Directors & Management

Professor Malcolm Young - CEO

Professor Malcolm Young is a scientist. He has recently been Director of the Complex Systems Group; Director of the Institute for Neuroscience; Provost of the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering; and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Strategic Development at Newcastle University, after having been a Royal Society Research Fellow at the RIKEN Institute in Japan, and at Oxford University. The research expertise of his group lies in complex systems analysis and informatics, and its recent outputs include 6 publications in Nature and Science and 12 in Proceedings and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The main goals of his research are to understand how biological function arises from structural aspects of complex biological systems. His recent research funding exceeds £11 million, and includes programme and project grants for research on complex systems from the Wellcome Trust (the World's largest medical research charity), EU Framework programmes, Human Frontiers Science Programme Organisation, DEFRA, BBSRC, and EPSRC and DTI e-Science. He has recently been awarded two JREI grants for a supercomputer and bio-instrumentation. He is one of eighteen scientists worldwide nominated by the Sunday Times as the "Brains behind the 21st Century". Professor Young founded e-Therapeutics, and has led its development since.

Dr Royston Drucker - Chief Medical Officer

Dr Drucker is a medical doctor, with a great deal of experience of the pharmaceutical industry. He originally joined the European R&D organisation of Sterling Drug Inc. as a medical advisor, and was promoted to be responsible for clinical pharmacology, drug metabolism and bioanalysis in Europe. In 1986, he moved to the Upjohn Company, subsequently Pharmacia & Upjohn, Inc., where he held a range of international responsibilities. His positions there included Director, Marketing with responsibility for worldwide marketing of cardiovascular products; Executive Director, European Community Affairs and Business Systems; and Vice-President, Drug Development, with global responsibility, in multiple therapeutic areas, for clinical drug development. A graduate of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program, Member of the Securities Institute, and an SFA Registered Securities Representative, Roy managed Technomark Consulting Services, including a corporate finance operating unit, BioCorp Securities, which is the European leader in cross-border transactions in the pharmaceutical contract research industry, before joining e-Therapeutics as Chief Executive.

Johnny Cordiner - Finance Director and Commercial Director

Johnny Cordiner is an experienced investment banker who specialised in life sciences and in oil and gas. Johnny is a graduate chemist, a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for Scotland, and a member of the Securities Institute. He gained fifteen years business experience in a number of financial roles, including working in industry, management consulting and offshore banking before entering investment banking. Johnny has been instrumental in the commercialisation of e-Therapeutics, having worked with Professor Young and Dr Drucker for more than three years to place the company in a sound financial and strategic position for rapid development.

Professor Oliver Francis Wintour James - Non-executive Chairman

Oliver has been a non-executive director of BUPA since 1999 and was a non-executive director of Goldsborough Health Care plc from when it floated on the main market in 1995, until it was acquired by BUPA in 1997. He has also been a non-executive director of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust since 2006.

Oliver qualified as a physician in 1975 and practised until 2004 when he became head of the medical faculty at Newcastle University. He was senior vice president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1997 to 1999 and has also been a member of a number of national and governmental medical related boards and committees. Oliver joined the Company as a non-executive director in October 2007.

Mr Brad Hoy - Non-executive Director

Brad has over fifteen years of commercial experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries through financial and general management roles in the UK and USA.

Brad is Director and co-founder of Seven Hills Venture Partners Ltd, a life sciences advisory firm based in Edinburgh. Previously Brad was Chief Financial Officer of Plethora Solutions Holdings plc, an AIM-listed speciality pharmaceutical company, Chief Executive Officer of Xcellsyz Ltd, a UK venture capital-backed life science company and Senior Director of Geron Corporation’s stem cell-focussed UK subsidiary. Prior to co-founding Seven Hills, Brad was Chief Financial Officer at Cyclacel Ltd, a UK oncology company and held senior financial management positions at ChiRex Inc, a US-based pharmaceutical CMO. Brad is a Chartered Management Accountant.