ABOUT US
Congenica is the provider of the diagnostic decision support platform, Sapientia, and associated clinical services, which enable clinicians to interrogate the human genome to identify disease-causing variants. Congenica aims to revolutionize personalized patient care through accurate diagnoses, curation of evolving knowledgebases, and support in clinical trials and drug development.
80% of rare diseases are thought to have a genetic component, and patients wait an average of 4.7 years, and typically see 7.3 different clinical specialists1, before getting a diagnosis. Genome sequencing and variant interpretation facilitate speedier diagnoses and better clinical management and support.
Sapientia is intuitive to use, supporting the routine diagnostic workflow whilst enabling clinicians to progress through cases more quickly, optimizing throughput of patients and improving numbers of patients who can achieve a diagnosis.
A diagnosis removes the fear of the unknown, allowing a patient’s family to deal with the known and make informed decisions. There is also the potential for healthcare savings by avoiding unnecessary appointments, tests and interventions.
Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, and with a footprint in the US and China, Congenica is born out of pioneering research from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the NHS. Congenica is a partner for the pivotal Genomics England 100,000 Genomes Project as well as China’s 100K Wellness Pioneer Project.
OUR PARTNERS
DIRECTORS
David Atkins, PhD, CEO
Dr Atkins has over 25 years’ experience as a global leader in a broad range of diagnostics and healthcare businesses. He has held senior positions in R&D, business development, operations and sales and marketing. He has extensive commercial experience in markets in North America, EMEA, Asia and Latin America. Prior to joining Congenica, Dr Atkins was CEO of Synevo, a clinical diagnostic laboratory service business operating across Germany and Eastern Europe. Past roles also include global head of the Advanced Staining pathology business unit for Leica Biosystems, a Danaher Company. Dr Atkins also has over 20 years’ experience with Johnson & Johnson’s Medical Device and Diagnostic businesses in R&D and business development and in senior international commercial roles.
Nick Lench, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer
Nick was previously Director of the NE Thames Regional Genetics Service at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, with responsibility for the strategic and operational management of a genetics service that provides DNA diagnostic testing to a population of approximately 4.5M people. Nick is an honorary Reader at the UCL Institute of Child Health, and has over 25 years of research experience in human molecular genetics. He was awarded a personal chair in Medical Genetics at Cardiff University in 2005 and is a founding CEO of London Genetics Ltd and Programme Director at Oxagen Ltd.
Pierre Socha, Investment Director
Pierre is an early stage technology investor with a current investment focus on digital health, medical technologies, cybersecurity and machine learning / AI. He is a non-executive director on the boards of Inotec, Repositive, Doctify, Congenica and oversees investments in PhoreMost, Organox and Antidote (formerly TrialReach).
Pierre brings operational experience to the portfolios, having grown several life science businesses in Asia and Europe. Pierre started his career as an auditor with KPMG in France and subsequently worked as a financial engineer at Natixis and as a research fellow in health and urban microeconomics.
Andy Richards, CBE, PhD, Chairman
Andy Richards CBEis a well-established entrepreneur and builder of biotechnology, healthcare and diagnostic ventures. He brings a strong business focus and an in-depth knowledge of the industry and company scale up. He is currently Chairman of, Abcodia, and Arecor and a director of Silence Therapeutics plc, Sensiia and Ieso Digital Health. He is Chairman of BBT the Babraham Research Campus and a director of Cancer Research Technology Ltd (the commercial arm of Cancer Research UK). His career spanned positions with ICI (now AstraZeneca) and PA Technology, and he was a founder and executive director of Chiroscience. Andy is a graduate of Cambridge University with a PhD in Chemistry and a track record as a founder, active investor in and director of more than 25 innovative healthcare and life-science companies, including Vectura plc and Arakis. Andy is also a founder member of the Cambridge Angels.
Matthew Hurles, PhD, Scientific Director
Matt is Senior Group Leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and a leader in the Deciphering Developmental Disorders, 1000 Genomes and UK10K projects. He has pioneered the analysis of whole exomes in clinically relevant disorders that previously failed diagnostic methods, and has led an initiative to characterise structural variation in the human genome, and integrate this knowledge into disease and population genetic studies. Matt has been awarded the Balfour Lecture by the Genetics Society and the Crick Lecture prize for accomplishments in genetics by the Royal Society.
