Our Team

LiliumX uses protein building blocks to construct complex bispecific and multispecific biologics. We are ambitious, and we want to change the landscape of bispecific and multispecific biologics to make better and unforeseen drugs.
Arne Scheu
Arne is Co-Founder and CEO of LiliumX. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, his prior research was on the development of a novel technology for stable modification of endogenous proteins. He has continuously sought to apply his research, and LiliumX combines his passion for protein engineering with his eagerness to deliver novel therapeutics.
Irsyad Khairil
Irsyad is Co-Founder and CTO of LiliumX. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford as a protein engineer and subsequently worked on several cancer projects in the pharmaceutical consulting sector, which shape the direction of LiliumX‘s core platform. His DPhil work explored modular protein assembly technologies as a precursor to LiliumX.
Melina Hoffmann
Melina is responsible for the drug discovery and development applications of LiliumX’s technology. She previously focused on the development and evaluation of novel antibody-drug conjugates in solid tumours in collaboration with Femtogenix. She joined LiliumX from the Drug Discovery Team at the Institute of Cancer Research, where she investigated drug resistance and validated novel targets in breast cancer.
Reto Brem
As Senior Research Fellow, Reto provides an extensive background in cellular and molecular biology. He previously worked at Imperial College London and spent over 10 years at the Francis Crick Institute and Cancer Research UK, where he characterized the role of DNA and protein damage in cancer development. He gained his PhD from the University of Basel, while working at the Roche Center for Medical Genomics, and was subsequently awarded a Research Fellow Award at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France.
Ben Dorgan
Ben completed a PhD at Queen Mary University of London and subsequently worked as a research associate at King’s College London. His previous work has focused on the characterisation of protein structure, dynamics and interactions.
Georgi Nikov
Georgi is a PhD candidate at Imperial College London, where he worked on computational solenoid protein design. He previously contributed to Irsyad's paper establishing LiliumX's precursor platform, and is part of LiliumX's computational biology team.
Jack Wilson
Jack competed his MSc in Molecular Medicine at the University of Sheffield. Since then, he worked at Abcam to help establish their Protein Sciences team. This involved developing a high-throughput antigen screening platform, and working on several tech transfer projects between sites.
Javier Aguay
Javier holds an MS in Biomedical Physics from the Complutense University of Madrid. He supports LiliumX’s technology development, with a particular interest in protein science and laboratory automation
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Advisors

Charles Conn

Charles Conn is a seasoned business builder and investor. Before co-founding Monograph Capital, a life sciences venture firm, he was CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation, a £600m deep science venture firm formed in partnership with Oxford. Charles is a technology entrepreneur and former public company CEO (Ticketmaster/Citysearch/Match.com).

He serves as Chair of Patagonia, and was previously CEO of the Rhodes Trust; before that he was senior advisor to the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. He began his career at McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Boston University, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Keith Mostov

Keith Mostov is a Professor of Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He also founded or co-founded several biotech companies, including Novellus DX. Prof. Mostov was a Rhodes Scholar, received his MD from Weil-Cornell Medical College and PhD with Nobel Laureate Guenter Blobel at The Rockefeller University.

Subsequently, he was a Whitehead Fellow and Principal Investigator at the Whitehead Institute, before moving to UCSF. He has worked on polymeric immunoglobulins, as well as epithelial polarity and morphogenesis.

Jose Munoz-Olaya

Jose has 10 years’ experience in antibody discovery and preclinical development in biotech and pharma. Jose is currently Director, Lead Adaptate Pre-Clinical at Takeda, where he is responsible for progressing programmes from discovery through clinical development. He was previously at F-star Therapeutics where he led immune cell engager programmes from inception to pre-IND, and beyond into Phase I, spanning multiple internal and external drug candidates, publications, and patents. He also held key platform, technology, and pharmacology development roles within F-star.

Before joining Adaptate (acquired by Takeda), Jose also held other scientific roles within AstraZeneca and Cambridge Antibody Technology. Jose has a very keen interest in multispecific antibodies and multifunctional proteins, and the possibilities this type of drugs hold in addressing areas of highly unmet clinical needs.

Matt De Silva

Matt De Silva is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Notable, which is a late clinical stage precision oncology company with multiple phase 2 therapeutic trials in blood cancers. Notable has raised over $60m in venture capital and has been generating promising clinical data predicting response in patients with therapeutics since 2017.

Prior to starting Notable in 2014 Matt was a Portfolio Manager at Peter Thiel's hedge fund Clarium Capital, which he joined from Merrill Lynch. In addition to his responsibilities at Notable, Matt is an active angel investor and syndicate lead in bio and healthcare companies. He serves as a Venture Partner with Builders VC and lives with his wife and two children outside of Chicago.

James Ross

James Ross is a synthetic structural biologist who has gained experience in world leading academic laboratories across the UK. His expertise covers the computational design and assessment of biomolecular interactions with a focus on protein-protein interactions and symmetric protein assemblies.

James is also an experienced experimentalist, specialising in molecular biology, protein production, biophysics and structural characterisation. James is passionate about establishing links between academia and industry having worked alongside industrial partners including Pfizer, GSK and Freeline Therapeutics.