David McGibney

Heptares Therapeutics Ltd. designs and develops new medicines targeting G protein-coupled receptors. It builts an exciting discovery and development pipeline of novel drug candidates, which have the potential to transform the treatment of serious diseases, including alzheimer's disease, parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, migraine and diabetes. The company was founded by Richard Henderson, Fiona Hamilton Marshall, Ludwig Michael Steinmetz, Christopher G. Tate and Malcolm Weir in 2007 and is headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, the United Kingdom.

Avidex Ltd. develops and discovers drugs for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The company develops small molecule and protein therapeutics involving T cell receptors. Avidex was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Abingdon, UK

Fovea operates within the ophthalmic pharmaceutical market, which is expected to grow at a double-digit annual rate during the years to come. This growth is likely to be driven by new technologies and products, premium pricing facing no significant reimbursement issues, favorable trends (aging of the population, diabetes epidemiology and environmental factors) and dramatic expansion into the large and mostly untapped market for retinal degenerative diseases. With a limited number of players, the ophthalmology market has proved recently to be an early adopter of innovations, allowing new players to gain visibility very rapidly. During the last three years, Fovea has implemented this strategy, by acquiring products from large pharmaceutical or biotech companies and is actively developing them in four different indications. It has also integrated a unique drug discovery platform and has been able to identify one preclinical candidate and several interesting new targets.