Our People

Marcel has a track record in a range of management and senior scientific positions in industry and academia. Most recently he was a Principal Scientist in Product Design and Innovation at AstraZeneca, where he was responsible for introducing the latest science, new technologies (advanced drug delivery and manufacturing) and product design thinking into the Product Development group.

Marcel has led technical activities, provided project leadership and has managed product development teams responsible for the delivery of drug projects from initial concept design through late stage development, regulatory submission and launch (including advanced drug delivery systems). He has led teams at the drug discovery-development interface, assessing the level of chemistry manufacturing and controls (CMC) technical risk and defining product design strategies in early development. Project experience has covered projects across a range of disease and therapy areas with substantial experience in the oncology field.

‪Marcel de Matas‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Paul is an established pharma executive with extensive global experience. Prior to joining Seda he was Vice President, Global Product Development at AstraZeneca, leading a group of over 350 scientists and engineers in the development of all products, manufacturing processes and analytical methods for the AstraZeneca small molecule portfolio.

AstraZeneca Global Product Development has centres in the UK, Sweden, US and China and a network of partnerships with colleagues all over the world and under Paul’s stewardship registered 10 global products.

At AstraZeneca Paul was accountable for the Drug Product CMC component of all Due Diligence assessments and was CMC lead on several multibillion dollar acquisitions. In addition, Paul is a visiting Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Manchester, UK and founder of the North West Centre for Drug Delivery (NoWCADD) at the University.

He is a proven senior manager and strategic leader in Pharmaceutical Development with experience across geographical boundaries. Passionate about the development of individual and group capabilities and the application of innovation and scientific rigour to bring new medicinal products to market.

He is recognised within the Industry and with Regulatory Agencies as a driving force in the establishment and realisation of best practice in CMC Quality by Design.

‪Paul Stott‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Paul has held several senior science leadership roles in Academia and Large Pharma.  These roles focused on applying the best science in projects to ensure optimal product performance in the patient, thus bridging pharmaceutical and clinical disciplines.

Immediately prior to founding Seda Pharmaceutical Development Services Paul was Senior Clinical Pharmacology Scientist at AstraZeneca and led the clinical pharmacology program to NDA/MAA for AZD9291/osimertinib, which had been awarded ‘breakthrough therapy’ status by the FDA.  Formerly Paul was a Principal Scientist within Pharmaceutical Development (AZ) leading both the global biopharmaceutics network and the Medicines Evaluation science community (USA, SE, UK).

Paul has been at the forefront of recent advances in the understanding of in vitro performance criteria that assure product performance in the patient including clinically relevant dissolution specifications (CRDS).  Paul has co-authored papers with FDA staff focussed on efforts to combine biopharmaceutics with ICH Q8 (BioRAM) and is past Chair of the AAPS ‘QbD and product performance’ focus group.

‪Paul A Dickinson‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Shanoo is an experienced pharmaceutical development scientist with many years’ experience in large pharma and the biotech sector. She has a particular interest in biopharmaceutics, development of clinically relevant in vitro tests and the development of products for paediatrics.

‪Shanoo Budhdeo‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

After a 20 year career in HR working primarily in the Pharmaceutical Industry, Faye Briffa set up Ashfield HR, an HR Consultancy supporting North West based small and medium sized companies who have no in-house HR capability. Faye is CIPD qualified having achieved a Post Graduate Diploma in HR Management from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2002. Since then, she has held a variety of HR roles, including in Recruitment, Employment, Business Change and HR Business Partnering.

Andy’s background started in Community Pharmacy in Finance and Commercial roles.  Since then, Andy has operated as Finance Director/CFO in a number of high-growth, privately owned and private equity backed businesses.  Andy’s experience ranges from education, healthcare, childcare, IT Services & property.

Andy is a CIMA qualified accountant for over 20 years.

Andy oversees the Finance team at Seda, ensuring we are growing sustainably, with the appropriate governance, processes and structure.

