About

Every rare disease patient deserves a treatment

Patient-inspired

It all started when Dr Tim Guilliams and Dr David Brown met a man named Nick Sireau in 2014.

Nick had set up a patient group to help find treatments for an extremely rare genetic disorder that affected his sons. For a decade he worked tirelessly, but the drug discovery process was slow and very expensive - a challenge facing nearly all patient groups today.

Tim and Dave had long been advocating drug redevelopment - the use of existing drugs for new therapeutic purposes - when used in combination with artificial intelligence. They knew that this inexpensive and accelerated approach could help others like Nick and the rare disease community overcome the challenges they were facing and find treatments faster.

Nick became their inspiration – he was the living story of the therapeutic need their approach could meet.

Our values

Care for rare

Rare disease patients are at the heart of everything we do.

We seek opportunities to meaningfully support them and their families - from developing treatments, to volunteering with patient groups, to championing and engaging with the broader community.

Grow as
individuals

We are learners, always looking to extend and enhance our expertise.

We believe every voice matters, and work in an environment of mutual respect, honest opinions and trust for one another.

Win as
a team

We are united in our mission to help patients.

We strive to maintain an inclusive, diverse and caring culture where we can celebrate successes and lessons together.

Innovate
and deliver

The road ahead is challenging.

It requires rapid innovation and calculated risks that won’t compromise our high standards. We take action fast and learn from any failure along the way.

Our approach

At the centre of our approach our next-generation AI platform we built to find novel connections between drugs and diseases. We combine these predictions with in-house expertise to accelerate new treatments through our pipeline to clinical trials and on to patients.

View our pipeline

Some of our board members, investors and partners

Latest news and articles

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Our team

Dr Tim Guilliams

Co-founder and CEO

Tim is a tech entrepreneur from the Cambridge Cluster, passionate about using big data and AI to accelerate treatments for rare diseases. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Healx, the AI-powered, patient-inspired tech company, accelerating the discovery and development of rare disease treatments at scale. In 2019, Healx raised $56 million in Series B funding and was listed in Tech Nation’s Future Fifty cohort. In 2020, the company won 5 prizes at the CogX Awards including Grand Jury Prize and Best AI Product and was listed in CB Insights Digital Health 150.

As CEO of Healx, Tim has been listed in The Sunday Times Maserati 100 list of entrepreneurs in 2019, was was named as ‘One to watch’ in The Telegraph’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders in 2020, and was selected as member of the Forbes Technology Council in 2022.

Tim is also the Co-Founder and Trustee of the Cambridge Rare Disease Network (CRDN). Prior to Healx and CRDN, he obtained his PhD at the University of Cambridge in the field of Biophysics and Neuroscience, developing nanobody technology for Parkinson's disease. Before moving to Cambridge UK, Tim obtained an MEng in Bio- and Chemical-Engineering from the University of Brussels.

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Dr Anthony Hall

Chief Medical Officer

Dr Anthony Hall graduated from King’s College London with first class joint honours in physiology and pharmacology before going on to study medicine at the Royal Free Hospital. He has over 25 years of drug development with ten years working on rare diseases.

As CMO at Healx Tony will be responsible for progressing the company’s rare disease drug candidates through the clinic. He will also oversee relationships with regulatory bodies at a global level.

Prior to joining Healx, Tony worked as CMO at Aparito and as Therapeutic Area Head of Orphan Drugs at Mereo BioPharma. He previously co-designed the development programme for DevelopAKUre, an FP7-funded project to redevelop nitisinone for the treatment of the rare metabolic disease, alkaptonuria (AKU). He is currently Trustee of Findacure and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the patient group charity Duchenne UK. He is also co-editor of The Patient Group Handbook for rare diseases.

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Dr Neil Thompson

Chief Scientific Officer

Over the last 30+ years, Neil’s career has seen him progress more than 10 drugs to patients and he’s led a number of drug discovery projects in areas of cardiovascular, neurology, inflammation and oncology among others.

For 15 years, Neil was Senior Vice President of Biology at Astex Pharmaceuticals, helping the company establish itself at the forefront of drug discovery by leading the biology and pre-clinical teams to deliver two new cancer drugs (Kisqali; ribociclib and Balversa; erdafitinib in partnership with Novartis and Janssen respectively) to market. Before that, he was Director of the Immunology Platform at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

Neil is also Deputy Chair of the UK MRC DPFS panel and Chair of the MRC CLD/ADI committee, has authored more than 40 publications and patents and sits on the advisory boards of several scientific institutions in the UK.

