Meet the team

Professor Bloom chairs the Zihipp board, overseeing all R&D, preclinical and clinical development activities.

Professor Bloom is a pioneer in the peptide hormone field and began working in the field in 1970. He currently heads a large research team in Imperial College London.  He is the Clinical Director, North West London Pathology, a partnership of four NHS Trust hospitals delivering pathology services across North West London. Previously he was Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians, Chairman of the UK Society of Endocrinology, Chairman of Bioscientifica and Chairman of the Medical Research Society.

Professor Bloom’s industry experience includes being a member of AstraZeneca Scientific Board from 2004 to 2006, an external assessor to Novartis Metabolic Division from 2003 to 2006, external advisor to Upjohn Inc. from 1985 to 1995, and advisor to Roche, Merck, Bayer, GSK, Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson. Professor Bloom also holds a seat on the Nestlé Research Centre Scientific Advisory Board.

He has written over 1,500 publications, including 10 original articles for the leading scientific journal Nature, covering the field of peptide control systems relating to pathology, gastroenterology and endocrinology.  Between 1981 and 1988 he was the 10th most cited scientist in the world with 10,450 different citations (His h-index is 157, the 64th highest cited academic in the world of all time). In 2013 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2018 became a Sectional Committee Chair.

Professor Bloom was head of the Investigative Medicine Division at Imperial College London and founder, board member and Chief Scientific Officer of Thiakis Limited which was sold to Pfizer in 2008. 

Professor Barakat is Senior Advisor at Mubadala and Research Director at the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi. Professor Barakat held the post of Director General of the Health Authority Abu Dhabi 2013-2018. Previously she was Co-Founder, Medical & Research Director and Consultant Endocrinologist at the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi.

She has been a member of the Social Development Committee of the Executive Council of the Government of Abu Dhabi and Board member of several Government of Abu Dhabi-related entities including the Board of Trustees of Khalifa University, the Family Development Foundation, the Quality Conformity Council, and the Statistics Centre.

In the field of Global Health she is the Chair of the Board of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria and a member of the Board of the Global Institute for Disease Elimination in Abu Dhabi.

For her work to the community in the UAE, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2010, was awarded the Abu Dhabi Prize in 2011, and given the Imperial College Medal in 2013.

Dr Minnion is responsible for the day-to-day management of all R&D, manufacturing, analytical and preclinical activities.  He has long experience in the management of a research team focusing on basic research and drug development, taking candidate drugs from the lab bench to clinical trials.  He gained his doctorate from Imperial College London and worked previously for Inpharmatica Ltd.  He leads the discovery phase of the drug discovery programmes. Dr Minnion is the scientific lead and manager of the outsourcing of CMC activities, formulation development, safety pharmacology and bioanalysis managing the partnerships with CMOs and CROs.  He is also responsible for regulatory strategy and the preparation of regulatory documents.

Dr Cooke is responsible for corporate, legal/IP and business development activities at Zihipp.  He has worked in tech start-up companies for over 15 years.  Previously Dr Cooke was Business Director at Plaxica, a process engineering and green chemistry company that developed renewable platform chemical technology.

Dr Cooke was Director, Intellectual Property & Licensing, at Thiakis, a biotech company focused on obesity and metabolic disease, where he worked on business development and intellectual property strategy prior to the sale of the company to Pfizer in 2008.  Previously Dunstan was a Technology Executive at Touchstone Innovations (now IP Group plc), the technology transfer, investment and incubation company.

Mr Khandan-Nia is responsible for providing project finance oversight to the company.  Mr Khandan-Nia’s background combines scientific research, know-how and financial business management.  He has been Departmental and Laboratory Manager for Metabolic Medicine at Imperial College London for the last 25 years where he is responsible for contract management and the commercial activities of the department, including investment fund raising.  He has managed budgets totalling c.£50 million and produced their resulting accounts.

Prof Tan is a consultant physician in Metabolic Medicine, Diabetes, Endocrinology and Acute Medicine at Imperial College London, with a Specialist Registration in general (Internal) medicine and diabetes and endocrinology.  She has worked in the field of gut hormone physiology for 15 years and has written over 20 high-impact publications in the field.  She has managed and delivered four successful first-time-in human Phase I trials.  Prof Tan is the clinical lead ensuring trials meet statutory requirements and achieves the aims of Zihipp’s clinical development programme.

Dr Malviya is responsible for the project management of all clinical activities.  This involves coordinating and supporting the activities of the trial management group, external CROs and other collaborative groups by planning and implementing systems vital to the completion of the project. She has undertaken this position for the past five years at Imperial College London, and her role includes clinical trial administration to ensure that the studies are conducted to strict scientific and regulatory standards.  She gained her doctorate from UCL and has over six years’ post-doctoral experience, including two years researching gene therapy in the US, and has co-authored 17 research papers.

Govind is an Executive Director of Imperial College Innovations (ICI) Ltd and is responsible for the Start-up formation support and investment at Imperial College London. The Start-Up team is responsible for all aspects of the development and funding of new staff spin-outs from Imperial and managing the growing start-up portfolio.  Prior to ICI Ltd he was Executive Director at Imperial Innovations Ltd and led the formation of over 50 companies, serving on the boards of many and leading the sale of seven Imperial start-ups to companies like Google, Evonik and Oxford University Press. Prior to Innovations, Govind was the European Director of Technology for a US semiconductor equipment company (Novellus Systems) where he led a team based around Europe responsible for the introduction of new technology. In his early career Govind was a scientist at the Cavendish labs in Cambridge University and in Japan. Govind has a BSc in Chemical Physics from University of Sussex, PhD in Semiconductor Physics from University of Warwick and an MBA from Imperial College business school.