Linette is a Senior Principal Scientist at Seda with a BSc (Hons) and PhD in Chemistry from Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, respectively.  She is an experienced Biopharmaceutics and DMPK scientist having spent 17+ years with AstraZeneca where she held roles in Discovery and Early Pharmaceutical Development, providing expert physicochemical, ADME and Biopharmaceutics input into compound design and selection, and applied knowledge of in vitro, in silico and in vivo models to enable material choice and project progression from discovery to early clinical development.  Her current focus is on translation of DMPK/PD and biopharmaceutics understanding into meaningful product and clinical study design within Seda.

‪Linette Ruston‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Valentina has a masters in applied mathematics and a PhD in mathematical modelling of biological systems, obtained from the University of Liverpool. In addition, she has vast experience in modelling both ordinary and partial differential equations, which helps her develop and understand pk models. At Seda Valentina is part of the modelling team, working as a senior scientist analysing preclinical and clinical data, and building models to help clients get a better understanding of the effectiveness of their compounds.

Zoe has a background in chemical engineering and is currently in the writing stage of her EngD at the University of Birmingham in the CDT Formulation Engineering group. During her EngD she worked on understanding the fundamental bonding mechanism of powders during compaction to aid oral solid dosage formulation. At Seda she will use her experience from her EngD within the formulation development team, focusing mainly on oral dosage forms.

Alex has a background in chemistry and holds a PhD in pharmaceutics from University College London, during which he gained extensive experience in the solid-state characterisation of pharmaceutical materials, including polymorphism and co-crystallisation, combining both thermal and structural analyses to develop a full picture of the changes occurring when materials undergo phase transitions. More recently he has worked on projects in formulation development with a particular focus on the microfluidic manufacture of nanomaterials for administration of sustained release parenterals. He also has valuable experience in the development and manufacture of oral solid dosage forms.

‪Alexander Clout‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Heather has a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Birmingham and a PhD in Mathematical Biology from the University of Nottingham. Prior to working for Seda, Heather completed a 2-year postdoc in disease modelling of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease with AstraZeneca in Gothenburg, Sweden. She has a broad mathematical skillset including ODE and PDE modelling as well as knowledge of machine learning classification algorithms such as random forests. Heather is working as a senior scientist in the modelling team at Seda. 

Kati is a first-class maths graduate from Keele University and has 1.5 years’ experience working for a marketing and advertising agency. With a mathematical background, she has a particular interest in finance management and accounting. Kati provides support within all areas of the business, to enhance efficiency and productivity, including procurement, finance management and marketing.

Harri is able to apply commercially available software PK-Sim, in order to form translational PB-PK modelling for different species or populations and help with dose selection in the early clinical stage settings. As a Mathematics graduate his background enables him to bring systems thinking to PK modelling to identify sources of uncertainty and risk.

‪Harri Dickinson‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

A physics graduate, with over 3 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Jake has applied analytical, mathematical, and problem-solving skills to the assessment of the likelihood of drug candidate success and to identify the likely risks involved in the formulation of a drug. Areas of expertise include PK / PK-PD-TGI modelling in preclinical species and translation to man to aid in dose prediction. Jake has developed models and applications including Nora Max, an in silico absorption model, that aids decision making in late preclinical and early clinical drug development phases of drug development and enables the identification of the formulation technologies required for FiH.

‪Jake Dickinson‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

First from the University of Birmingham studying Mechanical Engineering with a final year focus in biomedical engineering. Using my academic background with my interest in this area, I will be working with the modelling team within Seda.

Paula brings with her to Seda PDS 25 years of commercial sales, business development and marketing experience, gained largely from blue chip, branded FMCG organisations including Diageo and Sara Lee Corporation where she had demonstrable success in identifying and converting brand building opportunities, leading first to market launches and delivering significant profitable growth to both Client and Brand.

