Discover Pharmagene
- Pharmagene Discovery Services
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Behind every great scientific organisation are the people driving their vision, innovation, and commitment to excellence. In this leadership interview, Pharmagene Discovery Services’ executive team — Dr Tom Mander (CEO), Dr Amanda Woodrooffe (CSO), and Richard Willock (CBO) — share their perspectives on the company’s rich heritage in human tissue–based research and how it continues to shape their capabilities today. From advancing cutting-edge discovery platforms to strengthening client partnerships and embracing emerging technologies such as spatial biology and AI-enabled research, their insights reveal how Pharmagene is building on decades of expertise to lead the next era of translational science.
Dr Tom Mander, Chief Executive Officer
With over 30 years of experience in the life science industry, Tom brings a wealth of experience and global connections to the company, including 5 years with the company under previous ownership (when Asterand plc). He has spent the last 25 years of his career working for drug discovery service companies, including Evotec and Charles River, and was most recently CEO and Board member of award-winning Domainex Ltd.
He obtained his DPhil from the University of Oxford (microglial function in the CNS) and in earlier parts of his career he worked in increasingly senior scientific roles at Amersham International plc, Xenova Ltd and Glaxo Wellcome.
The organisation has a strong heritage in human tissue research, how has its history shaped the capabilities, platforms and technologies we see today?
Pharmagene discovery services is a business shaped by delivering literally hundreds of customised studies for clients from around the globe using consented human tissue from across a wide human disease spectrum. You could argue we have been shaped by meeting the needs of our clients.
The broad experience of applying cutting-edge technologies to add value across the drug discovery value chain is an unparalleled resource that we feel gives us a unique opportunity to provide ground-breaking innovations to our clients going forward.
How are you ensuring continuity for existing clients while supporting the next phase of the company’s development under the new ownership?
Communicating the change to clients has been carefully managed over a period of time between ourselves and the previous owner. The necessary contractual changes were taken care of as one of our very first tasks after taking ownership of the business. We are extremely grateful and pleased that our existing clients are continuing to work with us, which is an amazing testament to the existing scientific team and the strong reputation they have built.
How does Pharmagene differentiate itself from other CROs operating in discovery and translational research?
Well firstly as one of the very first companies specialising in human tissue research in the world, we feel this in itself gives us a unique position in the market. We’re not aware of any other company that can match our length of trading with the breadth of services, from disease target validation on the one hand through to clinical trial sample support on the other. Above all though, it is the quality of our science and the unprecedented level of our knowledge in human tissue disease research across our team that really sets us apart.
Bringing the business back under local management will enable us to be incredibly agile with both our decision making and seizing new opportunities. We could not be more excited, if a little daunted by the challenges ahead of us.
Dr Amanda Woodrooffe, Chief Scientific Officer
Amanda is an experienced leader of scientific operations, with 30 years’ experience in drug discovery, preclinical and clinical research in the biopharma (GSK companies, Pharmagene) and CRO industries (Pharmagene, Asterand Bioscience, BioIVT, Precision for Medicine). She has been responsible for the current UK laboratory services business for over 15 years. Prior to this, she held various positions at the organisation, responsible for scientific strategy, business partnerships, pharmaceutical licensing, and supporting corporate development. Amanda received her PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Which aspects of Pharmagene’s scientific capabilities are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of our team - their scientific expertise, enthusiasm, adaptability, ability to push boundaries, and all the things we have achieved together during the last 30 years.
In addition to scoping and delivering hundreds of tailored client research projects, no two of which are the same, we have developed numerous platforms and novel assays that enable us to generate the most relevant and meaningful data to progress, or decide not to progress, research programmes.
Our reputation for doing a great job for our clients, delivering the best scientific solutions and data is underpinned by the team’s focus, dedication and ability to build lasting relationships with our research partners. Our clients come back repeatedly because they like working with the team!
I am also proud to see repeated success from our investments in R&D to create human tissue-based solutions that have demonstrated real scientific impact and commercial traction.
With all of this, we really have quite a unique set of scientific capabilities combining the team’s expertise and way of working across all of our assay platforms.
I’m also very proud that we have played an integral part of the enabling, early adoption and growth of the human tissue-based research sector. Nowadays it is integrated into every preclinical and discovery programme and that is exactly what our original founders back in 1996 sought to achieve - I believe we are still making them proud!
Where do you see the biggest scientific opportunities in human tissue–based discovery over the next few years, and how is Pharmagene integrating emerging technologies, such as spatial biology, into its services?
