Chris Matheson PhD

Group Leader, Chemistry

Dr Chris Matheson is a Group Leader in Medicinal Chemistry at Domainex, having joined the company in 2021. He brings 14 years of experience in small-molecule drug discovery across both industry and academia, with particular expertise in covalent inhibitors and structure-based drug design.

Chris has authored 22 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on four patents in the field. He completed his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University, under the supervision of Professor Roger Griffin. His doctoral research focused on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of reversible and irreversible inhibitors of Nek2 kinase as potential anticancer agents.

Following his PhD, Chris undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, working with Dr Philip Reigan. There, he contributed to multiple hit-to-lead projects across diverse disease areas, with a focus on kinase targets such as Wee1 and AMPK.

Chris’s research interests span a wide chemical space, and he has extensive experience in both conventional and fragment-based approaches, as well as beyond-rule-of-five drug discovery.

James Reid PhD

Senior Principal Scientist, Protein Science

Dr James (Jim) Reid is a Senior Principal Scientist in Protein Science at Domainex, where he has been a key contributor since 2008. He brings over 20 years of experience in drug discovery and has worked on a multitude of internal and client-based programmes. 

His extensive expertise spans molecular biology, protein expression in bacterial and eukaryotic systems, purification (including Combinatorial Domain Hunting (CDH) and detergent free solubilisation techniques using Polymer Lipid Particle (PoLiPa), structural biology, and hit identification.

Jim earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen under the supervision of Dr Iain McEwan, focusing on the structural and functional characterisation of the human androgen receptor. He then undertook a research fellowship at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in the lab of Dr Jesper Svejstrup, where he investigated mechanisms of transcriptional regulation and further developed his skills in molecular biology and biochemical techniques.

Over the course of his career, Jim has worked on a wide range of target classes, including kinases, nuclear hormone receptors, transcription factors, epigenetic targets, proteases, and protein–protein interactions. 

Jesse Peterson PhD

Group Leader, Assay Biology

Dr Jesse Peterson is a Group Leader in Assay Biology at Domainex, having joined the company in 2023. He brings over 20 years of academic and industrial experience in assay development and cellular biology.

Jesse’s expertise includes the development of cell-based and biochemical assays, 2D/3D and organoid cultures, high-content image analysis, microfluidics, innate immunity, and stem cell biology. He has contributed to research across several therapeutic areas, including respiratory disease and neurodegeneration.

Prior to joining Domainex, Jesse was the Assay Development Team Lead at Lightcast Discovery, where he helped develop a microfluidic platform for high-throughput single-cell analysis. He previously completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr Katja Röper at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, investigating the role of Toll-like receptors in modulating epithelial barrier function.

Jesse earned his PhD in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Boston, Massachusetts, under the supervision of Dr James Schwob. His doctoral research focused on stem cell biology and tissue regeneration in the olfactory neuroepithelium. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Behavioural Biology from The Johns Hopkins University.

Jonathan Powell PhD

Group Leader, Chemistry

Dr Jonathan Powell is a Group Leader in Medicinal Chemistry at Domainex, where he has been a key contributor since 2008. He brings over 15 years of experience in small-molecule drug discovery and has worked across a wide range of target classes, including protein–protein interactions (PPIs), phosphodiesterases (PDEs), and G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).

Jonathan has contributed to drug discovery programs in diverse therapeutic areas such as oncology, fibrosis, antimicrobial resistance, and, more recently, central nervous system (CNS) disorders including Parkinson’s disease. He has led several multidisciplinary projects at Domainex and is proficient in all stages of the drug discovery process. His expertise includes the use of in silico tools for ligand design and data analysis software to guide research decisions efficiently.

Jonathan has also worked extensively in scale-up synthesis, leading several large-scale programs that required a strong focus on synthetic method development and reaction optimisation to deliver target molecules at the necessary scale and purity

He is named as an author on 2 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on 7 patents. Jonathan holds an MChem and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Southampton. His doctoral research, conducted under the supervision of Professor Jeremy Kilburn, focused on samarium diiodide-mediated radical cyclisations of α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds.

Ray Boffey PhD

CCO

Dr. Ray Boffey has over 20 years’ drug discovery experience in CRO and biotech companies. He joined Domainex in 2010, having previously worked at Lectus Therapeutics where he focused on ion-channel drug discovery programmes. Prior to that, Ray led medicinal chemistry teams working on behalf of global pharma companies at Argenta Discovery after starting his career at Oxford Glycosciences.

