Board of directors
Stewart Block
Non-executive Chairman
Stewart is an expert on the commercialisation of Intellectual Property having previously been a Director with British Technology Group. He was involved in the company's MBO and subsequent Stock Exchange Listing before starting his own IP consultancy business. He was responsible for the acquisition and world wide commercialisation of daily wear contact lenses.
Neil Smith
CEO
Neil has extensive senior General Management and Marketing experience in the international Medical Device Industry. He has considerable expertise in launching new products and therapies in international markets.
Mark O’Connell
Research and Development Director
As a Clinical scientist for over 27 years Mark has gain considerable experience of diagnostic patient monitoring and understands unmet clinical needs. In the early 1990's he set about improving conventional practise and subsequently patented technology to revolutionise this field. Mark together with Denis Lonergan, founded Probe to deliver novel tools enabling health care professions to improve patient management and to reduce care costs. Mark received management training while working for the NHS, and was a team member responsible for introducing health care ICT systems into the National Hospital. He beat seven other finalist to win the Business Launch Award at the Cambridge Enterprise Conference, 2003.
Paul Jenkinson
Finance Director
Paul qualified in 1994 as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte & Touche. He then moved into corporate finance and spent three years raising funds for early stage technology companies. He then spent a further two years working on larger buy-outs, mergers and acquisitions and corporate disposals for private and public companies. In 1999 Paul become Finance Director of a software company and subsequently floated it on OFEX. In 2001 Paul become Finance Director of an AIM quoted software company. From 2002 Paul was Finance Director for a number of venture capital backed companies. Paul joined the board of Probe Scientific as Finance Director in 2005.
George T Zajicek
Non-Executive Director
George is a pharmacist who started his industrial career in pharmaceuticals with Merck, Sharp and Dohme, moving to Boehringer Ingelheim where he headed up the Regulatory Group and was involved in new business development. He also spent some years with the Unilever subsidiary Unipath as Head of Product Control, where he helped to launch a new approach to pregnancy testing with the ground-breaking Clearblue pregnancy test and pioneered work targeting radioisotope-labelled monoclonal antibodies against certain cancers (now commercialised via Antisoma). His current position is Business Development Director with Axis-Shield plc, having previously been Marketing Director of Shield Diagnostics, where he played an important part in the company’s significant sales growth and its flotation on the LSE. He is the founding Chairman of BIVDA, the trade association for the UK In Vitro Diagnostics industry, and the current Chairman of DDS, a clinical trial research organisation based at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. Previously he was Chairman of Platform Diagnostics in Liverpool and has been involved in much Government interaction, latterly including the Life Sciences Industry Advisory Group for Scotland.
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Alan Barrell
Non-Executive Director
Alan has spent almost 30 years in senior executive positions in technology based industries and has become one of Cambridge's most articulate promoters of entrepreneurship. He is a founder shareholder in Library House, Entrepreneur in Residence at the University's Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning and Visiting Professor of Enterprise at the University of Bedfordshire School of Graduate Business Studies. He is Visiting Professor at Xiamen University in China and Senior Enterprise Fellow, University of Essex. Recently appointed as International Fellow, Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, he is also Chairman of Health Enterprise East Ltd, an organisation seeking to exploit innovative inventions, processes and procedures in the National Health Service within the Eastern Region.
Following a scientific training, he worked around the world with Baxter Healthcare and was its Chief Executive for six years. Subsequently, he joined Domino Printing Sciences as Managing Director, following which, after six years, he joined Willett International, an industrial electronics company, and was its CEO, building its international business into a major success.
He was instrumental in launching the Cambridge Gateway Fund to fund early stage technology businesses in the region and is involved with a number of charities including the Papworth Trust, the RSA, the Centre for Tomorrow's Company and The Prince's Trust. He has also chaired the Cambridge Enterprise Conference and works closely with a number of Science Parks and Innovation Centres in Cambridge, elsewhere in the UK and overseas. He received The Queen's Award in 2006 for Enterprise Promotion.
Denis Lonergan
Co-founder, Non-Executive Director
Denis is a co-founder of Probe Scientific Limited and provided the early funding for the company. In 1992 he founded Cornel Associates, a consultancy that provides advice and early stage funding to a number of bio tech and medical device companies both private and listed.
Mike Sundler
Non-Executive Director
With a mechanical engineering degree, marketing and business qualifications from Durham and IMD in Switzerland, Mike has extensive experience in the international medical device industry. He has held senior management positions both in the diagnostic and therapeutic sectors and currently is the European Vice President for a major US manufacturer of implantable devices for the profoundly deaf.