Dr Susan Foden joined the Board of QBiotics
14 October 2019
Dr Susan Foden joined the Board of QBiotics as a non-executive director on 14 October 2019. Dr Foden's background in pharmaceutical drug development and commercialisation, as well as her experience with the biotechnology investment community, compliments the current skillset of the Board.
Dr Susan Foden MA DPhil Dr Susan Foden brings over 20 years of experience as director on the boards of small and medium size private and public healthcare companies in the UK, Norway, Germany and Belgium. Recent board positions include BTG plc (acquired by Boston Scientific in 2019), and Vectura Group plc where she served for over 10 years as Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee until 2019. Dr Foden also chaired, and was a director of, BerGenBio ASA through its initial public offer on the Oslo Bohrs in 2015. Currently Dr Foden is a director of Evgen Pharma plc and Oxford Ancestors Ltd and is an Investment Committee member of CD3, the drug discovery initiative between the European Investment Fund and the University of Leuven in Belgium. Dr Foden's background is in biochemistry and with an MA and DPhil in Natural Sciences from the University of Oxford. In 1983 Dr Foden joined the UK's first biotech company, Celltech Ltd and headed up Academic Liaison, establishing some of the early precedents of academic/ biotech partnering and intellectual property development and in-licensing. In 1987 she established CRCT, the technology transfer and development company of what was then Cancer Research Campaign, (now CRT/Cancer Research UK (CRUK)). Over the next 12 years, CRCT was responsible for the development and partnering of many programs, significantly Temodal, Abiraterone (with BTG) and some of the early PARP inhibitors from which CRUK has benefitted from many years of royalty flow. Spin out companies Cyclacel, Kudos and Spriogen Ltd also came from CRCT. Outside the UK, CRCT set up Cancer Research Ventures and among others, established links with cancer research centres in Germany, Denmark and New Zealand. In 2000, Dr Foden joined the London healthcare VC firm, Merlin Biosciences as an Investor Director and was a director on several Merlin investee company boards including the oncology-focused companies, BioVex (acquired by Amgen 2011), and Piramed (acquired by Roche 2008).