WEHI Ventures and 66ten

Dr Roslyn Hendriks is passionate about innovation and delivering cutting-edge life sciences technologies to the global market. She has over 35 years’ experience in founding new companies, accelerating profitable growth of emerging businesses, mentoring executives, and serving on Boards and Advisory Boards.

She has co-founded three start-ups: Genetrax (Brisbane), Immunexpress Inc. (Brisbane, Seattle) and Tend Health Inc. (Seattle) and its animal health subsidiary, Amend Pet (Seattle). As Founding CEO, she led the raising of $100 million in dilutive and non-dilutive capital, developed and cleared products through the FDA, delivered products and services into revenue, built high performance teams, and fostered international technology and business partnerships.

She is qualified in veterinary medicine and has a PhD in medical pharmacology (UQ; University California Davis) and a summa cum laude MBA from QUT. She also serves as an independent Director for UniSA Ventures P/L, Provectus Algae P/L (Noosaville), WearOptimo (Brisbane), and Invasive Animals Ltd (Canberra), sits on the Advisory Boards of GMJ Technologies Inc. (Seattle), Tend Health Inc. and Amend Pet (Seattle), and is an Advisor to the Westmead Institute for Medical Research (Sydney) and other Australian non-profit organisations.

Professor Alan Cowman AC is a laboratory head at WEHI.

He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011 and the Australian Academy of Sciences in 2001. In 2019 he was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for his service to Biological Sciences.

He has worked on malaria for over 30 years and published over 300 papers on the topic of infection and pathogenesis of this disease. His work is aimed at understanding the function of proteins in Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of the most severe form of malaria in humans and to use this information for the development of vaccines and drug targets against this parasitic disease. His work has identified new targets in the malaria parasite for development of antimalarials which are currently in development with Merck USA.

Dr Chris Francis is currently the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Head of Emerging Areas at Wave Life Sciences, an emerging leader in RNA therapeutics. In this role he has led multiple major collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and contributed to the discovery and development of potential first-in-class medicines. Prior to Wave, Dr Francis was the head of Academic Licensing and Strategic Alliances, and head of Business Development for GSK Cancer Research.

He began his career in pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement consulting with IMS Health (now IQVIA) and building biotechnology companies at Two River Group.

He received a BSc (Hons) and PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Melbourne.

Professor Isabelle Lucet is an expert structural biologist and currently heads the Chemical Biology division at WEHI.

With a strong expertise in structure-based discovery programs, she has made significant contributions to advancing the discovery of therapeutic drugs targeting oncogenic kinases.

After completing her graduate studies in France and postdoctoral studies in Oxford (UK), she joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Monash University in 2003 where she established with CYTOPIA a groundbreaking structure-based drug discovery project targeting the JAK kinases. This research program led to the discovery of Momelotinib (Ojjaara), a drug recently approved by the FDA to treat myelofibrosis patients with anaemia.

Since joining WEHI in 2014, she has continued to make seminal contributions in the field of protein kinase research, successfully driving both academic and translational programs. Her multidisciplinary approach, integrating structural biology, chemical biology, imaging and proteomics has contributed to many advancements in these areas. Alongside her research, she actively supports translational activities by serving as an expert advisor on several key committees.

Dr Andrew McLean is the managing partner of Tin Alley Ventures. In partnership with the University of Melbourne and its companion institutes, TAV seeks to identify and build the next generation of Victorian businesses solving generational challenges. TAV works across all areas of the technological frontier.

Andrew was part of the founding team and lead life sciences investor at Oxford Sciences Enterprises. He led investments in Vaccitech (co-inventor of the OxfordAZ Covid vaccine), Pepgen, DJS Antibodies, mirobio and Osler Diagnostics.

He received his medical degree from the University of Western Australia and worked part-time as a doctor in the NHS while reading for a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He started his career at McKinsey & Company’s London office.

Dr James Rush is an expert immunologist and drug development scientist with extensive experience leading successful preclinical and clinical research and development for novel therapeutics in autoimmune disease, transplantation and immune-oncology in both Pharma and Biotech.

James completed a PhD in B cell immunology with Philip Hodgkin at the Centenary Institute at Sydney University before joining the labs of David Schatz and Charlie Janeway at Yale University as a HHMI postdoctoral fellow. Afterwards, he joined the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in San Diego where his group focused on the identification of novel targets in autoimmune disease, as well as developing small molecule agonists and antagonists of innate immune receptors. He then moved to the Autoimmunity, Transplantation, and Inflammation disease area at Novartis to lead a project team developing a novel immunomodulatory antibody blocking CD40-CD154 interactions that achieved positive clinical results in multiple indications. During this time, he also led a translational immunology research group focused on the multi-omics profiling and analyses of human disease samples. In his last two years at Novartis, he was a New Products Director, developing commercial strategy for early-stage drug development programs in rheumatology and gastroenterology. He then moved back into Biotech as CSO of Kling Biotherapeutics, developing biologics in immuno-oncology. Subsequently, he worked as a consultant CXO for various Venture Capital firms and Biotech companies. More recently, he has been the CEO of Spica Therapeutics, a Biotech focused on the targeting of human macrophage subsets in oncology and fibrosis.

Dr Kerstin Schuetz is an experienced Executive and Non-Executive Director with a uniquely developed skill set and proven record in technology translation, stakeholder engagement and management, and partnering with industries and universities at an international level. She brings deep sectoral expertise in Biotech, Pharma, and MedTech, drawing on a career that spans international research, global corporations, start-ups, and government programs.

Kerstin’s leadership in these spheres has shaped emerging businesses and helped accelerate life-changing technologies toward market adoption. With a passion for making science matter, she actively champions commercial pathways that benefit both industry and society. Her entrepreneurial spirit is evident in her mentorship of early-stage ventures through programs such as MedTech Actuator, Bridge Program and the Federal government’s Industry Growth Program. She has held global roles with Pfizer and Vetter and played a pivotal leadership role in establishing Bionomics’ drug discovery group – an initiative that has progressed to a Phase III asset.

Kerstin contributes to the lifescience sector in Australia through various roles, including as a member of the South Australian Ausbiotech committee.