Avacta Group plc announced the appointment of Dr. Simon Bennett as Chief Business Officer of the Therapeutics Division. Simon has over 26 years' commercial experience in the biopharma industry. He has worked with companies from large and mid-sized pharma such as Bristol-Myers-Squibb and Menarini Group to early stage biotechs, supporting business development and licensing activities in addition to being involved in all aspects of business and corporate development.

Simon has been involved in over 80 commercial deals across Europe, North America, Australasia, Japan, Russia/CIS and South America. Simon's career began at University of Oxford spin-out, Oxagen Limited where he established and built a franchise in Women's Health, initially as Programme Director and later as Director of Business Development. He subsequently joined next generation sequencing company Solexa where, as Business Development Director, he was responsible for all commercial activities and external communications leading up to the reverse takeover of Nasdaq-listed Lynx Therapeutics to form Solexa Inc. which was later acquired by Illumina.

Since then, Simon has worked as a consultant providing expert commercial and business development resources to a wide range of biopharmaceutical companies. Prior to moving into industry, Simon was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and an Honorary Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London. He has published widely, particularly in the field of complex disease genetics.