Björn Dahl

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-12-12T09:23:37+00:00

Meet The Team

Björn Dahl

PhD ERT

Björn is a very experienced toxicologist with more than 28 years of discovery and development experience gained mainly in AstraZeneca. Björn has worked across multiple therapy areas and has particular experience in the Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolism therapy areas. He has been directly involved in bringing over 35 new candidate drugs to clinical trials and 4 to marketing approval. Björn was co-chair of the EFPIA Preclinical Development Expert Working Group until 2018 and was EFPIA topic lead on the ICH S11 Expert Working Group on nonclinical safety testing of paediatric medicines. Björn brings his judgement, wisdom and problem-solving skills to the design and delivery of nonclinical strategies.

Steffen Ernst

Richard Knight

Claire Sadler

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Steffen Ernst

Team Members

Steffen Ernst

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-12-12T09:29:48+00:00

Meet The Team

Dr Steffen Ernst

MD PhD MBA DABT ERT(BTS)

Steffen is an experienced discovery/regulatory toxicologist and patient safety physician with over 20 years of experience in non-clinical drug safety and clinical patient safety/pharmacovigilance gained in Big Pharma and small companies. He holds patents to marketed oncology and immunological products and has been directly involved in bringing over 50 new candidate drugs to clinical trials and 9 to marketing approval. Steffen is the European Review Editor of the Journal of Applied Toxicology (Wiley). Black belt trained in Lean Sigma, Steffen also gained an MBA from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. Steffen brings his expertise from working in both nonclinical and clinical roles to offer pragmatic and strategic input and solutions to projects.

Richard Knight

Björn Dahl

Claire Sadler

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Phumzile Sikakana

Team Members

Phumzile Sikakana

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-12-12T10:29:36+00:00

Meet The Team

Phumzile Sikakana

MSc

Phum has worked within the Safety Science Team at ApconiX for more than 6 years and has a proven track record of producing Target Safety Assessments. After studying Biomedical Sciences at Cardiff University, she completed her Master’s degree at Sheffield University. Phum is passionate about data analysis and applying her strong scientific background to Target Safety Assessments. Phum looks forward to using her communication skills and growing experience to build new client relationships.

Ruth Roberts

James Sidaway

Target Safety Assessments

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Karen Jones

Team Members

Karen Jones

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-06-12T14:44:47+01:00

Meet The Team

Dr Karen Jones

PhD

Karen is a Senior Research Scientist with over 10 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry within the early drug discovery setting. Karen’s area of expertise is in the development of Ion Channel and GPCR assays which are used for compound screening in various formats from small scale bespoke experiments up to large scale fully automated screens. Karen is skilled at problem solving and has a proven track record of delivery with difficult targets leading to publications in peer reviewed journals.

Michael Morton

Kim Rockley

Ion Channel Screening

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Guy Healing

Team Members

Guy Healing

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-12-12T09:41:08+00:00

Meet The Team

Dr Guy Healing

PhD, ERT, FBTS

Guy is an experienced senior toxicologist with expertise in general toxicology and the safety assessment of pharmaceuticals. As a manager of pre-clinical Study Monitors and Study Directors, he is an expert in study design, conduct and reporting developed over 25 years in a complex global environment, with particular expertise in infusion technology. He has served on the BTS Executive Committee for 10 years, was until recently a Panel member for the UK Register of Toxicologists and has over 40 publications in peer reviewed journals. Guy brings a pragmatic and collaborative approach to designing and delivering nonclinical studies to time, quality and cost.

