Deborah O'Neil

Deborah O'neil is the Chief Executive Officer at NovaBiotics. Deborah would like to build on previous work with the BIA on ensuring Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) moves back up, and stays on, the UK’s policy agenda at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated the consequences of pandemic unpreparedness and underinvesting in infectious diseases. She believes it’s important for a representative from the Scottish biotech cluster to be involved with the BIA board.

Deborah is a biotechnology entrepreneur and immunologist by training with over two decades of experience in the field of antimicrobials research & drug development. She studied at University College London and then worked in postdoctoral positions in internationally acclaimed laboratories in San Diego and Ghent before moving to Aberdeen where, she formed NovaBiotics; successfully spinning the business out of the University of Aberdeen’s Rowett Research Institute in 2004.

She has grown NovaBiotics to a leading global biotechnology business developing a portfolio of first-in-class antimicrobial drug candidates. NovaBiotics’ technology addresses the urgent, unmet need for safe and effective antimicrobial therapies for difficult to treat and drug resistant infections, rare and respiratory diseases. She is an elected Director and founding member of the BEAM Alliance, was a member of the Scottish Life Sciences Industry Leadership Group and sit on the Boards of the Scottish Life Sciences Association and Opportunity North East Life Science/BioAberdeen.