Directors and Management


John Lyon

The Chairman, John Lyon, has a track record in growing commercial life science businesses and in particular, strong experience in managing the drug development process.

John Lyon held the position of Global Vice President within a publicly quoted NYSE Company and was the Managing Director of their world renowned clinic in Leeds, UK, through which many approved medicines have been developed.

John Lyon is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Price Waterhouse), a Fellow of the Securities Institute, a Fellow of the Institute of Clinical Research and a qualified Clinical Biochemist, having trained at St George's Hospital and St Mary's Hospital in London.

Charles Perrin CBE, Hon MRCP

Charles Perrin has been a Non -Executive Director of Retroscreen Virology Ltd since 1993 

A qualified barrister, Mr Perrin worked in the City until retiring in 1998, having been Chief Executive of a major Merchant Bank.

He is currently a member of the Council of the University of London, where he chairs the Finance Committee, and Hon Treasurer of Queen Mary, University of London.  He is also Vice-Chairman of the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust, Chairman of the MRC Pension Trust, a lay member of the Finance Board of the Royal College of Physicians, a trustee of the Medical Research Foundation and of The Nuffield Trust.

Professor John S. Oxford

John Oxford is Scientific Director of Retroscreen Virology Ltd and Professor of Virology at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospital, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry. He has co-authored two standard texts: ‘Influenza, the Viruses and the Disease' with Sir Charles Stuart-Harris and G.C. Schild and most recently, "Human Virology, a Text for Students of Medicine, Dentistry and Microbiology", published by Oxford University Press.

Professor Oxford has also published 250 scientific papers. His research interest is the pathogenicity of influenza, in particular the 1918 Spanish Influenza strain.

This research has been featured on Science TV programmes recently in the UK, USA, Germany and Holland.

Dr Robert Lambkin-Williams

Dr Lambkin is Managing Director of Retroscreen Virology Ltd.

He completed his first degree in Pharmacy at the University of Brighton. He then went on to complete his PhD in "Avian influenza (Bird Flu)" at Warwick University. He joined Retroscreen in 1995 as senior scientist and the Managing Director.

He has extensive experience in respiratory viruses and HIV. His recent publications include work on vaccines and antivirals against influenza, SARS, RSV, rhinovirus and HIV.

Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith FCMA - Finance Director & Company Secretary.

Prior to joining Retroscreen in 2006, Andrew was co-founder and director of an innovative contact lens manufacturer, where he grew the business ten-fold over 4 years before a successful trade sale. Andrew has over 15 years experience in pharmaceutical and medical devices industry. Operating internationally in senior roles, Andrew has had responsibility for many disciplines, including corporate finance, IT, HR, logistics, customer service and quality. Andrew is an entrepreneurial seasoned business- professional with hands-on experience of MBOs, spinouts, technology transfers, fundraising and sale and acquisition of businesses.

Bruce Campbell

Bruce is a non-executive director of Retroscreen.

Bruce was senior Vice-President of Development at Neurocrine Biosciences Inc, a NASDAQ-listed drug development company where he was responsible for directing Neurocrine's selection and advancement of drug candidates from research into clinical development. Prior to this, Bruce spent 27 years in drug development at Servier where he served as research and development director. He is also a visiting professor in pharmacology at King's College London.

Caroline Quest

Managing Director, Innovation and Enterprise, Queen Mary, University of London

Caroline was appointed as Managing Director of Queen Mary’s Innovation and Enterprise in November 2004. She has extensive experience in knowledge transfer policy and practice having spent the majority of her career working at the interface of the public and private sectors.

Caroline’s background is in management and in particular management of knowledge intensive organizations and companies for example within the medicine and health, biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors. Recently, she led a successful HEIF3 competitive bid - Innovation China UK (ICUK) - to set up an international programme promoting innovation through UK-China collaboration and technology transfer.

Caroline is founding chairperson of QMIL Ltd a new biosciences incubation centre currently being built in the Thames Gateway. She is also involved as a non-executive director in a number of small and medium sized technology businesses.

Caroline is Chair of the Association for University Research and Industry Links (AURIL), the professional association representing UK knowledge transfer practitioners.