Leadership Team
Dr Andrew Pollard
Chief Executive Officer
Dr Andrew Pollard has over 30 years’ experience of technology transfer from research to commercial exploitation and has led as a director for 6 spin-out companies from both university and corporate plc research teams in science and technology fields. Prior to taking on the leadership and CEO role at Disulfican, Dr Pollard was responsible for technology transfer, commercial R&D consultancy and management of the IP portfolio for the University of Wolverhampton and has led as Project Director multiple Innovate UK funded and ERDF funded innovation projects.
Prof. Weiguang Wang
Chief Scientific Officer
Professor Weiguang Wang has a medical background in haematology and has been involved in cancer research for 25 years with 15 years’ experience in anticancer drug repositioning with a particular focus on disulfiram. His research experience involves cellular/molecular biology and experimental cancer therapeutics. He is a world-leading scientist in the translation of disulfiram into cancer treatment and responsible for the development of the family of patents now assigned to Disulfican.
Dr Vinodh Kannappan
Chief Technology Officer
Dr Vinodh Kannappan, has 14 years’ experience in research involved in translation of disulfiram into cancer treatment in a wide range of cancers and has the key scientific role in Disulfican Ltd. He brings a rare combination of scientific and communications talent and has a commercial approach to translating this therapy into clinic. Dr Kannappan oversees the scientific strategy and delivery of our current preclinical development and has expertise working in interdisciplinary fields like molecular biology, cell biology, pharmacology and IND development. He also holds an honorary research associate position with the experimental cancer research group at the University of Wolverhampton.
Dr Kate Butcher
Research Data Manager
Dr Kate Butcher completed her PhD in repurposing disulfiram for lung cancer with Prof. Wang’s research group at University of Wolverhampton. She worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Nottingham for 3 years studying repurposed drugs for children’s leukaemia before joining Disulfican as the Research Data Manager in 2022. Kate is responsible for the scientific delivery in our preclinical development and brings in a good combination of expertise in experimental molecular oncology and outstanding project data management and due diligence skills.
Board of Directors
David Dancaster
David Dancaster has considerable corporate leadership experience and is financial director for the Caparo Group of companies, a diversified global association of businesses with turnover of over 1bn USD. He came to Caparo following his earlier career at Price Waterhouse Coopers and Charterhouse Bank.
Luke Hill
Luke has 25 years’ experience in building strategic relationships with key investors in public and private sector projects of significant size and scale. He has worked in corporate leadership, innovation and commercialisation roles across the West Midlands and has worked to further the incubation and development of Disulfican for over 7 years.
Prof. Prashant Pillai
Chair and University nominee director
Prof Prashant Pillai MBE is an Indian-born British computer scientist. He is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Wolverhampton. Prof Pillai was previously the Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Wolverhampton and is the Director of Cyber Quarter – Midlands Centre for Cyber Security. He has valuable experience as a co-founder and Director of several technology start-up companies.
Prof. Tracy Warr
University nominee director
Prof Tracy Warr is a professor of Neuro-oncology with >25 years of experience in experimental brain tumour research, initially at the Institute of Neurology, University College London. Since 2009, she led a research programme at the University of Wolverhampton aimed at improving outcome for paediatric and adult brain tumour patients. Prof Warr was the director of the Research Institute in Healthcare Science at the university and is now the Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange.
Prof. Weiguang Wang
Academic founder director
Professor Weiguang Wang is the head of Experimental Cancer Therapeutic Research Group at the University of Wolverhampton. He is a world-leading scientist in the translation of disulfiram into cancer treatment and is the academic founder of Disulfican.
Advisory Board
Dr Zhipeng Wang
Dr Wang is Oncology Head of Medical Sciences of China Grand Pharma, a significant pharma company with operations in China and Europe. He advises Disulfican on drug translation strategy and was also involved in the original research work to develop Disulfican’s patented drug formulation.
Prof. Supratik Basu
Prof Basu is Hematology & Oncology Lead at the Clinical Research Network West Midlands & (NIHR) and a Consultant at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. He has experience of delivering clinical trials and has a particular interest in utilizing Disulfican’s IP to develop further anti-cancer therapies.