Jonathan Gee

Jonathan is responsible for SPARK's healthcare and life sciences investment activities. He has over fifteen years experience working with IP driven high growth technology companies as an investor and board member and as Chief Executive of technology exploitation companies. His investment focus ranges from drug discovery to devices and diagnostics, he led the investment in GlycArt Biotechnology, acquired by Roche for over £100m in July 2005. Jonathan work with venture capital firm, Quester, from 2001 to 2007 and prior to that had been involved for over ten years in the identification and development of intellectual property as the basis for innovative new products, arising from University research. As Chief Executive of Imperial College Innovations, he was responsible for spinning out over 30 new University start up companies, and served on the board of eight of these. In Microscience Ltd, (how part of NASDAQ quoted Emergent Technologies), he was responsible for identifying the core IP around which the company was based, and negotiating the first industrial collaborations, prior to spinning the company out with investment from a number of VCs. From these experiences, he gained an appreciation of the challenges of building valuable new businesses based on technology. He established the first seed fund at Imperial College and ran this for its first two years. He has a background in marketing in the diagnostics industry where he was International Product Group Manager for Unilever’s successful OTC testing company, Unipath. He gained his management training in Unilever, which he joined following a PhD in cancer research at Oxford University.