Green Bioactives Limited (GBL), a world-leader in the discovery, development and sustainable production of high-value natural products derived from plant cell cultures, announced the expansion of its senior management team as it continues to scale its business. Chris Meaney joins as Chief Business Officer (CBO) and Dr Andy Hall-Ponselé as Head of Operations.
The appointments follow GBL’s successful £2.6 million seed financing round in December 2022. The company’s platform provides much improved and sustainable access to the huge, diverse, and valuable library of bioactives generated by the world’s plant population – natural products that are vital to the pharma, agriculture and food industries, but often difficult to produce sustainably or economically using traditional manufacturing approaches, the statement said.
David McElroy, CEO of Green Bioactives, commented: “I’m extremely pleased with the strength and depth of the management team that we are assembling to capitalise on Green Bioactives’ recent successes. Our unique offering has already attracted significant interest from business partners, and Chris’ and Andy’s proven track records of performance and leadership in biotechnology start-ups will allow us to leverage this potential and achieve our goal of becoming the world’s leading supplier of safe, natural and sustainably-sourced plant-derived products.”
Chris brings over 18 years’ business development experience in healthcare, nutraceuticals and manufacturing to Green Bioactives. Chris spent 12 years at Cambridge Nutraceuticals from company formation through to business maturity in marketing and as Head of Business Development, and was heavily involved in the creation of many product formulations.
Chris joins GBL from Primal Nutrition Solutions, a global vitamin and mineral manufacturer and supplier, where he served as European Head of Business Development, responsible for launching the business into the European market. As Chief Business Officer, with his proven success in domestic and international business growth, Chris will lead efforts to secure new sector-specific commercial partnerships and increase marketing and product sales as Green Bioactives continues to grow, the statement said.
Chris holds a BA in Business Studies from Liverpool John Moores University and has also held roles at Lloyds Pharmacy, Dexcel Pharma and Vivo Healthcare
Andy joins GBL as Head of Operations and brings significant biotechnology, commercial and operational expertise to the company. In 2015, Andy co-founded Biotangents Ltd based on his synthetic biology expertise and DNA assembly technology. Andy led the company as CEO in its first 18 months, secured funding and led its business strategy before becoming Director of Operations, playing a key role in determining the company’s product development and commercialisation strategies and growing the company to 23 FTEs.
With his plant science background and experience building Biotangents, Andy brings both scientific expertise and operational knowhow to Green Bioactives. Andy will be responsible for growing GBL’s operational capabilities, enabling the company to demonstrate its biomanufacturing approach at larger scale, according to the statement.
Andy holds a PhD from the University of Oxford, where he explored genetic engineering to increase the abundance of secondary metabolites in tobacco cells. Andy also holds a BSc in Biotechnology from the University of Edinburgh and he previously held a scientist role at synthetic biology start-up Genabler Ltd.
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