Our Team
Chairman.
Professor Howard Thomas PhD, FRCP, FMedSci
Howard held a personal chair at the Royal Free Hospital and then the departmental chair of medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School. Following the formation of Imperial College Medical School, he became Head of Hepatology and Gastroenterology. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at Imperial.
Howard has been the President of the British and European Liver Societies and received their Life-Time Achievement Awards. He was awarded the Hans Popper International Award for distinction in Liver Disease 1989, the Ivanovsky Medal of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences 1997 and The Imperial College Medal in 2011.
He has also been Chairman of the Department of Health Advisory Group on Hepatitis, the Chairman of the Hepatitis C Strategy Group preparing the Hepatitis C Action Plan a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation Subgroup on Hepatitis B vaccination, the Department of Health Committee on New and Emerging Pathogens and a member of several WHO Advisory Groups. He was Chair of the NICE Hepatitis B Guidelines Group.
Howard has described the molecular variants of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), made monoclonal antibody based immunoassays to HBV licensed to several companies and contributed to the development of interferon based treatment for Hepatitis B and C in multi-centre international trials.
He has published many publications and several books and book chapters.
Howard was a founding scientist of Riotech Pharmaceuticals in 2002 and is currently Chairman and Chief Scientist.
Chief Executive Officer.
Ian Matthews PhD, MRSC
Ian has considerable experience in drug discovery, development and diagnostics gained over 35 years within the biotechnology, diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries. His experience spans many therapeutic areas including cancer, inflammation, anti-virals, respiratory and thrombosis. He is the main author on a number of scientific papers and book chapters and also a co-author on over 10 patents.
Director.
Derek John.
Derek originally qualified as a chartered architect (ARIBA) and town planner (MRTPI) and then moved into the property business at Star (GB) working on commercial developments in Central London, Nice, and Genoa.
He moved to Bovis Ltd. as a director of their property division working on proposals for town centre redevelopments and managing joint venture schemes. Derek was appointed as a trustee of the Bovis Group Pension Fund.
After P&O took over Bovis he left to start a private property development company, acting as a consultant and principal. Clients included Prudential, Barclays and Medi-tech.
Derek has lectured at the Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge in the Department of Land Economy and Westminster University, Department of the Built Environment,
His charitable work includes Chairmanship of The Mary Feilding Guild, a charitable residential care home, London and Chairman of Birkbeck & William Ellis Trust, a Secondary School charity.
Company Secretary.
Linda Hugl MSc, PhD
Originally a biochemistry graduate, Linda worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 20 years, working on drug discovery in the thrombosis area and latterly drug delivery. She was part of the team that set up of ChemOvation Limited, a chemistry CRO, and has been the Operations Director there for over ten years, being involved in every aspect of the business. Linda has lately filled an equally broad role at Riotech.