Meet the PCSIG Board
PCSIG is a not for profit organisation, incorporated in the UK as a Community Interest Company (company number 14711621). Our Board of Directors are responsible for running the organisation, with day to day affairs handled by the Chair of the Board
Christopher Aulin
Located in Stockholm, Sweden. Christopher is now part of the great team that is taking the amazing product Capitainer qDBS to the market with the goal to and establish it as the new gold standard for blood collection outside of health care facilities.
Christopher has 20 years of sales and management positions within IT and health care. Over the last ten years, he has gone from being CEO of a rapidly growing company that conducted a successful exit by sale to Alere, to being part of the executive team including being General Manager of Denmark at Alere. After the merger between Abbott and Alere, Christopher was promoted to Nordic Director of the Toxicology business unit including GM for all TOX companies within Abbott Nordic organization. He went straight from Abbott to Capitainer after realizing the potential of the Container technology.
“Nothing bad happens that doesn’t have something good in it”.
Matt Barfield
Located in the UK with over 25 years’ experience in Bioanalysis and innovation. My interest in novel approaches to sampling, goes back to 2007 and led to obtaining a PhD in the subject, which focused on DBS for pharmacokinetics. I now lead a global Regulated Bioanalysis and Biosample operations group at Roche which has a large focus on delivering the benefits of new devices directly to the patients.
“What is now proved was once only imagined”
Phil Garner
Phil is Co-Founder & CEO of Becaris Publishing Limited, the publisher of the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research and The Evidence Base – covering all aspects of HEOR, HTA, clinical trial protocols and real-world evidence. Prior to establishing Becaris in 2022, Phil spent >22 years in C-level and Senior roles across STM publishing, including CEO of Future Science Group and Divisional Managing Director at Informa plc, where he ran Informa’s medical books and journals businesses. Phil is also a Non-Executive Director at Portland Press Ltd, the publishing arm of the Biochemical Society, and an advisor with Collingwood Advisory and with Delta Think, and a Parent Governor at his local secondary school.
Phil has a BSc in Zoology and an MBA – both from Imperial College London.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. But preferably, go fast and go together!”
Emily Harari
Emily runs the decentralized research studies at ImYoo Inc., which is based in San Francisco and operates across the United States. Her favorite part of her job is engaging with study participants who are eager to collect their own samples and play an active role in the process of scientific discovery.
Prior to her role at ImYoo, Emily worked at Genentech and multiple biotech startups. Now at the PCSIG, she works to bridge the gaps between these stakeholders in research, including pharma, startups, and, most importantly, study participants.
“When you put the tools of sample collection in the hands of study participants, there’s a spark: They’re curious and engaged; they suddenly transform from passive participants to partners in research.”
Shane Needham
Dr. Shane Needham received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Washington State University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Needham is Founder, CEO and President of Veloxity Labs LLC in Peoria, IL and Founder of Needham Scientific, Inc. in Moscow, ID. Veloxity Labs, LLC is a premier and unique LC-MS bioanalytical lab launched in 2021 for digital transformation of delivery of data with high speed and quality. Needham Scientific, Inc. is a consulting company that solves, analytical and business challenges for clients. Shane has more than 200 publications in the area of LC-MS/MS. Shane is a serial entrepreneur with his six businesses since 2000 having a return on investment of >70,000%. Shane’s labs have been awarded as the fastest growing by INC 5000 in 2014 and been given the start-up of the year award in 2022. Shane is often an invited speaker, expert author and expert witness for analytical chemistry. His experience in analytical chemistry, team building, lab design and business has helped many people and organizations around the globe. Shane is a member of many organizational advisory boards. Shane is also a Ted Talk Speaker.
Shane is also a wrestling coach, national champion bodybuilder, state champion powerlifter and Ted Talk speaker. Shane has four children and considers them his biggest accomplishment.
“I am honored to be a part of the PCSIG and drive better sampling methods for patients to bring therapeutics to market more quickly. I am also delighted that my lab, Veloxity Labs is involved in improving the bioanalytical workflows for microsampling and patient centric sampling”.
Jenny Royle
I am currently Director of Rekaryo Health Ltd, a company that specialises in clinical science as well as supporting teams in rapidly progressing from idea to solution using scientific method, iterative co-creation with patients, as well as optimised trial and communication approaches. Alongside this I am responsible for the training and capability build across a newly established network of 24 early-phase oncology trial sites in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and France so that they are also able to iterate solutions with patients and deliver digital and/or technological-clinical trials.
Prior to this I trained in biochemistry, pharmacology and psychology/behaviour change. I have many years experience in pharma: designing trials, analysing data, and supporting products at all stages of clinical development and post-launch. I’ve also been a founding leader in a novel research team that optimised healthcare decision-science and involved collaboration between pharma, academia, NHS, and charities. As part of this research I have been chief investigator for digital/technology trials and developed a novel ‘navigational tool’ to integrate regulations with technical, clinical, and behavioural science so that researchers can effectively co-develop technologically-enhanced care pathways with patients.
“If every decision we make is for patient-benefit, then we’ll make a difference that matters.”
Neil Spooner
Located in Hertford, UK, Neil is the Chair and co-founder of the PCSIG. He also runs a consultancy company where one of the main drivers is to help Clients understand the benefits of patient centric blood sampling, develop appropriate technologies and workflows and implement them for the benefit of human wellbeing.
Neil’s interest in these technologies began in 2007 whilst leading efforts at GlaxoSmithKline to find blood sampling and analysis approaches suitable for the measurement of pharmaceutical concentrations in samples obtained from children.