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Expert (, pronounced "Berr-oo-in") has spent over 20 years in the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries. During that time he has been involved primarily in viral vaccine and antiviral drug discovery, although he has also run general molecular biology groups primarily involved in cloning, sequencing, and protein expression (prokaryote and eukaryote). His drug discovery activities initially encompassed running early research projects, assay development, compound screening, hits to lead processes and compound validation. Subsequently he was responsible for an entire therapeutic area (viral hepatitis) from discovery through to marketing support. He has therefore gleaned considerable experience in project management, clinical pharmacology, clinical research, patents, drug registration, in-licensing, marketing, and business development. In the diagnostics area he was responsible for both viral and oncology programs taking concepts from research through to new product registration.

Expert’s working life within the pharmaceutical industry has been almost entirely spent in the clinical virology area. He has managed projects taking new drugs from research through to the market and similarly for new diagnostic devices. His diagnostic experience in particular has encompassed working closely with clinical virology laboratories to evaluate commercial opportunities, competitor activity, and business development. He is very experienced in all aspects of diagnostic clinical virology in terms of current state of the art and is also well versed in the new technologies that are currently emerging.

Following his career in the pharmaceutical industry Expert moved into molecular diagnostics primarily as Research Director at Virco UK. Subsequently he became Vice President for Research at Visible Genetics Inc. and subsequently as European Director at Bayer Diagnostics. During his time at Virco and VGI he was part of the senior management team that ran the company including the first FDA-approved HIV resistance product. He was also involved earlier in his career at Wellcome Biotechnology in the initial stages of diagnostic assay development for new hepatitis C virus products. This seeded his interest in HCV and he is now recognized as a leading authority on HCV molecular and clinical virology. His diagnostic experience includes research and development of molecular products in viral and oncology areas.

Apart from his experience with virologic targets of relevance to the pharmaceutical industry, Expert is widely experienced in general virology. In particular, he is a consultant to private and governmental bodies concerned with the use of viral pathogens as bioweapons.

Although Expert has been involved in the full spectrum of antiviral drug development from research to clinic the majority of his time has been spent directly managing preclinical research projects. His specialist areas are molecular virology, eukaryotic and prokaryotic expression, and recombinant vaccines.


Expert was a consultant for an antiviral biotechnology company from 2000 to 2002. He was responsible for program review, strategic planning, in-licensing and out-licensing, clinical trial establishment, and merger/acquisition discussions.