Speakers

Steve Bates FMed Sci, OBE

CEO Bio Industry Association

BIA

Steve Bates has been leading the UK Bioindustry Association as CEO since 2012. He currently chairs the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a board member of Europabio since 2015. He sits on the UK’s Life Sciences Council. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. Steve was a founder member of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce in the Covid crisis, sitting on its steering Board alongside Kate Bingham.

Steve has championed, with government, effective industrial incentives like the Biomedical Catalyst, which have crowded in private sector investment into UK SMES. He has forged several links for the sector across the USA, Europe and in China. In his time at the BIA, Steve has developed new member groups focused on cell and gene therapy, genomics and engineered biology. A strong advocate of partnership working, Steve champions sector collaboration with research charities and academia. Proud to lead an organisation with a diverse Board with over 40% female representation, Steve is committed to next generation talent and developing the skills needed for the sector to flourish.

Before the BIA, Steve worked for Genzyme and was advisor to the UK Government of Tony Blair. He was made OBE for services to innovation in 2017 and became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science in 2020.

Richard Bungay

Interim Chief Executive Officer

Diurnal

Richard has over 25 years’ experience in senior strategic and financial roles within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector. His prior experience includes CFO and COO of Mereo BioPharma, CFO of Glide Technologies, CFO of Verona Pharma, CEO (formerly CFO) of Chroma Therapeutics, Director of Corporate Communications and Strategic Planning at Celltech and Finance Director of the Respiratory and Inflammation therapy area at AstraZeneca. Richard is also a Non-Executive Director of Cambridge Cognition Holdings plc. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte and has a first class degree in Chemistry from Nottingham University.

Astrid Maria Dahl

Chief Operating Officer and Head, Innovent Biologics (Europe)

Innovent Biologics (Europe)

Maria is COO and Head of Innovent Biologics (Europe). In this role, she is responsible for Innovent European Operations including product development, commercialisation and business development. Maria has almost 20 years of experience in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.

Prior to joining Innovent, Maria was most recently Global Head of Transactions for Oncology R&D Business Development and Licensing at AstraZeneca. She started her professional career as a research fellow in immunology at Harvard Medical School (Boston), then worked in business development at Cell Genesys (San Francisco) prior to moving to London to join IPSEN. At IPSEN, she was initially responsible for oncology business development and then subsequently promoted to Vice-President Global Oncology Portfolio Management. In this capacity, she lead the global cross functional team responsible for global oncology development and commercialization strategy and implementation.

Maria has an MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark (Copenhagen, Denmark), a Ph.D. in Tumor Immunology from ICRF/UCL (London, UK) and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley (USA). She joined Innovent in September 2020 and is based in Innovent London, UK offices. She also continues to serve on the Board and as Chair of the Finance Committee of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce (UK). She speaks fluent Swedish, French, Danish, German and English and intermediate Mandarin.

Tom Duke

Deputy HM Trade Commissioner

Department for International Trade, British Embassy Beijing

Tom Duke was appointed Minister Counsellor for the Department for International Trade in March 2019 and Deputy HM Trade Commissioner to China in 2020. As a member of the senior leadership team of DIT China and Hong Kong, Tom is responsible for trade and investment promotion, trade policy and market access across a range of industry sectors.

Tom has 15 years of experience working in China and East Asia, in both the public and private sectors. Immediately prior to joining DIT, Tom was the UK’s intellectual property attaché to China. From 2009-11 Tom was Director at the EU Chamber of Commerce in Seoul, South Korea.

Tom speaks Mandarin Chinese and Korean. He has an MSc in Financial Economics, specialising in the impact of Chinese exchange rate policy on the Balance of Payments. In his spare time, Tom enjoys running along the canals and mountain paths around Beijing, and spending time with his family.

Dr Jin Li

Founder, Chairman, and CEO

HitGen Inc

Dr Jin Li founded HitGen, a global biotech headquartered in Chengdu, China. As Chairman and CEO, he led development of HitGen’s discovery platform, including DNA encoded libraries with >1.2 trillion diverse, drug-like small molecules. Dr Li previously held research leadership roles at AstraZeneca and Protherics, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Julie Liu

BD Deputy GM

Meheco

Julie is the BD Deputy GM in Meheco, taking charge of licensing in and out on FDF, biological products, diagnostic products, medical equipments, medical consumables, health products and nutrition products. She has 14 years’ experience in international trade and 6 years’ experience in business development. She has a deep understanding of the entire pharmaceutical industry chain from chemicals, raw materials, API to FDF and is familiar with all aspects of the supply chain, can identify the risk points of each link, good at project management, team management and business negotiation; strong communication skills, versatile with communication across diversified cultural backgrounds.

Julie is the co-founder of Chinese API Technology Union and can link to 3,000+ pharmaceutical enterprises and 30,000+ industry elites.

Aaron Wang

Investment Director

Qilu Pharmaceuticals

Aaron Wang works on corporate investment and BD external search and evaluation of Qilu Pharmaceuticals. Within investment, his scope covers stages from Series A to pre-IPO, aligned with Qilu Pharma`s core indications including oncology, immunology, CVD, and anti-infection. Before joining Qilu Pharma, Aaron worked for CICC on biotech / medtech financing and investments. Before joining CICC, Aaron worked for Novartis on strategic venture and APMA BD, and also for Mercer on investment consulting and fund of fund management. Aaron obtained degrees from London Business School (major in finance), Oxford University (major in pharmacology), and Tsinghua University (major in chemistry and biology), with CFA charterholder obtained. He is experienced in collaborative models between pharma and biotech from investment perspective.