Geoff Hale, Founder and Director of BioPharma Services
Geoff is Visiting Professor of Therapeutic Immunology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. He has worked for over 25 years with Professor Hermann Waldmann to develop a range of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, notably Campath®.
Geoff obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at Cambridge in 1977 and trained as a protein chemist, before joining the Pathology Department at Cambridge. In 1980 he discovered the CD52 antigen, characterised its structure and the biological activity of Campath antibodies.
In 1990 he established the Therapeutic Antibody Centre, which moved to Oxford in 1995, and became the leading academic GMP facility for manufacture of monoclonal antibodies. He coordinated a world-wide group of clinicians who used these antibodies for clinical trials in more than 5,000 patients. This work made an important contribution to the current strong position of antibodies as drug candidates and led to the licensing of seven monoclonal antibodies to the pharmaceutical industry.
Geoff is also one of the scientific founders of TolerRx Inc, a US biopharmaceutical company which is developing new therapies for induction of tolerance.
In 2002 he founded BioAnaLab to provide analytical services to the pharmaceutical industry and served as Chief Executive Officer from 2004 to 2009. On the merger with Millipore he became the Director of BioPharma Services.
Chris Cox, Director of Clinical Services
Chris was awarded a PhD in 1993 for studies on cellular mechanisms involved in multiple drug resistance. At the University of York he did 4 years of post-doctoral research investigating the role of intracellular signal transduction in pre-implantation embryo development.
In 1996 he moved to the Biotechnology section of Covance in Harrogate. Here his interests ranged from protein analysis to bioanalytical immunoassays. Before joining BioAnaLab his main focus was on the development, validation and use of biological potency assays. He was involved in a great number of studies and developed an expert knowledge in the validation of analytical methods, equipment qualification and software validation.
At BioAnaLab, Chris has overall responsibility for running the service laboratory, for liaising with clients and in the development of the expanding range of specialised assays for biopharmaceuticals.
Patrick Harrison, Quality Assurance Manager
Patrick's experience of quality systems and regulatory affairs includes biologics manufacturing, medical devices, veterinary products and analytical services. Originally trained in the Blood Transfusion Laboratory and the Department of Surgery (under Prof Sir Roy Calne) at Cambridge University, Patrick was instrumental in establishing the quality system of the Therapeutic Antibody Centre. This eventually led to its successful licensing as one of the first academic GMP facilities for production of investigational biologic drugs. He subsequently worked at Abbott MediSense where he was responsible for product registration, internal auditing and site-wide Quality System training. After a period as Quality Assurance Manager at Intervet UK, he joined BioAnaLab in 2005.
Among his current responsibilities, Patrick oversees the Quality System, staff training and validation of equipment and software.
