People

Mrs Clare Hildred (Chief Executive Officer)

Mrs Hildred is a highly experienced Biotechnology executive with a track record of delivering value and business change in high growth customer focused organisations. Previously she was Finance and Business Improvement Director at Avecia Biotechnology where she was involved in major contract negotiations, leading operational change projects and where she held senior financial management positions. Her background includes over 17 years post qualification experience in high value business management and business development roles. She has a degree in Mathematics from Liverpool University and trained as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse Coopers. She subsequently spent 5 years with GEC, in an Engineering Project Management and Consultancy subsidiary, where she was Divisional Chief Accountant, before joining the Zeneca Plc / Avecia group.

Dr Don Wellings (Founder, Executive Director, Chief Scientific Officer)

Author of “A Practical Handbook of Preparative HPLC” published by Elsevier, Dr Wellings has been performing preparative chromatographic separations, using over 10cm diameter columns, for over 20 years. Prior to co-founding Chromatide he was Polymer Laboratories Technology Manager for Special Projects and was instrumental in the design and development of new polymeric stationary phases for reversed phase, normal phase, ion-exchange, affinity and chiral HPLC. Prior to this he was Technology Manager for Separation Sciences and Solid Phase Organic Chemistry at Avecia, developing molecular modelling expertise to design chiral ligands for preparative chromatography. He led installation and commissioning of process scale HPLC at Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. During his 18 years with CRB, ICI, Zeneca, and Avecia, he established preparative HPLC techniques and served for 11 years as the secretary of Zeneca’s Process Scale Chromatography Group.

Dr Saeed Gulzar (Founder, Executive Director, Chief Operating Officer)

Dr Gulzar has a PhD in Bio-Organic chemistry from The University of St Andrews where he worked with Professor David Gani in elucidating the catalytic mechanism of methylaspartase. He spent 4 years as the Custom Peptide Synthesis Manager for Cambridge Research Biochemicals before becoming manager of the Solid Phase Organic Chemistry group in Avecia Pharmaceuticals where he managed the custom synthesis of over 3000 peptides.  His knowledge of the custom peptide industry is extensive, covering the synthesis of modified and long chain peptides.  Prior to co-founding Chromatide he worked at Reaxa where he was involved in the design and synthesis of encapsulated palladium using interfacial polymerization.

Mrs. Rayna Dean (Non-Executive Chairman)

A former partner in Price Waterhouse, in 1998 she became the only non-chemist executive director of Ultrafine (UFC Ltd). She grew this business from 15 to 80 employees, raising venture capital, instituting accounting and costing systems, risk management procedures, robust contracting and corporate governance. Following a successful all-cash exit in 2004 which returned the VCs a minimum of 3 times money, she has undertaken strategic consultancy and non-executive directorships. She is Chairman of Candlelight Products Ltd, a profitable VC-backed £20m company and is also a Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee at Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.