Sharon is the co-founder and until February 2010 was the Chief Scientific Officer and a Main Board Director at Renovo Group plc, a specialty biopharmaceutical company based in Manchester and a leader in the discovery and development of drugs to reduce scarring. The company was founded by Sharon and Professor Mark Ferguson in October 2000.
As Chief Scientific Officer at Renovo, Sharon was responsible for establishing and building all the R&D capabilities and managing all areas of research and drug development in the company, from early stage discovery through all stages of preclinical development, into drug manufacturing and clinical trials supply.
Before co-founding Renovo in October 2000, Sharon had a 15-year career based in academia, with many industrial collaborators, publications, invited speaking engagements, large peer-reviewed grants, and numerous international research awards and was latterly at the University of Manchester as a Senior Research Fellow, where she formed Renovo in the year 2000. She has a PhD and BSc (First Class) Honours degree from the University of Ulster.
Sharon was a member of the Science Minister, Lord Drayson’s, Government Office for Life Sciences and was also part of the Government’s Bioscience Innovation and Growth Team Steering Group. She was co-chair of the Biomedical sector of the ‘Innovation Manchester’ initiative of Manchester Knowledge Capital, is a member of AGMA’s Business Leadership Council, is a member of the North West Science Council Biohealth team and a Bionow Steering Group member.
Sharon is currently on the Board of a start-up drug development company, TPP, and is the Entrepreneur in Residence to UMIP, the University of Manchester intellectual property company.