Project Team

Simcha Jong

Simcha was the lead on the management part of the BRITS project. Simcha designed the BRITS tool’s functionality and oversaw its development. Simcha is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Management Science and Innovation at UCL. His research focuses on the organisation of R&D, business development, and product commercialisation in the life sciences sector. In addition, he has worked on healthcare operations management projects focused on the implementation of stratified medicine. Simcha’s research has been published in top-international journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Research Policy, and Industrial and Corporate Change. Simcha has a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute, in Florence, Italy, and an MPhil in Management Studies from the University of Cambridge. View Profile

Hsini Huang

Hsini worked on the BRITS project as a Research Associate at UCL’s Department of Management Science and Innovation on the integration of input for the tool provided by different project partners. She designed the user interface, and conducted the programming for the tool. Hsini also collected data and conducted analyses on the various parameters the tool relies on in characterising cell therapy projects.

Hsini obtained her PhD at the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interest focuses on the economics of innovation, economic geography, and science and technology policy. She has published on topics relating to academic entrepreneurship and innovation districts in top international journals such as Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society, and Research Policy. Hsini currently is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at National Taiwan University. View Profile

Enrico Forti

Enrico worked on the BRITS project as a Research Associate on the creation of the database of cell therapy projects that underlie the BRITS tool’s assessments of project risks and development times. Enrico currently has a combined Teaching Fellow and Research Associate appointment at the UCL Department of Management Science and Innovation. His research is in the innovation and strategic management field with a particular focus on strategy evolution. View Profile 

Sally Hassan 

Sally worked on the BRITS project as a Research Associate on the BRITS project and collected data on manufacturing costs for the BRITS cell therapy project planning and valuation tool. Sally’s current research interests also include the production of biopharmaceuticals in transgenic plants, plasmid DNA production and small-scale fermentation. She enjoys applied scientific research and hopes to stay in this area. Sally obtained her PhD at the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering.View Profile

Suzy Farid 

Suzy was the lead on the bioprocessing part of the BRITS project. Suzy is a Reader in Bioprocess Systems Engineering at the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering. She leads research into novel computer-based decision-support tools that provide systematic foundations to help companies make better decisions where there is inevitable uncertainty in process performance, market projections and clinical success rates. Her research focuses on establishing and integrating models of bioprocess economics, manufacturing logistics, dynamic simulation, uncertainty analysis, multi-objective decision-making and combinatorial optimisation. View Profile

Chris Mason 

Chris is a Professor of Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing in the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering, University College London. He is a world-leading expert on the clinical translation and commercialization of cell and gene therapies, and tissue-engineered products. View Profile

Members of the LONZA team contributing to the BRITS project have provided important feedback in the development of the BRITS business planning and valuation tool. Jesus Zurdo, Behzad Mahdavi, Kim Warren, and Phil Vanek (currently with GE Healthcare), have been particularly important in the tool’s development.