Andy is an entrepreneur with a track record in founding and scaling innovative life-science, and healthtech companies. He is currently Chairman of Arecor Therapeutics plc, Owlstone Medical Ltd, Congenica Ltd,  Abcodia Ltd, Closed Loop Medicine Ltd, and Ieso Digital Health Ltd.  He is a director of the commercial Board of CRUK (CRT)  and The Scale-Up Institute. He is council member of UKRI MRC and is an advisor to Cambridge Innovation Capital, the UCL Technology Fund, and the CRUK Seed Fund.

Andy is a Cambridge graduate with an early career at ICI (now AstraZeneca) and PA Technology.  He was a founder and director of Chiroscience plc until its merger with Celltech and subsequently has founded, invested in or helped to scale more than 30 innovative ventures including companies such as Vectura, Arakis, Acacia Pharma and Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd.  He is a founder member of the Cambridge Angels and received a CBE for services life-sciences in 2015.

Dr Andy Blackwell is a healthcare technology entrepreneur and is the Group Chief Science and Strategy Officer at ieso Digital Health.

Andy trained in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of St Andrews and the University of Cambridge. His work has focussed on driving improvements in the detection, diagnosis and treatment of common mental illness and he has worked extensively with academic neuroscience labs, pharma and medical technology companies around the world.

ieso Digital Health is a multi-award winning provider of evidence-based talking therapy for mood and anxiety disorders. Now available to over 20 million people, ieso was one of the first organisations to successfully develop and deploy evidence-based mental telehealthcare at scale. Leveraging real-world clinical data, ieso has pioneered the application of technologies such as deep-learning and natural language processing to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of mental healthcare delivery.

Recognising the global demand-supply gap in mental healthcare provision, ieso has recently commenced the clinical development of a range of AI-enabled digital assessment and therapeutic solutions that it hopes will complement and extend human care delivery around the world.

Andy at TEDx

https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_blackwell_artificial_intelligence_meets_mental_health_therapy

Example ieso-lab activities on advanced technology in mental health science

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2748757

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/06/1041345/ai-nlp-mental-health-better-therapists-psychology-cbt/

More on ieso science

https://www.iesogroup.com/science-and-dtx

Dr. Vishal Gulati is a specialist venture capital investor backing scientists and tech founders bring their innovations to market. Prior to becoming a VC, Vishal trained as a clinician scientist at University of Oxford and Imperial College which gives him a rare and unique perspective on the journey of scientific discoveries all the way to commercially successful products. Vishal’s investment thesis is based around the convergence of healthcare, data and engineering.

In his venture capital career spanning over two decades, Vishal has held roles at leading venture firms such as Atlas Venture, Oxford Science Enterprises and Molten Ventures (fka Draper Esprit), while also making independent private investments in ground breaking healthtech companies led by exceptional founders.

Vishal has served on the boards of over fifteen public and private health and life sciences companies; from Horizon Discovery (a leading player in CRISPR gene editing now acquired by Perkin Elmer) to the world’s most scalable DNA synthesis platform (Evonetix). He was an early backer of some of the pioneering European companies in digital health and AI drug discovery space such as Clue, Ieso Digital Health, Quit Genius, Zoe, Kheiron, Arctoris, Turbine, Relation Therapeutics, and AI Vivo. His portfolio of over 30 VC and angel investments makes him one of the most active investors in this space.

Vishal chairs the investment committee of Cancer Research UK seed fund, and holds similar roles at The Francis Crick Institute, (KQ Labs), British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, and Innovate UK. Vishal also serves on the advisory board of Reuben College, the newest of the Oxford University Colleges focusing on biology and artificial intelligence.

Dan was appointed as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Evotec (UK) Limited in October 2021.  Prior to joining Evotec, Dan was Co-Head of Healthcare at Polar Capital where he launched the healthcare business in 2007 growing it to over $4 billion of assets under management. Dan was formerly head of European healthcare research at Morgan Stanley, an analyst at ING Barings Furman Selz in New York and a post-doctoral research scientist at Schering Plough, CA. He has over 25 years of experience within global healthcare covering biotechnology, medical technology and healthcare services. Dan chairs the board of the BioIndustry Association (BIA), the industry trade association for UK life sciences, and holds non-executive directorships at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (a world leading genomics research centre), Trellus Health (an LSE-listed digital health company focused on inflammatory bowel disease), Celmatix (a privately-held, preclinical-stage women’s health biotech in NY focused on ovarian biology), Apian (a privately-held healthcare drone start-up) and Keepabl (a UK-based, privately-owned provider of SaaS solutions for GDPR compliance).

Catherine is the Director of Tech Policy for NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. Catherine’s Tech Policy Directorate supports the health and social care sector to set out their overarching direction for technology and data driven innovation and implementation to improve health and wellbeing outcomes and make staff’s working lives easier. An economist by background, Catherine also ensures that digital and data have been weaved into the priorities for health and social care, reflected in our investments and policies. Catherine joined NHSX in April 2020 as the Director of the Centre for Improving Data Collaboration, which she continues to lead, supporting better data-driven partnerships between the NHS and industry, ensuring these promote patient and public benefit. During COVID-19, Catherine also led NHSX efforts to use technology to accelerate the integration of health and social care. Prior to joining NHSX, she was the Executive Programme Director for the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough STP, Director of Strategy at UCLH and a policy director at NHS Improvement. Catherine is inspired by how digital and data together can promote independence and person-centred care while addressing the multifaceted workforce challenges across health and care.