Georg Terstappen has 25 years’ experience in pharmaceutical R&D obtained in leading positions in international companies including Bayer, GlaxoWellcome, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Abbott / AbbVie, and in the biotech industry where he was Co-founder and CSO of a ‘start-up’ drug discovery company, Siena Biotech S.p.A.  Prior to joining OxStem, Georg was Head of Discovery Biology at AbbVie in Ludwigshafen (Germany), and most recently Head of Platform Technologies & Science China at GSK's R&D Centre in Shanghai, with responsibility for preclinical drug development.

In the European R&D framework Georg has held leading positions: He was Vice-Chair of the Innovative Medicines Strategy Group (InnoMedS) in the context of EFPIA and IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative) and is a founding member and Co-Chair of the Strategic Governing Group for Neurodegeneration. In addition, he was also for more than ten years Adjunct Professor at several European universities and leader of European-wide research programs funded by the EU and public-private partnerships funded by IMI.

Dr. Carolyn Porter has 16 years’ experience spanning management, commercial and business development roles in the Biotech, Pharma, Finance and University sectors.  In her most recent role at Oxford University Innovation as Deputy Head of Technology Transfer she led or mentored the formation of 16 spin-out companies collectively raising £52M in seed financing and concluded some of the company’s largest licensing deals.  Carolyn has held board positions representing the University in 5 spin-out companies including OxStem.  Prior to this Carolyn held senior business development roles in Novartis Vaccines (Head of Search & Evaluation in Europe) and Chiron Vaccines (Business Development Director) working on in/out licensing, acquisitions and strategic alliances with deal values in excess of $1bn.  Her earlier career included working as a biotech analyst and then in Corporate Finance at Ernst & Young where she assisted companies with fundraising, acquisitions and company sales.

Carolyn previously held post-doctoral positions at Oxford University in Biochemistry and Immunology. She has a PhD in Immunology from Trinity College Dublin, a first-class honors degree in Pharmacology from University College Dublin and an MBA from Warwick Business School.  She is a member of the Licensing Executives Society and the Pharmaceutical Licensing Group.