Board of Directors
Mr. Bill Robinson (Non-Executive Chairman)
Bill Robinson joined the Plethora Board in March 2007. He has recently retired from the post of Executive Vice President of Global Operations for UCB, a leading global biopharmaceutical company, where he was responsible for all of UCB’s global commercial and medical affairs. Before joining UCB in 2005, Bill spent 28 years with Eli Lilly in a variety of senior executive roles including VP Sales and Marketing based in Indianapolis and regional management in Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East. Prior to joining Eli Lilly he worked for Bourroughs Wellcome and Servier, both based in the UK.
Bill Robinson is Chair of the Audit Committee and the Remuneration Committee.
Mr Ronald Openshaw (Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer)
Ronald Openshaw has worked in the life sciences and healthcare sectors both in executive management and in an advisory role. He is the founder of the M&A and strategic consulting firm Lucia Capital LLP and previously he was an investment banker at Panmure Gordon & Co. Limited (latterly WestLB Panmure Limited) and then, most recently, Jefferies International Limited. He also served as CFO and acting CEO at Pharmagene plc until its merger with Asterand plc in 2006. Although not on the Board Ronald has advised the Board acting as Interim CFO at Plethora since February 2009 and he will continue in this role. Ronald Openshaw is Chair of the Nomination Committee.
Dr. Michael Wyllie (Chief Scientific Officer)
Mike Wyllie is a co-founder of Plethora. He has over 25 years of experience in senior management level positions within the pharmaceutical industry with American Home Products and Pfizer. He has considerable hands-on experience in all aspects of the drug discovery and development process and has been involved with new project inception, drug discovery and safety testing, early and late stage clinical development, regulatory filing and the successful commercialisation of products including Cardura® (doxazosin) and Viagra® (sildenafil). Dr. Wyllie sits on The Clinical Trial Design and Future Therapies in BPH Committees of the World Health Organisation International Consultations on Urological Disease and he is an assistant editor of the British Journal of Urology in the Sexual Medicine Section. He has over 100 publications and is named as the inventor of over 80 patents.
Mr. Richard Horsman (Non-Executive Director)
Richard Horsman was previously CEO of Cybit Holdings plc. During his tenure at Cybit he grew the company from inception to revenues of £25 million and took the company through multiple acquisitions. In January 2010 Cybit was acquired in a deal with a US based private equity firm which returned £24 million to shareholders at over a 100% premium to the prevailing market price. Prior to this Richard held a number of senior roles in the IT industry including with Global Telematics PLC and The Baan Company. Richard is the senior independent non-executive director and chairman of the remuneration committee.
Mr. Jim Mellon (Non-Executive Director)
Jim Mellon is an investor with interests in several industries. After leaving Oxford , where he studied PPE, he worked in Asia and the United States in two fund management companies, GT and Thornton, before establishing his own business in 1991. This now has two components – a listed fund management company – Charlemagne Capital – and an Asian mining group, Regent Pacific. In addition, Jim is the controlling shareholder and a director of Manx Financial Corporation , an Isle of Man based bank, Speymill Group, a property business, and Webis Holdings. He is a co-founder of Uramin and Red Dragon Resources, both mining groups. Burnbrae, his private company, is a substantial landlord in Germany and in the Isle of Man, and also owns outright the hotel chain Sleepwell Hotels. Jim spends most of his time working on startup ideas and on investing. His book, ‘Wake Up!’ was published in 2005 and the second book “10 Investments for the Ten Years Ahead “ in 2008 ” . Jim lives in the Isle of Man, Brussels and Ibiza. Jim is an honorary fellow of Oriel College, Oxford