Nick Challoner
Dr. Nick Challoner joined Ingenza in 2025 as Chief Executive Officer to elevate Ingenza’s market presence using engineering biology to address the innovation and sustainability challenges faced by our customers.
Prior to joining Ingenza, Nick had a hugely successful career spanning more than 30 years with leading FTSE 100 company, Croda International, where he led innovative and highly profitable growth in technology across the Consumer Care and Life Sciences sectors.
Nick held Senior Executive positions at Croda for more than 10 years during which time he had numerous high-level roles with responsibilities in R&D, sales and marketing, business management, leadership and governance. Nick held roles in the UK and in multiple international locations within Asia Pacific and The Americas.
Nick has a long history of bringing innovation to life and advancing new products and services to market, most recently leading the development and scale-up of lipids required for mRNA formulation and delivery for Covid vaccines. With a passion for workplace culture and innovation, Nick’s appointment as CEO of Ingenza comes at a hugely exciting time for the company ahead of aggressive growth and further expansion plans.
Engineering biology and biosolutions have the potential to redefine modern industry, creating sustainable products, high-value jobs and new economic opportunities. Realising this potential will require ambition, investment and collaboration across the innovation ecosystem.
Lucio Cicerelli
An enthusiastic professional working over 27 years in the baked snacks and confectionary industries, with R&D roles spanning in Manufacturing Excellence in Continuous Improvement, Front End Innovation, contributing to many new product launches and New Ventures, creating and launching new brands and explorative New Products.
I believe biosolutions can help us build a stronger and more diverse food system, capable of responding more effectively to future disruption. By connecting science, industry and policy, the BIA can help turn the UK’s bioengineering strengths into scalable solutions with global impact.
Mike Daniels
Commercial and strategic life sciences leader with deep experience across genomics, synthetic biology, molecular biology tools and diagnostics. Mike works at the interface of science, product strategy, partnerships and commercialisation, helping technologies move from technical innovation to real-world adoption and market impact.
Dr Damian Kelly
Damian is the Croda Vice President of Innovation & Technology Development with responsibility for developing and sourcing new innovation through acquisition, licensing and partnerships. Damian holds a PhD in Tribology from the University of Cambridge and joined Croda as a graduate in 2001. Over the past 25 years he has held several positions across different Croda markets, divisions and functions, including Personal Care Sales Manager in Latin America, Performance Technologies Business Development Manager in North America and Life Sciences Vice President in Europe with both Technical and Commercial responsibility.
BioSolutions offer the UK Chemical industry a huge opportunity to transform how we develop and manufacture a wide range of both new and existing globally important ingredients for both Consumer Care and Life Sciences.
Will Milligan
Will Milligan is Founder & CEO of Extracellular, a CDMO supporting the development of animal and plant cell ingredients with applications in food, materials and cosmetics. Extracellular supports product developers with research, development and scale-up services from their sites in Bristol.
Will is a biomanufacturing specialist, with more than a decade of experience in process development and scale-up across stem cells, gene therapies and cultivated meat. Will was formerly Head of Upstream Processing at a UK-based biotech cell & gene therapy CDMO, and holds an Engineering Doctorate in Biopharmaceutical Process Development. Will currently sits on DSIT’s Engineering Biology Advisory Panel and is vice-chair of the BIA’s manufacturing Advisory Committee.
Cassandra Padbury
Cassandra identifies opportunities and realises the value of ideas. With over 20 years in R&D and deep tech consulting, she delivers impact by foreseeing change and navigating emerging technology. Working across FMCG, healthcare, energy and industrial sectors she leads projects to enable her clients to meet their strategic ambitions, increasingly in how to leverage engineering biology. As a Fellow on the World Economic Forum’s flagship initiative to accelerate the global transition to a bio-based economy she works with leaders from government, business, academia, research organizations and civil society to align on collective actions to embrace engineering biology as a key commercial technology. Coauthor of a policy framework paper to be published end of May with the World Economic Forum titled: Bringing National Strategies to Life – Actionable Recommendations for a Commercial Bioeconomy.