Over his career Ray has directed programmes from hit identification through to candidate nomination tackling a wide range of biological targets including protein-protein interactions, ion-channels, GPCRs, enzymes (iNOS, caspase, PARP, and kinases) and integrins. These programmes cover therapeutic areas such as oncology, inflammation (including asthma and COPD), Parkinson’s disease, stroke, circadian rhythms, anti-fungal project and pain. As a result, Ray is a named inventor and author of numerous patents and publications.

Ray conducted his post-doctoral research at Imperial College, working with Professor A. G. M Barrett FRS and obtained his PhD from the University of Southampton in 1999, where he researched the ‘Diastereoselective samarium(II) iodide-mediated cascade radical cyclisations of methylenecyclopropane derivatives’ and synthesised the natural product (±)-Paeonilactone B with Professor Jeremy Kilburn.

Mark Stewart PhD

Group Leader, Chemistry

Dr Mark Stewart is a Group Leader in Medicinal Chemistry at Domainex, where he has been a key member of the team since 2004. He has over 20 years of experience in small-molecule drug discovery, with expertise spanning fragment-based drug discovery, hit-to-lead development, lead optimisation, and candidate selection.

Mark has worked on a wide range of target classes, including kinases, protein–protein interactions (PPIs), proteases, epigenetic targets and receptors. His therapeutic area experience includes central nervous system (CNS) targeted therapeutics for neurological conditions including Parkison’s disease and depression, oncology, and inflammatory disorders including COPD and asthma. Other areas include the development of drug conjugates for topical delivery within the ophthalmology arena, cardiovascular disease, and prodrug development of advanced chemical leads. He is named as an inventor on more than 15 patents, including several within the kinase field.

In addition to leading multiple client drug discovery programs, Mark plays a central role in maintaining and enhancing Domainex’s compound databases. He is proficient in all stages of the drug discovery cycle and regularly applies in-silico design tools and data analysis software to guide the development of biologically relevant ligands. He has also run in-house tutorials covering medicinal chemistry topics for the wider medicinal chemistry team.

Mark earned both his undergraduate degree and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Leeds. His doctoral research, supervised by Professor A. P. Johnson, focused on the design and synthesis of synthetic receptors. Using de novo design and energy minimisation tools, he developed host compounds to bind small biologically relevant substrates and successfully synthesised several of these in the laboratory.

Trevor Askwith PhD

Head of Biology

Dr Trevor Askwith is Head of Biology at Domainex, bringing over 15 years of experience in small-molecule drug discovery. Since joining Domainex in 2020, he has led biological research efforts across a range of therapeutic areas and target classes.

Prior to joining Domainex, Trevor held leadership and research roles across academia and industry, with notable contributions to drug discovery. At University College London (UCL), he served as Head of Assay Development and Screening in the Drug Discovery Group, where he led multiple successful hit identification projects targeting novel biological mechanisms. 

Before his time at UCL, Trevor was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sussex Drug Discovery Centre, helping to establish the facility and develop cell-based and biochemical screening assays for projects funded by the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK. Earlier in his career, Trevor worked as a cell biologist at Novartis, initially within the respiratory division, where he contributed to therapeutic discovery efforts for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary arterial hypertension. 

Over the years, he has developed deep expertise in biochemical and cellular assay development, high-throughput screening, and both conventional and fragment-based drug discovery approaches. His scientific impact includes leading roles in the development of the AMPA and PAM DT-101 programs and the identification of UCL-TRO-1938-the first known PI3Kα activator. 

Trevor has worked on a diverse range of therapeutic areas, including central nervous system disorders, oncology with a focus on DNA damage repair, fibrosis, and cardiovascular disease. He earned his PhD from the University of Birmingham under the supervision of Professor Martin Stevens, studying mechanisms of taurine depletion in diabetic neuropathy. 

Nicholas Bland PhD

Group Leader, Assay Biology

Dr Nicholas (Nick) Bland is a Group Leader in Assay Biology at Domainex, having joined the company in 2020. Nick has 25 years of experience in research, 15 of which are in drug discovery, in a mixture of academia and CROs. He is an experienced drug discovery leader and has driven projects from hit ID to candidate nomination. Nick has worked in a diverse range of therapeutic areas, including inflammatory diseases, oncology, anti-infectives, and rare diseases. 

Nick’s broad scientific background allows him to run projects from cell biology through to biophysics, however he has particular expertise in biochemistry and enzymology. During his career, Nick has worked across diverse enzyme classes such as kinases, peptidases, polymerases, phosphodiesterases, NTP synthetases, and tautomerases. He specialises in kinetic characterisation (e.g., KM, kcat & Ki etc.), and in elucidating mechanisms of inhibition, including tight binding and reversibility.

