm ‘keep learning and growing’ mantra shaped him into the entrepreneur he is today. This includes completing the Goldman Sachs-funded 10KSB programme at Saïd Business School (Oxford University) and the LSE ELITE programme.

A true entrepreneur, Ross has also launched LabLinks – a free to use digital AI powered community platform for scientists across the globe to link, learn and succeed.

Simon obtained an MA in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) from Hertford College, Oxford in 1995 and earned a PhD in 1998 researching the asymmetric synthesis of amino acids with Prof. Laurence M. Harwood. Then followed a two-year post-doctoral stint with Prof. Barry M. Trost at Stanford University, studying the catalysis of the Claisen rearrangement. In 2001, he returned to the UK to join Process R&D in AstraZeneca, going on to lead multiple chemical development projects spanning pre-clinical to Phase III drug candidates, gaining insight into the myriad demands of drug substance manufacture and turning molecules into medicines.

After ten years in Large Pharma, Simon played a pivotal role as a co-founder of CatSci Ltd, negotiating the financial terms for the asset transfer and service agreement with AstraZeneca. After the establishment of the start-up, he subsequently took on commercial responsibility, overseeing the growth from a catalyst screening company to a multimillion-pound process research and development business that serves the global pharmaceutical industry. As a dynamic leader, Simon is committed to leveraging the power of UK R&D to make new therapeutics that are cheaper, greener and accessible to all.

After obtaining his PhD in Physical Chemistry, Jérôme began his career as a Process Development Engineer, and then moved on to Engineering and Production Manager at Novasep. He then advanced to Director of Sales and Marketing to enable him to be closer to the customer needs, before he moved on to Director of Strategic Business Development, where he was integral in the acceleration of the company. Since then, he has held positions as CEO and COO for a number of life science companies, ahead of being appointed as CatSci’s new Chief Operating Officer.

Jérôme brings with him almost 30 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical market. By harnessing CatSci’s talent, culture, capabilities and offerings, Jerome is responsible for ensuring that our internal operations run seamlessly. This will enable us to continue offering more and better to our customers to meet their evolving needs.

Mark commenced his career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) having obtained a First-Class degree in Accountancy from Cardiff University. At PwC, he became a charted accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and spent the next 10 years advising companies of all sizes across the UK on a range of financial matters. Seeking a new challenge, he left to join the University of South Wales, which had recently formed from the merger of the University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales, Newport. It was there that he initially worked on a variety of projects, then more formally took up the position of Head of Business Partnering, to roll out a business partnering approach to the organisation. In that role, Mark managed a budget of over £200m and was involved in a range of projects, from new campuses in Dubai to large scale staff restructures.

Mark left the University after four and a half years to become the CFO of a growing technology business, OpenGenius Limited. Over the next two and a half years, he took the company through a VC-backed equity funding round, and helped successfully launch and grow a new product to the international market. Mark managed a range of departments in this role, including customer support, finance, and data. From there, he joined Jehu Group as Group Finance Director, leading all financial matters across the £80m turnover group. In his time there, he secured significant external funding to ensure the ongoing financial future of the business.

Mark is currently the Chief Business Officer for CatSci, leading on all financial matters. Mark is passionate about making finance easily understood and accessible to all individuals within the company and is committed to helping CatSci continue to grow to meet the needs of its customers.

Claire is a Managing Director at Keensight Capital.

She brings more than 15 years of investment and M&A experience, with a special focus on Healthcare.
Claire was previously Head of M&A at Keensight Performance where she was responsible for the M&A activity across the portfolio.

Prior to joining Keensight, Claire was a Director in the Healthcare Investment Banking team at Jefferies in London. She executed numerous cross-border M&A, equity and debt transactions across a range of healthcare sectors.

Claire also spent part of her career in investment banking at Nomura and HSBC in London, and in Transaction Services at Deloitte.

Claire has a British-French dual nationality. She is a Chartered Accountant and holds a double Bachelor’s degree in European Management, from Lancaster University (UK) and NEOMA Business School (France).

Andy Jones has over 30 years’ experience in CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls) development and pharma manufacturing services. He has been instrumental in leading the development, scale-up, and establishment of manufacturing processes for several blockbuster medicines. He has held many senior leadership positions in AstraZeneca, including Head of Manufacturing: Science and Technology, and Vice President for Pharmaceutical Innovation. He has recently concluded his role as Industrial Strategy Challenge Director in Medicines Manufacturing at Innovate UK, and consequently has a broad understanding of the exciting innovation happening in the global Pharma and Biotech manufacturing market.

Andy’s experience in the CMC landscape will underpin CatSci’s growth through supporting the expansion of our core capabilities and extension of our offerings into new emerging areas of advanced medicines manufacturing.

Dr Claire Madden-Smith has over 20 years of experience within the contract services sector. She completed her PhD, postdoctoral research, and consultancy work in material science and physical chemistry at Loughborough University. She then moved on to provide advanced solid-state analysis to the pharmaceutical industry at a start-up organisation. Over the following two decades, Claire was part of the continued growth and evolution of the company as an Executive Board Director, until its sale in 2013. She then became Senior Vice President of Juniper Pharma Services, where she led the rapid growth of their expanded contract development and manufacturing offering. She is a Non-Executive Director and Strategic Consultant to contract service organisations and private equity investors. She joined the CatSci Board as an Advisor in 2022, and will be instrumental in facilitating CatSci’s ambitious growth plans.