The Burdica team

Kevin Burd, Chief Executive Officer and co-Founder

Kevin Burd is an engineer with over 15 years experience in lifescience technology and operations management. During his early career in the USA he held a number of technical and managerial positions with several major corporations including Baxter Healthcare.

He moved to Scotland in 2003 as Head of Operations for the biotechnology company Mentor Corporation, where he worked on the product and processes which led to the successful international launch and subsequent impressive sales growth of the Mentor's Puragen product. As co-founder and CEO of Burdica, he has been the driving force behind the development and growth which has seen the company emerge as a rising star of the Scottish biomedical industry.

Recently Kevin has been listed as a global industry leader and expert by the "Society of Industry Leaders" which is part of the Standard and Poors Index of New York. He is consulted on a regular basis by industry analysts and medical and cosmetic journals on the focus and future of the biopolymers sector.

Dr. Howard Marriage, Non-executive Director

Howard draws on experience gained over a 35-year career in life sciences which has taken him from the research bench to the boardroom.

He took a first class honours BSc in biochemistry and pharmacology from Southampton University and completed a DPhil in pharmacology at Oxford University, His early career involved scientific and technical roles with Beecham Pharmaceuticals and Wellcome Research Laboratories. He subsequently joined Genzyme Corporation where he worked in research management, technology transfer and intellectual property management, going on to become Genzyme's Senior Director of Corporate Development in Europe. In the late 1990s he joined Cyclacel in Dundee, where he became Executive Director of Business Development, occupying this role over a period during which the company raised investment funding totaling some £80M (at the time the largest amount of external investment in any UK biotech company).

In 2004 he established Biotech Innovation & Future Health Ltd. as a vehicle to support and participate in the formation and growth of new life sciences companies. He is currently a director of four such companies, and is Entrepreneur in Residence at Edinburgh University's College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine.

Brad Hoy, Non-Executive Director

Brad Hoy is a Chartered Management Accountant with over 10 years of experience gained in financial and general management roles in pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the UK and USA.

Having started his career in in subsidiaries of Rolls Royce plc and BTR plc, he moved on to senior financial positions at Cyclacel Limited and ChiRex Inc. He then became senior director of Geron Corporation's Edinburgh based subsidiary Geron Bio-Med Limited, and subsequently was appointed CEO of UK private biotech company Xcellsyz Limited, a position he held until the sale of its assets to Cambrex Corporation Inc. Most recently he was CFO of Plethora Solutions Holdings plc, an AIM-listed speciality pharmaceutical company.

Brad is co-founder of Seven Hills Venture Partners Ltd., an Edinburgh based life science advisory group.

Brian Butchart, Head of Sales

Brian Butchart is a skilled executive with first hand experience in Sales, Marketing and Operations management gained during 22 years with Johnson & Johnson. Following his degree studies in London and a short spell in the oil industry, his career in healthcare started with Ethicon Ltd, Edinburgh in 1980 in Operations and then Marketing management. In 1991 he was one of the founding team behind the development of the Ethicon Endo-Surgery company in the UK and subsequently headed up the Marketing and Professional Education teams.

Brian then spent 5 years with J&J Middle East Inc, based in Dubai, initially leading a business turn-around for the J&J Medical franchise and then taking responsibility for both Ethicon and Ethicon Endo-Surgery businesses across 10 countries in the region. He subsequently returned to the UK with J&J Partnerships in a corporate role spanning all J&J medical device companies in the UK.

In 2002 Brian joined Isotron, Europe's leading contract sterilisation provider to SME and multi-national healthcare companies, as UK General Manager and then latterly as Global Sales & Marketing Director.

Erik Henau, Head of Product Development

Erik has 30 years of experience in medical and OTC companies. This experience has given him a broad understanding of the operations and management of large organisations as well as exposure to the entrepreneurial environment. He speaks six languages and brings a multi-cultural and multi-discipline approach that is of great value in developing international operations and markets.

He spent eight years with Amersham International, dealing with nuclear medicine, RIA assays and life sciences products, and a further eight years with Oxoid Ltd in microbiology, primarily developing the Latin American market. He then became General Manager of Unipath Scandinavia, part of Unilever. During his three years in that position he was responsible for merging the Oxoid Microbiology business with the Unipath OTC business prior to the sale of the Oxoid business to ICI. He then moved to Holland for two years as General Manager of the Dutch and Scandinavian businesses of Unipath.

In 2000 he returned to the UK to join Inverness Medical, where he occupied a number of senior roles including Director of International OTC Business, a position which he occupied until leaving the company in 2009.

Dr. Xiaobin Zhao, co-Founder and Consultant

Dr. Xiaobin Zhao has spent over 15 years in advanced medical biopolymer research and development. Following a period as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Polymer Chemistry at Nankai University in China, he was appointed Director of the Centre for Biotechnology at the Wuxi Biotechnology Institute.

He subsequently joined Mentor Corporation as a research scientist at its Scottish facility, where he was in due course was appointed Head of Research & Development. In 2007 he joined Kevin Burd a co-founder of Burdica, and has been responsible for the company's research and development programme.

Having developed and patented over 30 products, Xiaobin has vast knowledge and understanding of the therapeutic application of Hyaluronic Acid, and specific experience of its use in wound care products. Amongst his notable achievements has been the development of a double cross-linking technology for HA molecules for dermal fillers (DXL Technology). He also has extensive experience of the regulatory processes for medical devices.

He is a visiting professor at Lanzhou University in China and the University of Strathclyde in the UK, and has been a guest speaker at several global conferences on advanced medical biopolymers. His extensive contacts in China have provided the foundation for Burdica's approach to operations in the Chinese market.