The Team - Management

Tim Sharpington - Chief Executive Officer

Tim is a co-founder of Serentis.  Previously Tim was Development Director and a member of the Executive team at Arakis Ltd and has more than 17 years experience of clinical drug development.  Tim has experience of raising finance from private equity sources and has been involved at an executive level in licensing, merger and acquisition activities.  Prior to Arakis, Tim was European Vice President of Operations for ICON Clinical Research, a global clinical research organisation.  Tim brings experience of successfully taking drugs to registration in a number of organizations including Pfizer, Sequus (bought by Alza) and American Cyanamid.  Tim obtained a BSc (Hons) in biochemistry at the University of Wolverhampton, followed by  post-graduate work at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Tim is also a Non Executive Director of ClinicalForce Ltd.

Peter Keen - Corporate Development and Finance Director

Peter has over 24 years experience of financial management in biotechnology companies.  Prior to joining Serentis he was a partner with the venture capital firm Esprit Capital Partners LLP and was Chief Financial Officer at Arakis until the disposal in 2005 to Sosei, having led the sale process.  After qualifying as a chartered accountant Peter worked at Agricultural Genetics and Cambridge Life Sciences before he become a founder and Finance Director of the Chiroscience Group plc where he was responsible for the IPO in 1994.  He co-founded the venture capital firm Merlin Biosciences in 1996 and as its UK Managing Director was responsible for making a number of life science investments including Arakis Ltd.  In 2004 Peter joined Arakis Ltd full time after having previously been a Non Executive Director.  Peter is an advisor to Imperial Innovations the technology transfer arm at Imperial College and a Non Executive Director of Abcam plc, Ark Therapeutics plc and the Biotech Growth Trust plc.

Dr Alan Rothaul - Chief Scientific Officer

Alan is a co-founder of Serentis and is responsible for innovating and developing the Serentis research pipeline.  A pharmacologist by training Alan has a strong track record in drug discovery and development with particular expertise in pre-clinical biology, pre-clinical and clinical pharmacology and toxicology.  Before Serentis, Alan was Head of Biological Sciences at Arakis Ltd and has more than 25 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry across a number of organizations including at Celltech-Chiroscience, British Biotechnology and Smith Kline & French.  At Celltech-Chiroscience Alan was the Head of Pharmacology and was responsible for building and managing the company’s broad range of pharmacology activities establishing and running a group dedicated to reprofiling established drugs.  Alan has a degree in Pharmacology and received his PhD from The University of Wales in Cardiff before conducting post doctoral work at The University of Glasgow.

Dr Andy Baxter - Research and Development Director

Before becoming a co-founder of Serentis, Andy was Discovery Director at Arakis.  A medicinal chemist by training, Andy has over 20 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry.  At Serentis Andy is responsible for discovery activities, CMC programmes, sourcing active pharmaceutical ingredients and developing a strong network of chemistry and formulation providers.  Andy has pioneered approaches to the optimisation of established drug templates consistently designing molecules that demonstrate improvements over the parent molecules pushing several compounds into development.  Andy joined Arakis from Pfizer where he was Head of Chemistry supporting the Sexual Health Therapeutic Area.  Before Pfizer, Andy was Head of Chemistry at Celltech-Chiroscience and started his career with Glaxo Group Research Ltd. Andy has a degree in chemistry from Loughborough University of Technology and a PhD from The University of East Anglia.

Gunnar Staaf - Commercial Director

Prior to joining Serentis, Gunnar was the European Brand Director for Astellas and was responsible for the Dermatology portfolio including treatments for atopic dermatitis and acne.  He has over 13 years of experience in sales and marketing across a number of disease areas including diabetes, psychiatry, osteoporosis and respiratory having worked for Eli Lilly, Novartis as well as Astellas.  He holds a BA in Economics and Accounting from Reading University and an MBA from Warwick Business School.  At Serentis Gunnar is responsible for business development and the commercial growth of the product pipeline.