Life Sciences Working Group

Biography James Norman is the EMEA Health and Life Science Director at Pure Storage. A world respected figure in change management and IT transformation, with more than 30 years experience within the health sector, including 24 years senior management within the NHS. James has led multiple major public sector transformation programmes and published several papers on the potential of Technology in healthcare. James was named Healthcare IT champion of the year in 2011 and later sat as an external advisor to Her Majesty’s Treasury, sitting on the Comprehensive Spending Review board. James was named Thought leader of the year in 2013, named one of the top 50 data leaders in the UK and has ranked in the top 10 CIO 100 list. James established the All4Health&Care (previously Tech4CV19) community to help frontline Organisations and Tech companies come together in the fight against COVID-19, in Partnership with NHS England and techUK. My whole career has been dedicated to improving the services of healthcare institutions for better patient outcomes, through my early days in creating new applications for NHS organisations to improve access and equality of care, to my recent work in supporting Health Economy and Regional transformation through greater use of Technology and Intelligence systems. I work very closely with governments around the world to help them understand the potential for Technology to transform the way patients access care as well as with Health Tech suppliers large and small, to support them in understanding the market and provide services / technologies that will deliver improved care. Having previously sat on the Council for many years, I worked hard to embed it as the voice it now is, for suppliers, in shaping policy and supporting simplification of entry to the healthcare market. During Covid I helped techUK members to share services and technologies with healthcare providers to overcome the severe pressures they were under. If voted back on, I will strive to maintain and grow the value of the Council in ensuring the concerns of members are raised and heard keeping communication lines open and accessible to all.

Philip Lindstedt is a deployment strategist at Palantir Technologies where he leads technology development and delivery across healthcare and life sciences. His various roles at Palantir include as a regional lead for the NHS’s Federated Data Platform (FDP) programme, establishing himself as the technical assurance lead for clinical safety and information governance for the entire FDP programme, and heading Palantir UK’s work with the NHS Genomics Medicine Service and the Institute for Cancer Research. Before joining Palantir, Philip earned a PhD and an MPhil in Chemical Biology from the University of Cambridge, where he published several highly cited papers on protein folding and bio-orthogonal chemistry under the mentorship of Professor Sir Christopher Dobson. At Cambridge, Philip’s PhD was awarded the Chemistry Department’s Outstanding Thesis Award in Biological Chemistry. His early career as a research scientist at Seattle Children’s Hospital also saw him contribute to the development of some of the first CAR T-Cell therapies to enter paediatric clinical trials.

Michael is the Young Health Tech Leader of the Year 2024, an NHS doctor, NHS Innovation Accelerator Fellow and MBA Graduate by background. Over the last few years he has been the Co-founder and Managing director of Blüm Health Ltd, an industry-disrupting digital health organisation that collaboratively works with NHS trusts, Universities and SMEs to design, build, and scale digital health software solutions, in the hope to empower public and private sector organisations to boost their digital maturity and unlock their innovative potential. Michael has extensive experience in supporting NHS organisations design, build and procure digital health ecosystems and understands the importance of digital inclusivity from a patient, workforce and organisational perspective.

Emlyn is the Head of R&D Policy at GSK, a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. In this role, he and his team partner with global R&D colleagues to identify issues and opportunities in the external policy landscape and develop strategic proposals to support Government engagement to help accelerate GSK’s R&D strategy. Emlyn was previously Director of Policy at Cancer Research UK. His other roles include policy positions at the Wellcome Trust, The Academy of Medical Sciences, and a secondment to the Office for Life Sciences to support the development of the 2017 Life Sciences Industrial Strategy. He has a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Applied Biology from University of Bath and an alumnus of the Academy of Medical Sciences Future Leaders in Innovation, Enterprise and Research (FLIER) programme.

Dr Justin Whatling is an experienced global healthcare and IT leader with a medical background. He excels in growing businesses, operationalising complex value propositions, and leading organisational transformations with over 25 years’ experience in using technology and informatics to transform outcomes for patients. He is CEO of OptumUK, and holds a number of advisory roles as a member of the Health & Social Care Council for techUK, a member of the BCS Academy of Computing board representing BCS on the management committee of the BMJ Health and Care Informatics journal, and a member of the CW+ innovation advisory board the official charity of Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Justin is a Fellow of BCS The Chartered Institute for IT and a Leading Practitioner Federation of Informatics Professionals. Prior to his role in Optum, Justin was managing director health and life sciences for Palantir. Previous roles include leading Cerner's population health business outside of the USA, BT Health, Accenture and ran a health outcomes business on behalf of Bupa. He is a past chair for BCS Health when founded the Federation of Informatics Professionals. He was previously an independent member of the NHS’s National Information Board, a non-executive director of the BMJ publishing group, and has sat on the healthcare strategic advisory team of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Polly Shepperdson is Partnerships Manager at First Databank UK with over 25 years' experience in digital medicines. She works with NHS Trusts, Integrated Care Boards and technology partners to operationalise medicines policy through interoperable medicines intelligence and clinical decision support. She led the innovation, development and national rollout of OptimiseRx, now supporting formulary management across around two-thirds of primary care in England, and now leads strategic partnerships spanning the Single National Formulary, pharmacogenomics, AI and neighbourhood care. Polly is a member of the techUK Life Sciences Working Group.

Ram has almost 2 decades of demonstrated experience in digital transformation, productivity, and cost improvement in the hospital & health care industry. He has worked across global health economies, namely, the UK NHS, the Nordics, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Americas. Before joining Quantexa as their healthcare & life sciences lead, Ram ran his own healthcare data and analytics consultancy for 4 years delivering over 30 projects to the NHS and globally. Prior to which he was the EMEA lead for GE Healthcare’s Command Centre business where he was part of the leadership team responsible for commercialising and localising the solution and implementing Bradford Teaching Hospitals Command Centre. Ram is passionate about combining artificial intelligence techniques and other innovative technologies to solve complex problems and improve patient outcomes.

Will is Managing Director at Big Health, the UK-founded digital therapeutics SME whose mission is to make psychological treatment as scalable as pharmaceuticals. Big Health’s flagship treatment Sleepio (for insomnia) secured first-of-its-kind NICE guidance in May 2022, recommended as more clinically effective than standard of care and cost-saving for the NHS. Sleepio is nationally commissioned in Scotland where it has been accessed by over 70,000 patients, and secured FDA clearance in August 2024. Big Health's treatment pipeline includes Daylight (for anxiety), which is undergoing real-world health economic evaluation in NHS primary care services in Yorkshire & the Humber, and Spark (for depression), which has undergone its first RCT with strong clinical outcomes.