I'm delighted to join the BIA BioSolutions Advisory Board at such an important moment for the sector. The UK has a clear opportunity to translate world-class science to address some of our biggest industrial and sustainability challenges. I look forward to supporting the BioSolutions community in accelerating growth, investment and adoption to benefit the UK economy and society.
Anders Bendsen Spohr
Anders joined Novo Holdings A/S in 2017. He is Managing Partner and Head of the Planetary Health Investments team. Prior to joining Novo Holdings, Anders was employed as VP in Xellia Pharmaceuticals heading up the Global Product Supply. Other previous employments include EVP, Global Product Supply at Leo Pharma A/S and VP Global Supply Chain at Novozymes A/S. Anders holds a PhD in Biotechnology and a MSc in Chemical Engineering from Technical University of Denmark as well as a graduate diploma in Business Administration (International Business) from Copenhagen Business School.
Biosolutions are central to building more sustainable processes. BIA has shown what collaborative advocacy can achieve in terms of driving innovation. I'm pleased to support that work through the Advisory Board to aid the translation of scientific strengths into industrial reality.
Alex Smith
Alex is Director of Advanced Processing & Biotechnology at CPI, supporting innovative businesses in the development and scale up of novel scientific concepts into industrial and commercial reality faster, and with reduced risk through open access labs, pilot and demonstration scale facilities. A chartered chemical engineer and modelling & simulation expert, Alex leads a team of 80 scale up specialists at CPI, including engineers, scientists and process technicians, to support a range of commercial clients and collaborative partners to scale up their Biotechnology and Process Chemistry processes from CPI’s Wilton Centre base.
At CPI I see firsthand every day the fantastic innovations which are coming through in Engineering Biology and BioSolutions. The momentum which is being built in the UK through our innovative EB businesses alongside a clear recognition in government of the value of EB and a desire to put the right tools in place to see these companies succeed, is fantastic to see. BIA BioSolutions is vitally important to building and maintaining that momentum through their positive engagement with industry and policy makers, and I’m excited to see how far we can all go together to ensure the UK’s EB future is as bright as it should be.
Ola Wlodek, PhD
Ola is the CEO of Constructive Bio. She holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge and executive MBA from Warwick Business School. Her scientific interests in genetic engineering of GC-rich microbes, unnatural products and peptide cyclisation led her to seek transformative applications of synthetic biology in the real world. Prior to joining Constructive Bio, she worked for various companies in the Cambridge biotech cluster, most recently as Chief Operating Officer at Reflection Therapeutics.
Karolina Zapadka, PhD MBA
Karolina has spent the past 15 years building a strong network across the UK and European life sciences ecosystem. She is an experienced biotech investor and entrepreneur with over a decade in life sciences innovation, spanning drug discovery, technology transfer, venture building, and equity financing.
As Founding Partner at BII Catalyst, Karolina leads investment strategy and portfolio support for early-stage life sciences ventures focused on human and planetary health. Previously, she was an investor at the UK's largest EIS fund, where she led multiple deals, sat on the Investment Committee, and supported portfolio companies across life sciences, platform technologies, single-asset biotechs, tools, and digital health.
Karolina co-founded Accelerate@Babraham, Cambridge's first life sciences accelerator, and founded the Innovation Forum, a global non-profit supporting life sciences entrepreneurship across the UK, Europe, US, and Asia.
She holds a PhD in Protein Folding and Drug Discovery from the University of Cambridge and an Executive MBA from HEC Paris.
With 15 years across the life sciences as an investor, company builder, and scientist, I’ve seen firsthand how biosolutions drive the UK’s industrial future—turning discovery into scalable, high-impact companies. BIA’s role in convening talent, capital, and policy is essential to accelerating that journey.