Aki von Roy

Aki von Roy is a bio-entrepreneur who has focused his activities on New Zealand and Australian opportunities. Aki is known in the New Zealand biotechnology community for his role in leading a $12 million Series A fund raising for Proacta and for helping other biotechnology start ups, such as CoDa Therapeutics, Corra Life Science, Biomatters and PhotoNZ to develop their business concepts.

Aki is chairman of Genesis Research and Development Corporation in Auckland and of Phylogica, an Australian company that recently listed on the Australian stock market.

Aki is a director of Biomatters Ltd and a partner of Inventages, a venture capital company based in Switzerland and the Bahamas which manages the recently launched $150 million food, agbiotech and health fund BioPacificVentures in a collaboration with New Zealand based venture capitalist Direct Capital Private Equity Ltd and AgResearch Ltd.

Albie Neal

Albie Neal has an educational background in Chemistry and Economics and an extensive career within general management, working for international companies in Forestry, Timber and Biotechnology sectors.

Albie worked for 21 years (1983 to 2004) with USA headquartered Invitrogen Corporation and its predecessors. His roles included leading first the New Zealand organisation, then the full Australasian organisation, followed by appointment to the role of Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific. Throughout this period, he has also undertaken business in EThroughout his years of involvement with the biotech industry, Albie has also continued his long-term association with the New Zealand Biotech industry organizations, first as a founding member of Biotenz (the predecessor of the current NZBIO), then on the amalgamation committee to bring Biotenz and NZBA together as NZBIO, and currently serving on the NZBIO/Auckland committee.

Albie is leading the effort to establish National Special Interest Groups for NZBIO, with two groups – AgBio and MedBio – having been established with 2005.urope and North America.

Colin Dawson

As Chief Executive Officer of Otago Innovation Limited, the commercialisation arm of the University of Otago, Colin is involved on a daily basis in the identification and development of early stage life sciences opportunities.

Colin holds directorships in a number of NZ based therapeutic, diagnostic, device, energy and ICT companies. Following ten years in veterinary clinical practice, Colin held a number of senior executive positions in the public, private and not-for-profit healthcare sectors and prior to joining Otago Innovation was Managing Director of Medicus Capital, providing consultancy and investment banking services to the health sector.

Mr Dawson is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the NZBIO advisory group and the NZ Institute of Directors and is an alumnus of the Stanford University Senior Executive Programme.

Doug Calhoun

Doug Calhoun has been an intellectual property advisor to many of New Zealand's leading biotech players from the academic, government research and from commercial sectors for over 30 years. He has been a frequent commentator on intellectual property issues in the popular press and in academic journals. He has been a mentor to many younger attorneys at A J Park. He has been an advocate for sensible intellectual property protection, both to government officials and politicians. His highest profile appearance was as an expert witness to the G M Royal Commission in 2001.

Doug has just retired from A J Park after 32 years with the firm. He intends to remain active as a consultant to industry and a commentator on intellectual property issues. He also intends to do some first-hand close up surveys of the durability and persistant of turf grasses used on golf courses throughout New Zealand to advance his practical knowledge in his specialist field of plant variety rights.

Ken Taylor

Kenneth Taylor is the Chief Executive Officer of Antipodean Pharmaceuticals. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland and subsequently held a joint appointment in neurosciences at Princeton University and the Squibb Institute of Medical research in Princeton, New Jersey.

In 1975 he joined Roche to establish a pharmacology research and clinical pharmacology programme in Sydney, Australia and later was appointed Medical Director then Managing Director for Roche in New Zealand. In 1990, he was appointed Managing Director of the Roche UK affiliate and then transferred to Syntex in Palo Alto, California to convert the corporate pharmaceutical company to Roche Bioscience, a research centre. He later returned to New Zealand to manage the Roche affiliate and also to help Roche find research alliances in the Asia Pacific area.

Dr Taylor is an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand and was a director of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, the New Zealand government’s agency for funding scientific research.

Born and educated in New Zealand, Dr Taylor earned honours and doctorate degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacology from the University of Otago School of Medicine. Additionally, in 1986, he completed a business management programme at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

 John A Kernohan

BioCatalyst Ltd

 Peter Landon-Lane

Plant & Food Research 

 Alan Rogerson

ViaLactia

Jim Watson

Biojoule

Andrew West

AgResearch

Doug Wilson

Mainz Consulting

Tom Richardson

Scion

William Rolleston

South Pacific Sera

Barry Richardson

Blis Technologies

Jim McLean

Plant & Food Research

Peter Lee

UniServices Ltd

Paul Tan

Living Cell Technologies

Anne Blackburn

Finistere Partners

Mark Stuart

WaikatoLink

Bret Morris

University of Otago