New director of programmes at ITI

Press release from ITI Life Sciences

Dundee, Scotland, ITI Life Sciences, the publicly funded innovation group, is pleased to announce the appointment of Julia Edgar as its new Director of Programmes. Ms Edgar has nearly 20 years’ experience in the life sciences sector in evaluating markets for novel products and technologies and in research project management, where timelines, cost control and leading multidisciplinary teams are crucial elements for success.

Ms Edgar joins ITI Life Sciences from Pleiad, a clinical research organisation specialising in medical device development, which she co-founded in 2000. Pleiad, which is based in Perth and has operations in US, has its origins as a specialist consultancy group to provide advice on development planning of novel medicinal products to emerging biopharmaceutical companies and research institutions. Prior to Pleiad, she was Head of Clinical Development at PPL Therapeutics (Roslin) and spent several years during her early career running clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies including Roche and Boehringer Ingelheim. Ms Edgar also serves as a Director of Genomia, a seed fund that supports public sector research in animal and life sciences, and is a member of the UKTI Healthcare Strategy Advisory Group.

As Director of Programmes, Ms Edgar’s role at ITI Life Sciences is to oversee the ITI research programmes currently underway, and working with the Technology and Markets team, she will be instrumental in developing, commissioning and directing the implementation of future research programmes. New programmes in several areas where Scottish research is world class are currently under consideration including, emerging drug targets (ubiquitin protease), non-invasive surgical procedures and medical imaging.

Dr Eleanor Mitchell, Managing Director of ITI Life Sciences, said: “I warmly welcome Julia to the team at ITI Life Sciences. She is a well-known and respected member of the Scottish life sciences community and her skills and experience in technology development and project management will prove highly valuable to the organisation.”

Julia Edgar said, “ITI Life Sciences operates a very interesting and innovative model of generating value, both monetary and economic, that aims to capitalise on the excellent skills and knowledge base we have here in Scotland. I have been very impressed with how well the existing research programmes have been designed and managed, and with a busy coming year expected, I am keen to get involved both with the existing programmes and the several exciting new programmes in late-stage planning.”