Brian McGowan is the Chairman of Matoke® Holdings Ltd, bringing a wealth of business experience to drive forward the business’ expansion. Brian co-founded Williams Holdings in 1982, which became one of the most successful companies of the 1980s and 1990s and included businesses such as Crown Paints, Polycell, Cuprinol, Kidde, Chubb, Thorn and Yale. After retiring from Williams in 1993 he became Chairman at House of Fraser plc, Rentokil plc, Umeco plc and Atlantra (previously Catalyst Corporate Finance).
Guy went to Oxford University, qualified as a solicitor with Linklaters and then spent several years with Credit Suisse in their Equity Corporate Finance Team. Until recently he was CEO of Leaders in Oncology Care a subsidiary of HCA International and CEO of their entire cancer network. He is involved in several medical businesses and brings a wealth of management and execution experience to the team. He is also a non-executive director of VCP Advisors.
Will studied Natural Sciences at Bath University and began his career as a management consultant for Accenture. He worked with a very wide variety of clients including Deutsche Bank, BBC, Thales, and BT, his roles were across strategy, estimation, planning and delivery. More recently he was CEO of a direct to consumer business, The London Sock Company, before joining Guy in the medical world. He brings planning and delivery rigor as well as strong business strategy and management skills.
Ian Staples has had a distinguished executive career in the retail sector, including Managing Director of Halfords. He made the original discoveries on which Matoke® Holdings Ltd’s Reactive Oxygen® technology is based and has been instrumental in developing and bringing the CE marked medical device, SurgihoneyRO™, to market. His passion and drive has attracted a range of very high quality, committed and determined specialists to the team, to bring our medicinal product, RO-101®, to market to transform the lives of patients throughout the world.
Andy Currie is a Non-Executive Director of Matoke® Holdings Ltd and is Managing Partner of Atlantra (previously Catalyst Corporate Finance). With a corporate finance career spanning over 25 years, Andy provides particular knowledge and expertise of Human Capital businesses, such as consultancies and professional services firms, and of advising private equity, bank consortia and other complex shareholder structures. An alumnus of Leicester University, Andy qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse, (now PwC) and had a spell in industry with a listed building services firm prior to the formation of Catalyst in 1998.
Peter studied medicine in Munich and Aberdeen before specialising in internal medicine, medical oncology and haematology in Berlin. Subsequently Peter completed a MD in Clinical Chemistry at the Technical University Munich and a PhD in Medical Oncology. Peter has a particular research interest in triple negative breast cancer and endocrine resistance and has led more than 20 clinical studies and several translational research programmes in these areas. Peter adds significant depth of trials expertise and rigour to our development process, he will lead our Medical Advisory Committee.
Professor Jonathan Cooke was Director of Research and Development and Chief Pharmacist at University Hospital of South Manchester, Honorary Professor, Manchester Pharmacy School, University of Manchester and Visiting Professor, Department of Medicine, Imperial College London. He has a specialist interest in antimicrobial resistance and was a member of the UK Department of Health’s Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infection (ARHAI), Chair of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee and Advisor to WHO.
Dr Matthew Dryden is a Clinical Director of Infection at the Hampshire Hospitals Trust, and the Rare and Imported Pathogens Department, Public Health England (PHE) and a senior lecturer at Southampton University Medical School. Recently he was General Secretary of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. His research interests include staphylococcal infection, skin and soft tissue infection, the development of new antibiotics, antibiotic stewardship, and the management of MRSA infections.
Mike Hoskins is the Managing Director of H&R Healthcare, which manages the distribution of SurgihoneyRO™. He has extensive experience in the medical device industry, having held Board level positions at Smith & Nephew and BSN Medical. He established H&R Healthcare in 2006, a leading distributor of third party wound management products in the UK, which has over 130 employees. Mike is also Chair of Onbone OY, a Finnish medical device manufacturer.
Ian Jenkins is Matoke® Holdings Ltd’s Legal Counsel, and was the Senior Partner for 13 years of a City firm of solicitors with offices in London, Hong Kong and Shanghai. He also served as a non-executive director of a number of client companies, both public and private.
Annette is Head of Quality and Regulatory Affairs for Matoke Holdings. Her background is in microbiology, but she has worked in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, in regulatory, quality and manufacturing management, for over 30 years. Currently, she works with a diverse range of companies, providing regulatory compliance expertise and is also eligible to act as a QP
Paul Thompson is Operations Director for Matoke® Holdings and is accountable for formulation development and production. He has a background in aerospace engineering and has extensive experience of the design and delivery of information systems. He has worked with other technology start-ups and universities, helping to commercialise innovative technologies.
Caroline qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC). Post qualification she was responsible for a number of audit clients in the manufacturing, healthcare and public sectors, before leaving to join Games Workshop PLC, a FTSE 250 company. Caroline spent a number of years at Games Workshop in various positions, including Finance Director of the manufacturing division and ultimately as the Group Financial Controller.
Significant historical advances in wound management
1. The introduction of the halogen, iodine, to control wound infection during the American Civil War (1861-1865).
2. The recognition of the need to create an aseptic wound environment, led by Johnson and Johnson. Inspired by a speech by antiseptic advocate Joseph Lister, Robert Wood Johnson and his brothers created a line of ready-to-use surgical dressings in 1885.
3. The introduction of the heavy metal, silver, to control battlefield wound infections in the First World War. Subsequently, other heavy metals, like mercury have been used but are now seen as just too toxic.
4. The development of antibiotics, accelerated by the Second World War dramatically improved the life expectancy of injured personnel, particularly those with systemic infections. However, they had limited ability to deal with topical wound infections since they don’t reach the site of the infection, the wound bed, and the sub-optimal doses reaching the wound actively stimulate bacterial resistance. The widespread use of broad spectrum antibiotics as a front line treatment for military personnel suffering traumatic injuries has selected multiply resistant strains, resulting in a formerly harmless bacterial species such as Acinetobacter being placed on the WHO crisis list.
5. In the 1960’s research conducted by Dr George Winter, led to the realisation that keeping a wound base moist was key to effective healing, as opposed to the conventional wisdom of drying a wound. Virtually all modern dressings, no matter what technology they use and how they are marketed, essentially control wound moisture.
The evolution of Acinetobacter baumanii from harmless soil borne bacterium to WHO critical pathogen
Acinetobacter baumanii is a Gram-negative bacterium found in soil, where it plays an important role in the breakdown of organic chemical compounds to release nutrients in soluble inorganic forms that can be absorbed by plants. Acinetobacter species are found widely in nature and thrive in a broad range of temperatures and hence environments.
Acinetobacter is a key source of infection in immune compromised patients in hospital where it is associated with bacteremia, urinary tract infections, meningitis, infective endocarditis, and wound and burn infections. It is often associated with hospital-acquired pneumonia and has also been reported to infect skin and soft tissue in traumatic injuries and postsurgical wounds.
It is known colloquially as ‘Iraqibacter’ because of its presence in soft tissue infections experienced by soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, the use of broad spectrum antibiotics on the battleground has led to a rapid growth in resistance, leading the World Health Organisation in 2017 to name multidrug-resistant A. baumannii as one of its top three threats.
This has the potential to become a serious problem in military and veterans hospitals, where soldiers returning from active duty worldwide are treated in the same environment as other patients, however, the development of resistance is a global issue not just a problem for the military.