In recent years she has been working with some of the world’s biggest technology brands to deliver pan European technical projects where her focus was solely on delivering high quality, accurate data on time and in budget, in line with Client expectations.

Paula is looking forward to working alongside the team in building, implementing and delivering a strategic sales and marketing plan that will further cement Seda’s growing importance and contribution to the pharma sector.

Toby is an MChem graduate from the University of Sheffield, focused on the development and characterisation of novel metal-organic nanosheets within the Foster research group. Areas of experience include analytical science and chemical development. Toby formally joined Seda as an analytical scientist in 2021.

Lorraine has over 20 years’ high quality laboratory experience at a leading global pharmaceutical company and one of the world’s leading toxicology laboratories. She is experienced in most aspects of drug development and toxicology, ranging from pre-clinical toxicology through to human clinical trials.

Fanny has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, an engineer diploma in Materials Science and a PhD in Polymer Chemistry. Following her studies, she worked as a Research Associate for 6+ years in both Academia and large Pharma focussing on polymers for healthcare and precision nanomedicine applications. She joined Seda as Senior Scientist to facilitate the development of complex parenterals using her knowledge of nanotechnology.

‪Fanny Joubert‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Arun Kamath is an Associate Principal Scientist in Analytical Sciences at Seda. He has a Master of Chemistry (MChem) from the University of Leeds, with over 14 years’ experience in the global pharmaceutical industry. His area of expertise is in analytical sciences for drug product development, which has involved working with a wide range of analytical techniques and developing a comprehensive understanding of drug project analytical strategy requirements and critical product quality attributes.

Graduated with BSc in Biomaterial and tissue engineering and MRes in regenerative medicine from University of Manchester. Working as a pharmaceutical scientist in Seda since 2020. Focus on analytical and formulation development for both preclinical and clinical studies.

Ashleigh has a background in both in-silico modelling and chemistry, understanding both compound analysis and the modelling approaches harnessed in drug development. During her MSc, she spent her final months developing a Mechanistic Kidney Model to predict creatinine Drug-Biomarker Interactions (DBIs) aiming to reduce false-positive predictions of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI.)

In her spare-time, she worked within community pharmacy where she gained a strong understanding of patient welfare and pharmaceutical demand.

Adam holds a first-class BSc in Mathematics and has recently completed his PhD in Mathematical Biology. Adam’s PhD work explored the influence of topography and connexin mimetic peptides (CMPs) on cutaneous wound healing using agent-based and mechanistic modelling approaches. Specifically, the work explored how tissue and substrate structure influences fibroblast cell migration behaviour, how the CMP Gap27 disrupts connexin 43 cycling dynamics and hemichannel formation and how Gap27 binding subsequently prevents within population fibroblast cell-cell interactions and cell aggregation, restoring migration into a wound region. Adam joins Seda as a Senior Modeller looking to build experience and expertise in pharmacometric modelling with a focus on developing population PK, PKPD, PBBM and PBPK models.

Pankaj has held several senior product development & technology transfer leadership roles in Large & Mid-size Pharma introducing new manufacturing technologies, product innovation & design to expedite the overall drug development pathway.

Pankaj has managed product development and technical teams responsible for delivering products to the patients from FTiH through late-stage development, linking regulatory and launch activities in multiple international markets. Passionate about the technical capability build with the application of robust Quality by Design & Quality Risk Management principles, Pankaj will enhance the technical product robustness and business development function at Seda.

Bethany has a first-class degree in medicinal and biological chemistry and 5+ years of pharmaceutical analytical method development experience in a CDMO environment. Bethany’s focus is on U/HPLC and dissolution analysis, with experience in leading analytical projects from initial method establishment through to GMP validation and supporting formulation development. At Seda, Bethany will be developing fit-for-purpose analytical methods for a variety of drug products.

