Meet the board

The Medipex Board provides a wealth of experience from NHS, industry, academia and business.

Mike Smith BSc, MSc, PhD, DSc, CPhys, CSci, FInstKT, FBIR, FIPSM, FInstP
Non-Executive Director and Chair

Mike has 45 years’ experience as an academic and medical scientist working in the University/NHS /Commercial sectors in Edinburgh, London, Leeds, Teesside and Sheffield with a wide network of international links. He has international research experience with associated record of peer-reviewed publications (more than 200) and grant income (~£55m). He has extensive experience with EU programmes in the various Frameworks, supporting innovation development, adoption and links between innovators and the commercial sector He has published patents, licensed research developments, formed spin-off companies and held non-executive appointments commercial sector and the NHS, and Trustee roles in the Charitable sector. For over 25 years’ Mike has served on major professional and government national committees including: RAE Panel Member on two occasions; NHS Central R&D Committee; MRC Medical Advisory Board; NHS New and Emerging Applications of Technology (NEAT) and i4i Advisory Board; NHS R&D Standing Group on Health Technology Assessment; and DTI Foresight Taskforce on Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices. He has contributed at a national level on policy and funding issues, working at a high level with all relevant government departments, the EU and a number of RDAs. He gained leadership experience in a number of organisations (public sector), which included operational and strategic management responsibility for large budgets (>£300m). This involved (i) major capital building projects and (ii) the formation and closure of units and (iii) major strategic restructuring. His involvement with regional programmes in the North East of England and in Yorkshire, included (i) lead for DigitalCity in Middlesborough, a large scale regional development programme supporting innovation and SMEs, (ii) Member of the Board of Advanced Manufacturing Park, (iii) Steering Group for the Digital Campus, (iv) Steering Group of the Sheffield Economic Masterplan, (v) Member of the Board of Knowledge Starts, (vi) the development of the Local Enterprise Partnership and (vii) the Region Growth Hub. Mike also acted as external advisor for Daresbury Research in the north west of England, taking a bid for a national research facility through the government’s comprehensive spending review (2002)

David J Dickson FCA
Non-Executive Director, Chair of the Finance & Resources Sub-Committee

David is a deputy chair of the York and North Yorkshire LEP and Chairs the Regional infrastructure and joint assets board and the performance group .He has a leading role in several public private sector partnership. He is chair of St Leonards Hospice in York, which manages NHS funding to provide, with other stakeholders including significant general public financial support, palliative and end of life care within the region. He is the chair of the Yorkshire and Humber Hospice chairs group and is a member of the Hospice UK chairs forum. He is a non-exec director in a number of regional and National SME businesses and advises national family businesses on governance and succession plans. He sits on the advisory board of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund which specialises in providing Finance to regional SMEs. He is a member of the University of York Court where he was previously the University treasurer for 12 years, Chairing Policy and Resources, and was a member of the University remuneration Committee. He is a member of the Coventry University Scarborough advisory Board. David was the Chair of a regional firm of accountants of business advisors specialising in corporate finance and family businesses and is still an active business angel. He continues to be a strong advocate of the Third Sector and is a trustee of a number of regional charities.

John Hutton BSc, BPhil
Non-executive Director

John has over 35 years’ experience of research, teaching and consulting in health economics and health technology assessment. His early academic career was in Aberdeen, then York where he organised the UK Health Economists’ Study Group, and was a founder member of ISTAHC (now HTAi) and a founding co-editor of the journal Health Economics. At MEDTAP International John was head of its European operations, working on health technology evaluation projects for major pharmaceutical and medical device companies, HTA agencies and other health service organisations. He played a leading role in helping the new UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) develop its first evaluation guidance for manufacturers (he is still an adviser to the NICE Clinical Guidelines Programme), and advised similar agencies in other European countries. He returned to the University of York as Professor of Health Economics in the Department of Health Sciences and Director of the York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC), Under his leadership YHEC became a support centre for the NICE Medical Technologies Programme. In addition to publishing widely on the development and application of economic evaluation methods in health care, he has been directly involved in health care decision-making. From 2005 to 2014 he was a Non-executive Director; first at York Teaching Hospitals Trust and latterly at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay, where he was acting Chairman. From 2008 to March 2015 he was a member of the NICE Technology Appraisal Committee, and contributed to the NICE Public Health and Primary Care programmes. He led the UK part of EU Interquality project, which looked at financial incentives and quality of health care, on behalf of the Health Sciences Department at the University of York and was a member of the project management committee.

Ann Starkey MBA, FInstKT
Non-executive Director and Company Secretary

Ann has over 40 years’ experience of working at the interface between Higher Education and the Medical and Healthcare Sector. Originally she worked in research and project management in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Leeds University, where she managed the School’s R&D budget of £18m pa and oversaw the transfer of the Clinical Trials and Research Unit from the Regional Health Authority to the University of Leeds. This was followed by innovation and business development, at Medipex Ltd, an company set up to commercialise innovations emerging from the Health sector in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of the UK; prior to joining Medipex she was part of the Executive Team that set up the Company.Ann’s project management and business development expertise has involved her with a number of strategic initiatives including: the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership Health Technology Sector Group; the Board of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) in West Yorkshire; the National Innovation Centre Metrics Working Group; the Steering Committee Devices for Dignity (D4D) Healthcare Technology Co-operative (HTC) Programme. At Medipex she was involved in raising over £1m in PSRE funding. Ann was the first Chair of the Healthcare Strategy Board of the Transatlantic Business Council, from 2010-13. She has given presentations on IP management at National and International meetings. She is a Senior Member of the ESRC Peer Review College. She mentors staff who are recently appointed to Senior Management Roles.

Richard Clark BSc, MSc
Non-executive Director

Dick is a business development strategist whose career spans over 40 years as a chartered engineer in diverse sectors such as energy, environmental industry and medical technology. During this time he has acquired a broad base both of practical and technical skills together with a track record in successful technology transfer and commercial exploitation. He has published many technical papers, acted as an international environmental consultant, been co-chair and presented papers at numerous international conferences and has several patents to his name. Over the last 20 years, he has been involved in the establishment and operation of several unique organisations, namely; Medilink, a national network supporting medical technology SMEs) and most recently, Medipex the first NHS company set up to identify and commercialise innovations arising out of the NHS. His expertise encompasses providing commercial advice, securing grants and early stage seed funding, he has an in depth understanding of the needs/opportunities of working with NHS. As the first CEO of Medipex he was responsible for securing 3 rounds of PSRE funds from HMG to build capacity and create an innovation infrastructure within NHS, and was responsible for establishing many medical technology spin outs and is currently chairman of Organ Preservation Solutions Ltd.