Frank F. Craig

Dr Craig has around 20 years of international, general management experience gained from GlaxoSmithKline, Amersham Biosciences (as a Vice-President of R&D and which later merged to form GE Healthcare Life Sciences), and several start-up firms. He was responsible for driving the product development of the widely known and utilised biological tool, Green Fluorescent Protein (first identified by the 2008 Nobel Prize Winners for Chemistry), as well as many other cell-based products, systems and services for the Life Sciences industry.

Frank was a co-Founder and Vice-President of Aurora Biosciences (San Diego, USA), which had a peak market cap. of £1.8 billion and was acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for £420 million. He was also a co-Founder and CEO of Smart Holograms (Cambridge, UK), which was previously named as the UK’s Fastest Growing Company. Frank has raised £60 million in Angel and Venture Capital investment, £2 million in loans and £25 million via an IPO on NASDAQ and has delivered many commercial partnerships with global Life Sciences firms, resulting in recorded deal values of £180 million. He has been a Board Director of Smart Holograms and TekCel (Hopkinton, USA), and helped form Sphere Fluidics before becoming its CEO in May 2010. He has a PhD in Cell Biology and Microbiology from Glasgow University and an MBA from Warwick Business School.