I’m delighted that human tissue-based data are now being generated routinely in support of disease characterisation, target and biomarker discovery & validation and beyond.
So, first, I’ll start with more of a practical, but perpetually challenging opportunity for the industry. The ability to source high-quality human tissues for discovery research is not always easy, especially in rare disease or very specific disease subtypes. As we implement cutting-edge technologies which allow us to learn more about individual diseases and continue to seek personalised treatments, I think that a critical opportunity for the established human biospecimen providers is to find ways to better access tissues from niche disease indications that are fully consented for commercial pharmaceutical research. These samples support not only discovery research in these patient populations but are essential for the development and validation of bioassays that will be used throughout clinical & diagnostic development.
There has been a strong focus on alternatives to replacement of animals in preclinical research for many years, with the UK often leading the way through our National Centre for the 3Rs (NC3Rs). With the FDA announcing in April 2025 its plans to phase out animal testing requirements for novel biotherapeutics and other drug modalities, and the UK government issuing a policy paper in November 2025 presenting their strategic plan to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods, this renewed focus presents a huge opportunity for human tissue-based discovery over the coming years. As a specialist CRO focused on development of human tissue and cell-based assays, Pharmagene is well placed to apply our knowledge and expertise to support this ongoing effort to create robust in vitro assays that can not only help to replace animal testing but add value with relevant human biological data.
With the rapid emergence of increasingly high content and spatial biology platforms, and tools to enable the study of protein-protein interactions in tissues, researchers are now able to take a much deeper dive into disease biology to uncover novel mechanisms, targets, protein interactions and spatial cellular relationships in diseased tissue microenvironments. Over recent years we have successfully integrated such platforms to enable us to understand and exploit the role of the immune system in targeting disease including autoimmune, oncology and fibrosis. We now routinely support a plethora of different projects using tailored multiplex immunofluorescence IHC (mIF) and in situ Proximity Ligation Assay (PLA) and we continue to evaluate higher-plex spatial platforms that will have specific application and impact for our research clients. We have a strong track record of implementing new platforms, so watch this space!
What excites you most about the science your teams are enabling right now?
Our team have a great track record of developing novel approaches and assays to provide relevant data to support a range of research programmes.
Often, we are tasked with complex biological and scientific questions. One exciting area for us is the ongoing emergence of novel biotherapeutic modalities and the associated scientific challenges of working out how to design and develop relevant assays for these. In addition, with the rapid emergence of AI-enabled discovery based on interrogation of big datasets, I think one of the most exciting applications for our skill set and scientific approach is the design and execution of experimental approaches to evaluate and validate novel hypotheses arising from AI-enabled discovery.
Richard Willock, Chief Business Officer
Richard has over 25 years’ experience in the life sciences industry having worked as a research scientist for GSK and PerkinElmer, and a decade working for this company under previous ownership (Asterand PLC). He has spent the last 15 years working in commercial roles, including 7 years as CBO and Board member of DefiniGEN Ltd. He brings a solid track record of commercial success to the company, having built trusted business relationships with companies across the USA and Europe.
What can clients expect in terms of engagement, communication and project management when working with Pharmagene?
We have built up a loyal client base over the years of which we are very proud, and our first task is to ensure a seamless transition so clients can expect our usual standards of scientific rigour and timely delivery.
We pride ourselves on a collaborative, consultative approach and having retained all our key personnel, we enter 2026 with a renewed enthusiasm to exceed client expectations.
How does the acquisition enable you to expand services, geographies or strategic partnerships?
Pharmagene have always been pioneers in using human samples to support drug discovery, and we look forward to being able to showcase our expertise to the wider international marketplace and explore new markets like AI model hypothesis testing and veterinary medicine.
We have a unique angle in offering GLP Tissue Cross Reactivity services which I’m excited to take to market – our expertise in establishing IHC protocols for biotherapeutic candidates is second to none, and companies increasingly need an agile competent partner to support this critical stage of drug development.
Looking ahead, what are you most excited about for Pharmagene and its clients over the next few years?
Having formerly been part of a larger US-led organisation, I am excited for us to chart our own course as a UK managed autonomous company. We will invest enthusiastically in expansion of our human tissue and cell-based services to complement our clients growing requirements, all the time ensuring that scientific excellence and open consultative dialogue remain our core values.
Deriving high-quality actionable data from human biospecimens is a very specialised area but has enormous value to de-risk drug discovery, and I’m confident Pharmagene can remain at the forefront of innovation in this area.
Ready to explore how our expertise in human tissue–based discovery can support your next breakthrough? Contact us to start the conversation and see how Pharmagene can help advance your research.