Neil received his doctorate in Biochemistry from King’s College London.

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Dr Bruce Bloom

Chief Collaboration Officer

Dr Bruce Bloom is the founder and former CEO of Cures Within Reach, a leading global non-profit saving lives by unleashing the untapped potential of human approved drugs, devices, diagnostics and nutraceuticals, testing new uses for them to quickly deliver safe and affordable treatments and cures for diseases that have no currently effective therapy.

Bruce envisioned and created CureAccelerator®, the first online redevelopment research collaboration platform, to bring together clinicians, researchers, funders, and industry to create and conduct proof of concept redevelopment clinical trials. Dr Bloom is an Ashoka Social Entrepreneur Fellow, the Patient Advisory Board Chair for the Institute for Translational Medicine, board member of the Drug Discovery Center and Chair of the Cancer Center Advancement Advisory Boards at the University of Illinois Chicago, member of the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research External Advisory Board, and is on the Science Advisory Boards of Rediscovery Life Sciences, the Dr. Ralph and Marian Falk Medical Research Trust Awards Programs, the Findacure Fundamental Disease Charity, the Rare Disease Research Hub of the Westchester Biotech Project, OneThree Biotech, and Cures Within Reach for Cancer, and is a member of the editorial board of ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies.

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Gillian Bonthron

Chief Finance Officer

Gillian Bonthron brings more than 20 years experience in financial leadership and the capital markets including fundraising, mergers and acquisitions and strategic finance in both private equity and PLC environments.Prior to joining Healx as Chief Financial Officer, Gillian held a number of senior finance positions in the biotech and support services industries including Perspectum Limited, Mitie Group PLC, Connect Group PLC and KPMG.Gillian is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for Scotland and holds a first class honours degree in Accountancy and Business Law.

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Eugenia Wachters

VP of Commercial and Operations

Eugenia is an experienced biopharma leader, with over 25 years' experience in a range of national and international roles including General Manager (UK, NL) and VP of Commercial Operations. During her career, Eugenia has been responsible for developing commercial and market access strategies, leading strategic and operational marketing, and building business excellence.

She has worked in a wide range of therapeutic indications, across the product life cycle from launch-planning to patent expiry and beyond, and has covered different archetype markets both in Europe and emerging markets.

Eugenia holds an MSc in Molecular Biology and an Executive MBA.

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Laura Fink

VP of People

Laura has over 20 years' experience in international HR roles across a variety of industries including media, sales and tech. She has worked in HR, recruiting, employee engagement, organisational change and diversity roles in both blue chip and start-up companies and is passionate about helping companies scale effectively. Mostly recently Laura led the HR function at a fintech in the blockchain space. Previously she led EMEA recruitment teams at Google to help scale the company during a period of incredible growth.

At Healx she is responsible for building effective people programs that enable us to attract great talent and drive the growth and development of our people and the business.

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Dr Mark Youssef

Global Head of Business Development and Licensing

Mark is an experienced business development leader. As the Global Head of Business Development and Licensing, he is responsible for leading Healx's strategic and business development initiatives.

Prior to joining Healx, Mark was the Global Head of Business Development at Acrotech Biopharma where he successfully closed multiple transactions to help build the company from the start. Previously, he has also worked in Business Development at Bayer and held various positions in the pharmaceutical industry.

Mark has a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, Masters in Business Administration and post-doctoral fellowship training from Rutgers University.

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Dr David Brown

Co-Founder and Chairman

David has over 40 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, covering both research and senior executive roles. During his career, he has served with four of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies: AstraZeneca, Pfizer, GlaxoWellcome, and Hoffman La-Roche.

Whilst at Pfizer he was named co-inventor on the patent for Viagra, and for 8 years he led the team that invented and developed Viagra through to proof of clinical efficacy in male impotence. The drug is also marketed for treatment of pulmonary hypertension under the trade name Revatio. He also had a pivotal role in the discovery of Relpax, a treatment for migraine. Together these drugs have achieved sales of over $40 billion.

While at Roche in Switzerland, he was a Director of the company and, as Global Head of Drug Discovery, he had responsibility for productivity of over 2000 scientists at Roche’s five research sites in the USA, Europe and Asia.

David subsequently co-founded antibody company Crescendo Biologics and serves on the boards of Healx (Chair), ProFactor Pharma Ltd (Chair) and Babraham Institute Enterprise Ltd (Chair). He is a Trustee (Director) of Friends of Manjushree Vidyapith School and Orphanage (FMVSO), a charity he co-founded in 2005 to help destitute orphans in South Tibet.