Nick completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Leeds, followed by postdoctoral research at the Universities of Glasgow and York. He later moved to the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Massachusetts to work with Dr Bob Campbell (Merck Serono) on an NIH-funded anti-infectives programme. Returning to the UK, he entered industrial research at Sygnature Discovery, followed by a role at Excellerate Bioscience, before joining Domainex.

Andrew Ratcliffe PhD

CSO

Dr Andrew Ratcliffe ‘AJ’ is a medicinal chemist with over 30 years’ of drug discovery gained across large pharma and biotech companies. AJ has worked successfully in all stages of drug discovery, from early hit identification through to candidate nomination. Prior to joining the Domainex team, AJ has worked at Rhone Poulenc Rorer, Celltech, UCB, Cellzome, Redx Anti-infectives and Novintum Bioscience. During this time, he has taken leadership roles in delivering research projects, cumulating in the nomination of multiple small molecule candidates in the areas of RA (two JAK kinase inhibitors), oncology (mitochondrial disruptor) and MS (two VLA4 integrin antagonists). The VLA4 integrin antagonist, CDP323, was progressed to phase II clinical trials in MS.

Other key areas of research have focused on PDEIV inhibitors, IMPDH inhibitors, JNK and PI3K delta kinase inhibitors (which ultimately led to the identification and progression of UCB5857 into clinical trials), and DNA Gyrase inhibitors as anti-bacterial agents (which led to European funding through the ENABLE initiative). AJ has experience in IP management and was a proactive committee member within the Society of Medicines, a multi-disciplinary society engaged in promoting drug research.

AJ completed his first degree and PhD at the University of Bath under Dr Malcolm Sainsbury, followed by a SERC NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University, North Carolina, USA with Professor Bert Frasier-Reid. AJ has over 70 publications covering peer reviewed papers and patents.

Phil Leonard PhD

Group Leader, Protein Science

Dr Phil Leonard is a Group Leader in Protein Science at Domainex, having joined the company in 2022. He brings over 20 years of industrial drug discovery experience in the contract research (CRO) sector, with a strong track record of managing diverse client projects.

Phil’s expertise spans protein production, X-ray crystallography, biophysics, and fragment screening. He has worked with a wide variety of protein classes, including kinases, proteases, nuclear hormone receptors, antibody Fab fragments, transcription factors, epigenetic targets, and protein–protein interactions.

He earned his PhD in macromolecular crystallography from the University of Sheffield, where he studied DNA-binding proteins in the lab of Professor David Rice. Phil went on to conduct postdoctoral research at the York Structural Biology Laboratory (YSBL), University of York, and at the University of Bath.

At Domainex, Phil plays a key role in leading protein science efforts to support integrated drug discovery programmes across a broad range of therapeutic areas.

Hayley French PhD

CEO

Dr. Hayley French is an accomplished commercial leader and qualified attorney with over 25 years’ experience across the life science industry. Prior to joining Domainex, Hayley was Chief Executive Officer of Apitope Technology NV which was acquired by Worg Pharmaceuticals in September 2021. Before joining Apitope, Hayley spent three years at Novartis, based at the Basel headquarters, where she worked closely on all global deals and collaborations in the respiratory division.

She has also worked in the Life Sciences Group of Bird & Bird, London, specialising in advising pharmaceutical and biotech companies and as Head of Commercial Legal Affairs at the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR) in Salisbury, UK. 

Hayley started her career at University College London Ventures where she was responsible for the development, management and commercialisation of technologies in the life sciences sector. She is past president of the Licensing Executives Society Britain & Ireland, and a past board member of Licensing Executives Society International (LESI).

Hayley has a B.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Liverpool, as well as a PhD in Microbiology and a M.Sc. in intellectual property from the University of London and is a certified licensing professional (CLP).

Hayley is also a venture partner for Vesalius Biocapital and chair of Octiocor Limited.

Philip Rawlins

Group Leader, Assay Biology

Philip Rawlins is a Group Leader in Assay Biology at Domainex, bringing nearly 30 years of experience in small-molecule drug discovery. He joined Domainex in 2023 following a distinguished career at AstraZeneca, UK, where he spent over two decades supporting both the respiratory and inflammation (12 years) and oncology (11 years) therapy areas.

Philip has extensive expertise in assay development, high-throughput screening, hit-to-lead and lead optimisation, and over 10 years of experience in biophysical techniques including surface plasmon resonance (SPR), isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), spectral shift, microscale thermophoresis (MST), and differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF). He has supported projects from early proposal through to candidate selection and has contributed to multiple programs that progressed into clinical development.

He is the author of more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and has worked across a broad range of therapeutic areas, including respiratory, inflammation, oncology, and autoimmune diseases.

