About Us
Our Leadership
Our leadership team are determined to reshape the UK’s medicines discovery industry.
They specialise in driving scientific innovation, new technologies and encouraging collaboration. They understand the challenges facing medicine discovery and the needs of big pharma, academia, leading technology providers, SMEs, charities and start-ups.
Professor Chris Molloy
Chief Executive Officer
Professor Chris Molloy
Chief Executive Officer
Professor Chris Molloy has a 30-year international board and executive career across a unique range of life sciences R&D disciplines.
His career began in preclinical research at Glaxo, where he was closely involved with the industrialisation of high throughput discovery. In 2004 he moved to Asia as COO of MerLion Pharmaceuticals, a Singaporean biotech that developed into an award-winning multinational anti-infectives R&D biotech. Chris then ran corporate development for the global informatics firm, idbs during which time it won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise, became a Fast-track 100 company, and the first UK firm to develop a stratified medicine software platform using real-world health data.
Chris spent three years as CEO of the RSA Group, the global life science executive search specialist before in 2016 becoming the founding CEO of Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC); the national centre for innovation in drug discovery. During its first five years, under Chris’ leadership MDC has leveraged its Innovate UK grant fourfold, worked with over 150 UK companies and assisted the discovery of UK drug assets worth over £1bn. During the pandemic, Chris was the founding Director of the UK Lighthouse Labs Network – the largest diagnostics project in UK history – and chaired the industry-governmental consortium that increased UK lateral flow manufacturing capacity by twenty-fold.
Chris is the non-executive chairman of Exploristics and NorthWest EHealth: two UK tech companies using Real World healthcare data to improve clinical development. He chairs the IP Advisory Committee for the Association of Medical Research Charities and the Industry Advisory Board for Manchester’s Biomedical Research Centre & Health Innovation Manchester. Chris is a Member and Trustee of the Institute of Cancer Research and holds an honorary chair at the University of Manchester.
Chris is responsible for leading an experienced Executive Team and a cohort of over 130 specialists that make up MDC to achieve our vision of reshaping drug discovery for patient benefit.
Dr Nicola Heron
Chief Strategy Officer
Dr Nicola Heron
Chief Strategy Officer
Nicola has over 26 years of life science experience, holding senior positions across the public and private sectors in organisations including AstraZeneca and the NHS.
With a broad range of experience from research to commercialisation in pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostics, Nicola brings a breadth of experience to her role as Chief Strategy Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC).
She gained her PhD in Chemistry in Boston, USA and an MBA from the University of Sheffield. Nicola joined AstraZeneca in 1998 as a medicinal chemist. She moved to Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in 2009, where she was Programme Director of the NIHR Healthcare Technology Cooperative, D4D. She is an accomplished scientist with over 45 publications and board-level experience in multiple life sciences organisations.
She is currently Chair of the Industry Board for the Manchester NIHR Clinical Research Facility, Trustee at Tinnitus UK and member of Asthma and Lung UK’s research review panel.
Nicola joined MDC in 2018 as Head of Collaborative R&D, joining the Executive team in January 2021. In her role as Chief Strategy Officer, Nicola builds and maintains MDC’s strategic national R&D programmes and our impact evaluation to ensure MDC continues to deliver upon our vision of reshaping drug discovery for patient benefit.
Clare Atherton
Chief People Officer
Clare Atherton
Chief People Officer
Clare brings a plethora of HR experience gained throughout her career in the rail, retail, FMCG, science and technology sectors to her role as Chief People Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC).
Having started her career within the Rail sector, Clare has held senior positions in private and public sector organisations – most recently with the National Nuclear Laboratory and global consulting and engineering firm Wood, before Joining MDC in May 2021.
Applying her Executive Leadership skills, honed across several sectors, large global organisations and more agile SMEs, Clare leads the development and delivery of MDC’s people strategy.
As Chief People Officer Clare leads the People function – developing vital strategic initiatives and driving organisational development to ensure MDC’s people are valued and empowered to deliver upon our vision of reshaping drug discovery for patient benefit.
Sinéad McCormack
Chief Financial Officer
Sinéad McCormack
Chief Financial Officer
Sinéad is a qualified accountant with 23 years of experience, holding senior positions in financial services and higher education with organisations including Barclays, Bank of England and the University of Manchester.
Having started her career with Aspect Capital, AIG and Barclays, Sinéad then joined the Bank of England as Senior Manager of Financial of Control and Reporting and subsequently Hoist Finance as Head of Finance for the UK.
Sinéad was most recently a member of the Leadership Team for the University of Manchester Faculty of Medicine, Biology and Health before Joining Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) as Chief Financial Officer in March 2022.
Applying her finance skills gained in the private and public sectors, Sinéad is responsible for overseeing MDC’s finances to ensure the organisation achieves its vision of reshaping drug discovery for patient benefit; as Chief Financial Officer, Sinéad is responsible for the management of the Finance, IT and Procurement functions.
Robert Sherville-Payne
General Counsel and Company Secretary
Robert Sherville-Payne
General Counsel and Company Secretary
With a professional legal and compliance background and over 25 years of commercial experience, Robert brings significant expertise as a solicitor to his role as General Counsel and Company Secretary at Medicines Discovery Catapult.
Having trained and worked at law firm Hogan Lovells in London, Robert spent 14 years at AstraZeneca in a range of legal roles focused on all aspects of drug discovery, development, operations and legal risk management. Robert subsequently moved on to leadership legal and compliance roles at BUPA, BAE Systems and other corporate and SME organisations, before joining MDC as General Counsel and Company Secretary in May 2022.
Having created and led legal and business focussed teams within life science and broader industrial sectors, Robert has driven improved governance and decision-making practices. Robert brings detailed experience of legal risk, corporate governance and risk management , combined with an understanding of the critical need to harness these tools to enhance financial performance, business development and commercial opportunity.
With responsibility for the Legal function, Board liaison, the Office of the CEO, risk management, Intellectual Property and oversight for MDC’s approach to ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), Robert is centrally placed to support MDC’s mission of reshaping drug discovery for patient benefit.
Dr Martin Main
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr Martin Main
Chief Scientific Officer
An ion channel electrophysiologist by training, Martin has spent over 30 years working in the pharmaceutical industry in organisations including Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.
An accomplished scientist with over 30 publications and 2 patents and a broad range of experience ranging from target validation and reagent generation, through assay development and mechanism-of-action studies, Martin brings a breadth of experience to his role as Chief Scientific Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC).
After gaining his PhD in Cardiac Physiology from the University of London, Martin joined the University of Leeds as a Post-Doctoral Scientist before beginning a 25-year stint in large pharma. Starting his career with Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, Martin then held several leadership roles at AstraZeneca, most recently as Director of Discovery Biology from 2011 – 2018.
Martin is currently a member of the ELRIG General Committee, sits on the Scientific Advisory Board for the University of Nottingham Biodiscovery Institute, and is a member of the Astbury Centre Industry Advisory Board.
Martin joined MDC in 2018 as Head of Molecular Technologies, taking on the role of Chief Scientist in 2022. In his current role as Chief Scientific Officer at MDC, Martin is accountable for the development and delivery of MDC’s science strategy, with oversight of laboratory, informatics and partnership activities to ensure MDC continues to deliver upon our vision of reshaping drug discovery for patient benefit.