Babraham chief Jones decides it’s time to move on
He has spent over 18 fruitful years at BRC and helped revolutionise its offering with the advent of its Accelerator programme on top of further improving the campus as a heartland for life science research.
Jones says: “Despite the rumours, this isn’t a retirement— just a recognition that I no longer want to work full‑time and that the Campus deserves a full‑time CEO with a longer career horizon than I can offer.
“After more than 18 years here, it will of course be sad to leave. I am very much looking forward to watching from the sidelines as the Campus continues to be a brilliant place to start and grow a life science company, supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs and moving toward its next inflection point.
“It has also been a lot of fun, and I am grateful for the support and encouragement so many people have given me. I’m sure our paths will continue to cross in one way or another.”
Jones has been an inspirational leader for BRC. He brought a wealth of experience - over 25 years’ in the life science industry as both a scientist and in business development and corporate development, with first-hand experience of establishing biomedical ventures.
Initially a medicinal chemist with Merck, Jones moved into business and corporate development at Chiroscience, (one of the UK’s first biotech companies which grew from 17 staff to a FTSE 100 company), successfully negotiating and managing several multi-million pound licensing agreements, (Bristol-Myers Squibb, Purdue Pharma, Mariushi) including being part of the team that licensed the UK’s first biotech product, Chirocaine.
In 2000, he co-founded his first company, BioWisdom, an IT/Drug discovery company. Jones was appointed COO at DanioLabs in 2002, a therapeutics company using zebrafish as a model organism for drug discovery, where he grew the company from four to 34 employees and raised around £10 million for VC backed companies, before selling DanioLabs to Vastox, (now Summit Plc), for £15m in 2007.
He joined Babraham Research Campus Ltd (formerly BBT) in 2008 as Chief Business Officer with responsibility for the knowledge exchange and commercialisation (KEC) of the Babraham Institute’s intellectual property portfolio. During that time he spun out Crescendo Biologics whose business is focused around intellectual property from the Babraham Institute. Jones has been a member of the Babraham Research Campus board since October 2008 and became CEO of Babraham Research Campus Ltd in 2010.
Following restructuring of the business in 2013, the primary focus has been on the development and management of the campus, with KEC responsibilities returning to the Babraham Institute. Derek has a 1st degree in Chemistry, a Master in Information Technology, and an MBA as the first cohort of the Cambridge University Judge Business School MBA programme, and is a Chartered Director. He is a non-executive director at Rothamsted Enterprises.
He also sits on the Cambridge University Enterprise Investment Committee and is a Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College Cambridge University.