Michael Anstey, PhD, Investment Director
Michael Anstey is an Investment Director at Cambridge Innovation Capital plc and is focused on Healthcare businesses. Before joining CIC he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Toronto office. Michael has experience in advising multinational healthcare businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, new launches, R&D and medical strategy, and M&A.
Michael earned his DPhil in Zoology in the field of neurobiology, jointly supervised by professors at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.
Alastair Kilgour, Investment Director
Alastair has a degrees in Biochemistry and Management Science. A 30 year career in the City of London encompassed a number of roles ,including founding and leading various businesses and teams in broking, banking and Fund Management. Alastair was a Global Partner in Lazard Frere LLP. Currently he is a founder and CIO of Parkwalk Advisors, one of the biggest investors in UK University Technology Spinouts. Parkwalk currently has a portfolio of over 80 companies.
EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT
Wendy Britten, Chief Financial Officer
Wendy Britten is a Senior Finance professional with an extensive track record of delivering in leadership positions across a range of industries, including numerous M&A transactions. Most recently Wendy headed up the Group Finance Business Performance team at AstraZeneca, working in close partnership with the CEO, CFO and the Senior Executive Team.
Prior to joining AZ Wendy progressed her career in a variety of roles with PricewaterhouseCoopers, starting in Audit and culminating as a Director in M&A in London and New York. Wendy holds a BSc in Mathematics from University of Sheffield and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.
Richard Durbin, PhD, Informatics Director
Richard is a Group Leader of the Human Genetics Programme at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Member of EMBO. A pioneer in the industry, he has developed sequence data analysis tools that are now standards in the field. His current research focuses on human genetic variation by large scale genome-wide re-sequencing. Richard has led the international 1000 Genomes Project and the UK10K Genome Project, and has made significant contributions to the Ensembl resource for vertebrate genome annotation, and the TreeFam and Pfam databases.
Peter Fox, Chief Technical Officer
Peter has over 20 years of experience in leading product development in a range of industries, and applies his extensive experience at Congenica where he is responsible for the development & innovation of Congenica’s key product; Sapientia. After completing a degree in Pure & Applied Physics at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Peter went on to a masters in Software Engineering at Aston University.
Following his education, Peter went on to hold several Software Engineering and Development Leader roles, before being appointed the Development Director at Oracle, then Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Aegate, and finally CTO at Congenica in September 2017.
Dr Philip Beales, Medical Director
Phil is a consultant physician and Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH), an NIHR Senior Investigator, an Honorary Consultant in Clinical Genetics at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the lead on Personalised Medicine for UCL. He is an internationally recognized expert in the genetics and pathogenesis of ciliopathies and pioneering use of next generation sequencing in mapping disease genes in this area.
Alistair Johnson, Chief Product Officer
A Chartered Accountant by vocation, Alistair has over 20 years of experience in Project Consultancy, Product Management and Product Marketing in a range of industries including Finance, IT Security, Medicines Supply Chain Management and IT Service Management. He has worked in companies of all sizes ranging from start-ups to global enterprises including Symantec and Infor. Alistair is uniquely positioned to understand and address the technical and commercial challenges of a delivering secure, high quality system with user experience at its core.
Yvonne Larkin, Chief Organisational Development & Talent Officer
Yvonne Larkin has over 25 years’ experience as a Human Resources leader. She has significant talent development and change management experience, both leading and implementing business focused solutions within a range of international organisations across multiple sectors.
Prior to joining Congenica, Yvonne spent 10 years working for Johnson & Johnson’s Medical Device and Diagnostic businesses in EMEA. In her last role with J&J, she led the creation of numerous Centres of Excellence to rapidly build expertise and capability in areas such as Commercial Excellence, Quality, Regulatory Affairs, Health Economics, Market Access and Professional Education. Yvonne holds a BSc in Psychology and a Master in Business Studies from University College Dublin.