Claire Patterson is Director, Complex Medicines at Seda with a Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the Universities of Nottingham and University College London. Claire is an experienced Project Leader and Biopharmaceutics Scientist having spent 12 years with former employer AstraZeneca with roles in Early and Late Stage Product Development, plus 5 years as a senior leader within Seda. Claire specialises in subcutaneous delivery and complex parenterals (particularly long acting injectables and nanomedicines).

‪Claire Patterson‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Thenula has an MSc in Drug Discovery Development and Delivery from Liverpool John Moores University with project background on Targeted Mucosal Vaccine using PLGA nanoparticles. She also has analytical and formulation background in techniques such as HPLC, TGA, DSC, FTIR, DLS and Nano assembler. Thenula’s area of focus at Seda will be analytical method development and validation of method alongside formulation development. 

Jordan graduated from Newcastle University in 2022 with a First Class Honours in Medicinal Chemistry. He spent his post graduate years travelling and more recently working in Technology sector recruitment.

As Laboratory Technician, Jordan will be applying skills learned during the Medicinal Chemistry, Drug discovery and laboratory-based aspects of his degree course.

Chris is an Associate Principal Scientist working in DMPK at Seda. He has over 10 years experience in DMPK during which time he has worked in CRO’s as well at small biopharma. As a DMPK team leader in a small biopharma his main focus has been on small molecule projects taking candidates from the discovery phase all the way through to IND submission.

Emily Stables has a first-class BSc in Chemistry and MSc with Distinction in Drug Discovery, Development and Delivery with a project on Immunomodulating Brain Targeting Peptide-Based Nanoparticles. She also has experience working with analytical techniques such as PXRD, HPLC, IR, NMR, DSC, TGA and flow cytometry.  Emily’s areas of focus at Seda will be formulation development for preclinical and clinical studies alongside analytical development. 

Emily has a degree in economics from University of Leeds and has 4 years of experience working in accountancy and audit in practice before moving into an industry role. She is an ICAEW Chartered Accountant after completing her ACA qualification. Emily provides support in the finance management of the business.

Libby joined Seda following her A level studies and is currently completing an apprenticeship in Business Admin. She provides support within multiple areas of the business, including procurement, finance admin, HR admin and is the main contact for facilities management.

Sinead graduated with an MChem (Hons) in Medicinal and Biological Chemistry from University of Nottingham and brings with her extensive experience in small molecule bioanalytical method development and validation for drug development solutions (GCP and GLP).

Sinead joins Seda as a specialist in LC-MS/MS and UPLC-UV systems with a focus on complex nanomedicines and topical formulations.

Alison is a Senior Principal Scientist in Clinical Pharmacology and DMPK at Seda with a PhD in Drug Metabolism from the University of Manchester and an MSc in Toxicology from the University of Birmingham. She is an experienced multidisciplinary scientist having spent over 10 years in DMPK Discovery with AstraZeneca and, for the last 10 years, specialised in PBPK modelling using GastroPlus with Quotient Sciences. At Seda she provides scientific input into Clinical Pharmacology and DMPK study design and provides interpretation and analysis of client data.

‪Alison Wilby‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬

Elizabeth studied chemistry at the University of Sheffield and has been working as an analytical scientist for past 7 years. She has a broad range of experience in using different analytical techniques, such as HPLC, GC-MS, ICP-OES, Karl Fisher, XRF. She also has experience of testing clinical samples for toxicology and is keen to focus on method development. 

Dr Talbir (Tal) Austin is a consultant providing expertise in solid state, material design and characterisation, and development with particular focus on the early development phase.

Dr Austin is a structural organic chemist who has worked within the pharmaceutical industry for nearly three decades. Her previous positions involved complex problem solving and troubleshooting of projects – overseeing material design, selection and development, from the Preclinical phase through to Early Development at AstraZeneca. She also led the design and implementation of AstraZeneca’s material selection strategy at the discovery and development interface. Dr Austin has extensive experience in optimising material properties for different therapy areas (Respiratory, Inflammation, CNS, CV, GI and Oncology) and modes of administration; oral, inhalation, parenteral, topical.

