Critical Pharmaceuticals has a strong, multi-skilled scientific and commercial leadership team directed by a board of international standing with a broad base of expertise.

Gareth King PhD, Chief Executive Officer

Gareth is a life science strategist and dealmaker with extensive experience in the development and implementation of commercial strategy through deal making, business development and building strong collaborations. Gareth has in-depth knowledge of drug discovery and early clinical development having started his career as a researcher at Harvard Medical School and discovery project leader at Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (AstraZeneca). Gareth moved into business development through a series of increasingly responsible commercial roles at Incyte Pharmaceuticals, Cyprotex and Pharmaceutical Profiles before joining Critical Pharmaceuticals.

Andrew Lewis MRPharmS PhD, Director Operations

Andy trained as a pharmacist, and has six years experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, having previously worked for Zeneca, Pfizer and RegenTec before joining Critical Pharmaceuticals. He is the named inventor on three of Critical Pharmaceuticals patents and was responsible for the formulation development of CP016. He is a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, Academy of Pharmaceuticals Scientists, and serves on the Membership Committee of the Controlled Release Society.

Professor Steve Howdle PhD, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer

Steve is the co-founder of Critical Pharmaceuticals and a world-renowned scientist in the field of supercritical fluid processing with over 15 years experience in the field. Steve holds a Chair of Chemistry at The University of Nottingham and has published over 250 papers in high-level scientific journals. Over the past 10 years his research has focused on the pharmaceutical formulation of drugs using supercritical fluids and he has filed ten patents. Steve has received the Corday Morgan Medal and Award (2001) and Interdisciplinary Award (2005) of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Jerwood Salters Environment Award (2001), Royal Society/Wolfson Research Merit Award (2003) and the DECHEMA-Award 2006 of the Max Buchner Research Foundation; only the second time this was awarded outside of Germany in the last fifty years. Steve has achieved an H-index of 31 (Web of Science).

Alan Baines, Financial Director

Alan is a chartered accountant and has over 25 years experience in working with business start-ups. Alan was senior partner in an internationally renowned business development firm and he was the author of his firms’ publication on the subject. Alan has a clear appreciation of the problems and changes faced by growing businesses and his experience in the subject has helped many companies identify, anticipate and solve such critical issues.

Andrew Naylor PhD, Head of Process Development

Andrew has over 6 years experience of polymer synthesis and processing in supercritical fluids. He completed his PhD in 2006 under the supervision of Professor Steve Howdle studying the reactive blending of polymers using supercritical carbon dioxide.  He has significant expertise in polymer thermal and mechanical analysis and in the design and operation of high-pressure equipment.  He now works overseeing the ongoing scale up and development of the company’s supercritical carbon dioxide polymer processing equipment.

Faron Jordan PhD, Head of Preclinical and Clinical Project Management

Faron completed his PhD at the University of Nottingham where he developed novel sustained release formulations of biocides to reduce problems with toxicity and improve the efficacy of the product as well as develop high throughput assays to rapidly identify the most effective concentrations of the biocide. Faron has several years experience working in contract research as well as experience in quality assurance for a biotechnology company where he was responsible for GLP compliance.

Non-Executive Directors

David Gough, Non-Executive Chairman

David is an entrepreneur specializing in biomedical and other technology-based businesses. In the past ten years he has founded or co-founded 6 companies one of which, Vectura, has been successfully floated on AIM. David has over 30 years of experience as a senior manager, consultant, entrepreneur and investor and has raised, or helped to raise, close to £100m in equity capital and VC funds. David has extensive board experience involving some 20 companies and has worked for or consulted to many of the world's leading pharmaceutical, healthcare and biotechnology companies. 

Dr Terence Chadwick, Non-Executive Medical Director

Dr Chadwick is a physician with extensive experience in leading biotechnology and pharmaceuticals research and development at Novo Nordisk, Fisons, Sanofi-aventis and Innovata. Dr Chadwick's medical background is in internal medicine and endocrinology and he is currently Director Medical Affairs at Vectura.

Graham Ward, Non-Executive Director

Graham is the Commercial Affairs Director at The University of Nottingham, and is the University's appointed Director for Critical Pharmaceuticals. Graham has more than 16 years experience in consulting and from 1988 to 2004 Graham was a Director PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte. Graham served as a Non-Executive Director with Nottingham City Hospital from November 2004 until the Trust’s merger with the Queen’s Medical Centre in March 2006 and since February 2007 has held the post of Audit Committee Chair for the Nottingham City Primary Care Trust also a Non-Executive Directorship.

Scientific and Clinical Advisors

Professor Lisbeth Illum PhD

Lisbeth is a world-renowned scientist and entrepreneur in the field of novel drug delivery systems for difficult drugs, such as peptides and proteins, and has filed more than fifty patents in drug delivery. Lisbeth was a founder of DanBioSyst and Managing Director for 12 years before the successful acquisition by West Pharmaceutical Services. More recently, she was Managing Director of Phaeton Research, a company specializing in advanced drug delivery. Lisbeth was awarded her M. Pharm, Ph.D and D.Sc. from the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy and is a Special Professor at The University of Nottingham. She has published more than 315 scientific papers to be among the top 100 most cited scientists on pharmacology and has co-edited four books including “Peptide Drug Delivery Systems”. She has achieved an H-index of 51 (Web of Science).

Professor Stephen Shalet, Consultant Endocrinologist

Professor Shalet is a Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology at Christies Hospital, University of Manchester. Stephen is a world-leading expert in the treatment of children and adults with endocrine disorders. 

Professor Martin Savage, Consultant Endocrinologist

Professor Savage is a Professor of Paediatric Endocrinology at the Barts and London School of Medicine and Dentistry and a world-leading expert in the treatment of children with endocrine disorders. 

Derek Riley, Qualified Person (QP)

Derek is a senior pharmaceutical executive with extensive global experience in pharmaceutical research and development, regulatory compliance, quality assurance, quality control and facilities qualification / validation. Derek is on the Register of Qualified Persons under EEC Directives 75/319/EEC and 81/851/EEC and has successfully implemented regulatory compliance and quality assurance programmes for Sterling Winthrop, RP Scherer and Cardinal Health over a 35 year period, latterly as Corporate Vice President, Quality.

Andrew Burgess, Process Engineer

Andrew is a Chemical and BioProcess engineer who has been working in the field of supercritical fluids for over 10 years. During this time Andrew has been involved in scaling up lab scale supercritical processes to the industrial scale, including the world's first supercritical fluid reaction plant, and the largest supercritical water oxidation plant to be operated on a production scale. Andrew brings extensive knowledge on the operation, scale-up and development of supercritical fluid processes to Critical Pharmaceuticals.