Philip holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Dundee and an MSc in Medical Immunology from the University of London.

Tom Amies

Finance Director

Tom has 17 years board level CFO experience and provides fractional CFO advice to (predominantly) life science businesses; prior to Domainex he was Group CFO of Sonic Healthcare’s UK operation and Finance Director of Cambridge-based Howard Group. He has 3 years’ experience as head of finance of an AIM-listed PLC and 10 years’ experience in healthcare M&A. He has advised on over 30 corporate transactions, and been involved in public market equity placings and takeovers as principal.

Tom qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte, he is a graduate of Cambridge University and a former Great Britain and boat race oarsman. He lives near Cambridge, UK.

Jason Pembroke

Group Leader, Bioanalytical Science

Jason joined Domainex in 2022, bringing over a decade’s worth of bioanalytical experience gained across drug discovery and drug development Contract Research Organisations (CROs). He specialises in the development and validation of targeted LC-MS/MS methods for the quantification of small molecules, proteins, and biotherapeutics within biological matrices. His experience in targeted and untargeted mass spectrometry helps provide our clients with solutions to complex bioanalytical problems.

As an accomplished scientist in the quantitative proteomics field, Jason designs bespoke immunopurification-mass spectrometry (IP-MS) based proteomics assays that deliver high sensitivity and specificity for proteins of interest. His experience and expertise have helped advance projects within pre-clinical and translational research, with his data underpinning biomarker-driven project decisions.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Forensic Science from the University of Central Lancashire and has contributed to peer-reviewed literature, including published neuropeptide proteomics data in Molecular Metabolism. 

Andrea Fuller

HR Director

Andrea Fuller is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and a skilled HR leader with over 20 years of experience spanning human resources and operational management. Since joining Domainex in 2022, Andrea has used her extensive experience to introduce a wide range of policies, procedures, and training programmes that ensure clarity, compliance, and practical understanding across the organisation. She is also instrumental in supporting the growth and development of Domainex’s team of highly specialised scientists by establishing clear career pathways and recognition frameworks.

Andrea holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management (Distinction) from Anglia Ruskin University and is also a certified Executive Leadership Coach and an Insights Discovery Accredited Trainer, delivering bespoke coaching and team development initiatives across the organisation. 

A passionate advocate for neurodiversity and workplace inclusion, Andrea has championed a suite of progressive policies and training programmes designed to create a more inclusive, supportive, and high-performing workplace culture. Her efforts have also led to the launch of a competitive benefits package—including private healthcare, cycle-to-work options, an electric vehicle scheme, and a holiday buyback programme.

Tushar Modi PhD

Senior Principal Scientist, Computational Chemistry

Dr Tushar Modi brings over a decade of experience in academic and industrial drug discovery, specializing in the integration of computational theory with practical medicinal chemistry strategy to accelerate the development of novel therapeutics.

Tushar’s expertise spans protein–ligand and protein–peptide modelling, molecular dynamics simulations, QM/MM, and free energy methods. He is highly skilled in integrating experimental biophysical data (e.g. NMR, HDX) with simulations to refine conformational ensembles, identify cryptic pockets, and evaluate binding site druggability. He is also proficient in scientific programming (Python, C/C++) and the application of Bayesian frameworks and Markov state models within high performance computing environments.

He has a proven track record of tackling high challenge targets, including RNA helicases and KRAS, using structure and data driven methods to guide lead optimization and overall medicinal chemistry strategy. Tushar has authored 14 peer reviewed publications and holds 2 patents in computational methods, utilizing statistical physics and molecular dynamic simulations to explore protein function and their allosteric interactions.

Tushar earned his PhD in Physics from Arizona State University under the supervision of Dr S. Banu Ozkan, where his research focused on deciphering allosteric interactions and their role in protein dynamics and function.

Anna Hopkins PhD

Group Leader

Dr. Anna Hopkins is a seasoned medicinal chemist with over 14 years of experience in small-molecule drug discovery. Since joining Domainex in 2013, she has played a pivotal role in advancing early-stage discovery programs across a wide range of target classes and therapeutic areas.

As a Group Leader in Medicinal Chemistry, Dr. Hopkins has led numerous client projects from hit identification through to lead optimisation, including fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) and structure-based drug design (SBDD). Her work has contributed to the successful delivery of novel drug candidates, resulting in multiple patents and peer-reviewed publications.

Anna holds an MSci in Natural Sciences (First Class Honours) from the University of Cambridge and earned her PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Bristol under the supervision of Professor Varinder Aggarwal. Her doctoral research focused on the total synthesis of natural products and the development of novel enantioselective methodologies.