Wendy is a pharmaceutical microbiologist with 30+ years experience with former employer Astrazeneca, where she worked in product development and was responsible for the microbial control strategy for all formulation types including complex parenterals. Prior to Astrazeneca, Wendy worked as a medical microbiologist in the NHS. She also has experience of CMC documentation, quality assurance and microbial small scale fermentation.

Peter has worked in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector for over 25 years with leadership and scientific positions at J&J, AstraZeneca and Glaxo. He has extensive experience in the management of outsourced projects with a focus on analytical development activities. Peter has authored many regulatory submissions from FiH to NDA / MAA and has an expert understanding of the regulatory requirements at each stage of development. He has been a consultant to the biotech sector since 2017.

Paul has 33+ years’ experience in Drug Discovery and Development at AstraZeneca, specialising in novel formulation, drug delivery and product design. He has led many projects and teams in identifying, evaluating and designing novel viable drug delivery-based products and new drug delivery technologies across a broad range of routes of administration and drug modalities including many complex medicines.

From 2017 to 2021, in additional to his role as Senior Principal Scientist in Drug Delivery, Paul was the Science & Innovation Director for Drug Delivery and Product Design, accountable for driving and championing science and innovation in drug delivery and product design to create new implementable business opportunities. Paul started and led AstraZeneca’s Global Novel Drug Delivery Network for many years and is widely recognised outside AstraZeneca as an expert on drug delivery technologies and the external drug delivery environment, including patent and intellectual property aspects.

Paul has collaborated extensively with academic groups and drug delivery companies and is the co-author and co-inventor of a number of publications and patent applications. He has been a member of a range of external groups including Editorial advisory board member for the Nanomedicine journal, Scientific Advisory Board member and Programme Chair for the Controlled Release Society Conference, Scientific Consultant to the Wellcome Trust and EPSRC programme External Advisory Board member.

David Handbury is a Chartered Quality Professional and UK/EU Qualified Person ( eligibility under Permanent Provisions since 1991). He has over 28 years’ experience in Quality leadership roles in pharmaceutical development and clinical and commercial manufacturing at Astra Zeneca. He has been a  consultant to  biotech companies since 2021.

Specialties:

Good Manufacturing Practice, Pharmaceutical Quality Systems, Continuous Improvement, and hosting regulatory authority GMP inspections, including FDA PAIs.

GMP systems and processes associated with the manufacture, testing and release of, API, parenteral and oral solid dosage forms for commercial product and IMP.

Quality guidance during early and late-stage pharmaceutical development

Auditing. Qualified ISO GMP Lead Auditor (since 2018).

Roy is an experienced Pharma Industry & Regulatory CMC professional having spent time as a quality assessor at MHRA and with over 25 years in large pharma organisations leading numerous small molecule projects from FTiH through Marketing Authorisation and launch. As an Independent Consultant he has worked with many small companies as well as collaborating with consultancy firms and is currently supporting the South African Agency (SAHPRA) as a Quality/CMC reviewer supporting their generic backlog programme.

Roy has successfully led 4 major global submissions through Phase 3 to marketing authorisation approval. His key area of regulatory scientific expertise and interest centres on biopharmaceutics aspects of solid oral dosage forms of small molecules and the bridge between quality performance and the pharmacokinetic profile linked to safety and efficacy.

Dr Bill Moss has over 25 years’ experience as a scientist and leader working in the following areas:

• Chemical Development and manufacture of clinical and commercial drug substance
• Expertise in the Discovery interface, Preclinical and Phase1/Phase II development, supporting the progression of new candidate drugs from discovery into development
• Drug substance project strategy development and integration with drug product, safety and clinical planning
• Extensive experience of outsourcing drug substance development and manufacture
• Authoring and reviewing regulatory submissions from Phase I to marketing submissions