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Shaun Grady

Board member

Shaun Grady has responsibility for Global Business Development at AstraZeneca, leading the company’s transaction execution, due diligence and Alliance and Integration Management function including externalisation, licensing and partnering, M&A, and divestments. Shaun was appointed to his current role in 2013 with the creation of the Global Product and Portfolio Strategy (GPPS) unit. Prior to this, he was Vice President, Strategic Partnering & Business Development (2010-13) and Vice President, Corporate Business Development (2006-10).

Shaun originally joined ICI as an attorney and held positions in the pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and legal departments. Following the demerger from ICI, he was appointed Assistant General Counsel, Corporate for Zeneca. Shaun worked on the merger of Astra and Zeneca, the merger of Zeneca Agrochemicals with Novartis Agribusiness to form Syngenta, and the creation of Avecia. Shaun also worked on the acquisition of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), led the acquisition of Amylin, and subsequent buy-out of Bristol-Myers’ Squibb’s interest in the AZ-BMS Diabetes Alliance. In addition, he has spent time in the US business managing the legal function and also completed a two year secondment to HR, leading a global People Strategy change project.

Shaun is an Honorary Fellow in Entrepreneurship at Cambridge Judge Business School and is a member of the Board of Cambridge United Football Club and Cambridge Arts Theatre.

Based in Cambridge, Shaun enjoys rugby and football, and occasionally turns his hand to sports writing.

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Chiara Sommer

Board observer

Chiara Sommer is an Investment Director for Intel Capital EMEA located in Munich. She joined Intel Capital in 2018.

Chiara currently serves as a board observer on the boards of Volocopter, Caresyntax and Healx.

Prior to joining Intel Capital, Chiara worked at High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Germany’s leading seed stage venture capital fund where she managed and completed more than 25 financing rounds (Seed, Series A & B) with leading German and international co-investors. She is an entrepreneur at heart and founded an online advice startup in 2011 and prior to this, she worked in Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan and Management Consulting at goetzpartners.

She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Studies majoring in Finance from Cass Business School in London, where she took an ERASMUS year abroad at Bocconi University in Milan.

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Jonathan Milner

Board member

Jonathan, Co-Founder and current Deputy Chairman of Abcam plc, is an entrepreneur and investor who is passionate about supporting UK life science and high-tech start-ups. He has provided considerable investment and support to over 40 companies and has assisted three technology companies to IPO on the London AIM Stock Exchange.

Jonathan gained his doctorate in Molecular Genetics at Leicester University after graduating in Applied Biology at Bath. From 1992-95, he was a post-doctoral researcher at Bath, following which he worked at the University of Cambridge in the lab of Professor Tony Kouzarides researching the molecular basis of breast cancer. He identified the market opportunity for supplying high-quality antibodies to support protein interaction studies, and in 1998, founded Abcam with David Cleevely and Professor Tony Kouzarides.

Jonathan is also a non-executive director of Healx, Shift Bioscience and Syndicate Room. He is also Chairman of Axol Bioscience, Cambridge Allergy, PhoreMost.

In 2015 Jonathan, with Professor Tony Kouzarides, co-founded the Milner Therapeutics Institute at the University of Cambridge. Also in 2015 he co-founded, with Professor Laurence Hurst, the Milner Centre for Evolutionary Studies at the University of Bath.

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Suranga Chandratillake

Board member

Suranga joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2014. He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer. Suranga founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then led the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation - joining as an engineer in the Cambridge R&D team and ultimately serving as the company's US CTO in San Francisco.

Suranga has a MA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge. He holds patents in the area of video discovery and online video advertising, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2012 and was chosen as one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders in 2009. In 2017, Suranga joined the UK Government's Council for Science and Technology. Suranga was granted an OBE for services to technology and engineering in the 2018 UK New Year's Honours.

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Irina Haivas

Board member

Irina Haivas is a Partner at Atomico. She is passionate about machine intelligence-enabled businesses, next generation biology, robotics and automation, and other frontier technologies. She also focuses on companies in healthcare. Before joining Atomico, Irina was a growth and PE investor at healthcare-focused fund GHO Capital, and a strategy consultant at Bain & Co. where she worked with over 30 companies across Europe and the US. Irina trained as a doctor, and was a surgical fellow at Harvard Medical School before completing an MSc (Dist) in International Health Policy at the London School of Economics.

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