Ian Slater

Richard Knight

Nonclinical Study Monitoring

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Claire Sadler

Team Members

Claire Sadler

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-07-30T10:26:48+01:00

Meet The Team

Dr Claire Sadler

PhD

Claire is an experienced project toxicologist and former Director of Discovery Safety within AstraZeneca. Claire specialises in early project safety assessment, identifying and mitigating risks from target identification through to early clinical trials. She has worked across multiple therapy areas including oncology, infection, immune and cardiovascular, and on many drug platforms including small molecules, proteins and novel platforms. She has been directly involved in bringing many candidate drugs to clinical trial, submitted through different territory regulatory agencies. She has a proven track record in problem solving and in investigational cellular and molecular toxicology. She is expert in designing and implementing bespoke safety packages and in developing strategies to drive compound design and selection.

Jane Barber

Phumzile Sikakana

Target Safety Assessments

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Michael Morton

Team Members

Michael Morton

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-06-12T14:46:05+01:00

Meet The Team

Dr Michael Morton

PhD

A co-founder of ApconiX, Mike is an expert electrophysiologist and ion channel biologist with extensive experience gained in academia and industry. Mike’s career has spanned pure research, ion channel assay development and large-scale screening of all manner of ligand- and voltage-gated ion channels. Mike learned his craft as a postdoctoral fellow first at Leeds (with Malcolm Hunter) then at Yale (with Fred Sigworth) before joining the global ion channel initiative at AstraZeneca where his skills were applied to drug projects. Mike has a serious passion for ion channels and enjoys working with collaborators and clients alike to ensure the highest quality data are used to support better decision-making.

Ruth Roberts

Richard Knight

Ion Channel Screening

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Richard Knight

Team Members

Richard Knight

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2025-07-29T11:22:16+01:00

Meet The Team

Dr Richard Knight

PhD, ERT

A co-founder of ApconiX, Richard is an expert toxicologist with more than 20 years of drug development experience gained in AstraZeneca, where he was part of the Drug Safety and Oncology Leadership Teams. Richard has worked on projects in multiple therapy areas involving small molecules, biologics, proteins and oligonucleotides. He has an in-depth understanding of drug discovery and drug development and has been directly involved in bringing over 35 new candidate drugs to clinical trials and 6 to marketing approval. He uses his extensive experience to bring an innovative, science-led and pragmatic approach to the design and delivery of nonclinical safety programmes.

Michael Morton

Ruth Roberts

Damian Deavell

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Ruth Roberts

Team Members

Ruth Roberts

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2025-08-20T14:34:51+01:00

Meet The Team

Professor Ruth Roberts

PhD, ERT, ATS, FRSB, hon FBTS, FRCPath

A co-founder of ApconiX, Ruth has 25 years of experience in leading roles in drug safety within large pharma. Ruth is also Chair and Director of Drug Discovery at The University of Birmingham, UK and was previously Global Head of Regulatory Safety at AstraZeneca. With over 180 publications in peer-reviewed journals, she is former president of the British Toxicology Society, former president of EUROTOX, former secretary to SOT and President of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences. Ruth was the recipient of the SOT Achievement award in 2002, the EUROTOX Bo Holmstedt Award in 2009, the SOT Founders award in 2018 for outstanding leadership in toxicology and the ATS 2022 ‘Millie’ award for lasting impact on translational science. Ruth is an established science professional bringing rigorous expert thinking to toxicology, drug discovery and drug development.

Richard Knight

Michael Morton

Target Safety Assessments

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Jane Barber

Team Members

Jane Barber

Team Members

Chloe Atkinson2024-06-12T14:46:58+01:00

Meet The Team

Dr Jane Barber

PhD

Jane is an experienced investigative and project toxicologist with expertise in cancer research, molecular toxicology and discovery project toxicology and has worked across multiple therapy areas including oncology. Jane has experience in evaluating the safety of drug targets and has extensive experience in mechanistic problem solving and in discovery project toxicology. Jane has a specialist expertise in hepatotoxicity, in vitro and in vivo problem solving, study design and reporting and has led global scientific strategy teams developing pre-clinical toxicity packages for mitigating the risk of transporter hepatotoxicity in discovery and development projects.

Paul Duffy

Damian Deavall

Claire Sadler

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