B Bus, Grad Dip HSM, MBL, FCHSM, GAICD

Simon Brewin is an experienced non-executive director with expertise in governance, infrastructure and project management. Over a 35 year period he held executive roles at a number of Melbourne health organisations with a portfolio responsibility for strategic and service planning, clinical and non-clinical services, infrastructure, facilities and project management.

Simon was appointed to the board of the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in 2017 and is Deputy Chair, Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and member of the Quality & Safety Committee. He is also Deputy Chair of Uniting Age Well and chair of its Governance Committee.  Simon is a member of the DPV Health Community Engagement and Population Heath Committee and a Director of Guardian Network. He is a past president of the Australasian College of Health Service Management (Victorian Branch) and a Graduate of the Australia Institute of Company Directors.

MBBS, MD, FRACS, FAOA

Professor Choong is the Associate Dean Innovation & Enterprise at the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne, the Head of the Department of Surgery of the Melbourne Medical School and Sir Hugh Devine Professor of Surgery at St Vincent’s Hospital.

Professor Choong is an academic with 30 years researching arthritis surgery, bone and soft tissue cancers and advanced limb reconstruction. He has published almost 500 peer-reviewed articles and leads the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence into Total Joint Replacement, is the Principle Clinical Lead in the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and leads the Advanced Limb Reconstruction Research Programme at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. He is an NHMRC Practitioner Fellow.

BMedSci, MBBS, PhD, FAA, FTSE, FAHMS

Andrew Cuthbertson is Deputy Chancellor of the University of Melbourne and a Non-Executive Director of CSL Limited. He served as the CSL R&D Director and Chief Scientific Officer for over 20 years. In 2016 he was made an Enterprise Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne and an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to medical research.  Professor Cuthbertson is also a Director of the Grattan Institute and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists.

B. Comm (Accounting and Finance) LLB (UNSW)

Suwanee is an investment adviser at Macquarie Bank with over 20 years experience in advising philanthropists, business founders, medical and other professional specialists and not-for-profits on investments. Suwanee is committed to helping develop medical research capacity to provide early warning, intervention and reduction of health risks particularly preventable risks, and fair access to cost-effective medical treatment.

Suwanee is also a non-executive director and member of The Diplomacy Training program committed to advancing human rights and empowering civil society in the Asia Pacific region through education, training, and building of skills and capacity in non-governmental organisations and individual human rights defenders. She is also a member of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee and the Fundraising Committee of the Diplomacy Training Program.

BAppSc(MedLabSc), PhD, FASN

Darren is the Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Certa Therapeutics and Founder and Executive Chair of OccuRx, bringing over 25 years of management and research expertise in the life sciences and biotech sector. Concurrent to his Certa Therapeutics and OccuRx roles, Darren is the Director of Biomedical Research in the Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, where his research expertise lies in progressing pre-clinical novel interventions and developing experimental models of cardiovascular disease.

Darren has published over 200 manuscripts in the field of translational research and novel interventions many of which have had a direct impact on human disease. In 2009, Darren was a recipient of the prestigious TJ Neale award for outstanding contribution to nephrology. In 2015 Darren joined the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund as Venture Partner and is a Non executive Director on a number of Boards.

Darren has proven history in translational research. He was previously Founder, CEO and Director of Fibrotech Therapeutics, a company that developed orally active anti-fibrotic inhibitors to treat underlying pathological fibrosis in kidney and heart failure, which was ultimately acquired by Shire Plc for a record 75 million USD upfront including milestone payments up to 600 million USD. Darren has a PhD in Translational Medicine from the University of Melbourne. He is a current member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, AusBiotech, BioMelbourne Network and a Fellow of the American Society of Nephrology.

B Comm (Hons), FCA

Nuala Kilgallon is a Chartered Accountant and experienced finance professional with over twenty years in finance leadership roles. She is currently Group Financial Controller at Virgin Australia. Previously she was Head of Financial Control at Jetstar Airways, a business she joined in 2006 shortly after it launched.

Over the course of her career she has focused on control and governance environments and has led highly effective teams in a number of businesses across travel, manufacturing, hospitality and telecommunications.

Nuala has extensive experience in areas such as financial control, technical accounting, business expansion, process improvement, systems implementation, strategic risk reporting, outsourcing and insourcing finance resources, project and change leadership.

Nuala was the Chairperson of StarKids, a charitable partnership between Jetstar and World Vision which has a mission to transform the lives of the communities in Australia and across Asia. She was also a member of the Board of Control of Jetstar Pacific Airlines, a Vietnamese business within the Jetstar and Qantas Group.

MA, BM, BCh, DM, MRCP, FRCOphth, FRANZCO, FARVO, FAAPPO, ALCM

Professor Keith Martin is Managing Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and Ringland Anderson Professor and Head of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne.

He is also Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, Honorary Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Sydney and a Senior Visiting Medical Officer for the Glaucoma Unit at Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. Clinically, Professor Martin specialises in the medical and surgical management of complex glaucoma. He is immediate Past President of the World Glaucoma Association (WGA), the largest glaucoma organisation in the world, and remains a Governor of WGA. He is President of the Australia and New Zealand Glaucoma Society.

Professor Martin is working to develop new treatments for eye disease using stem cells, gene therapy and other techniques as a Principal Investigator at CERA. He is co-founder of Quethera, a Cambridge-based gene therapy company which has developed a gene therapy for glaucoma that is currently progressing towards human clinical trials. He is also co-founder of Ikarovec, a second gene therapy spin out company from his lab developing gene therapies for common retinal diseases, and a Director of Enlighten Imaging, a CERA spin-out company.

BA, LLB (Hons)

Wendy Miller is an experienced corporate and commercial lawyer. She is currently Head of Corporate Legal at AustralianSuper, having previously held senior in-house legal, strategy and governance roles. Wendy has deep experience working with boards of directors and senior management teams on governance and compliance matters as well as strategic partnerships, joint ventures, restructures, mergers and acquisitions, fundraising, major procurement projects and complex contracting.

Wendy is an experienced non-executive director and in addition to being a member of the board of CERA, is also a Director of the CERA Foundation.

MA (Hons)

Duncan Peppercorn has followed a career that has straddled both the for-purpose and for-profit sectors, as both an executive and as a consultant. He was most recently the Chief Operating Officer at Partners in Performance, a global consulting firm based in Australia, where he ran all the support services as well as sitting on the global Executive.

Prior to that he founded and led the consultancy business at Social Ventures Australia, where he both helmed consulting engagements and managed the growth of the business to be Australia’s leading not-for-profit advisor to social businesses, philanthropists and government.

Duncan continues to advise both commercial and non-commercial organisations, working with CEOs and Boards to develop and implement strategic initiatives to build success and ensure impact.

BSc (Hons), PhD, MBA, GAICD

Dr Serge Scrofani has over 28 years’ experience in the healthcare sector, where he has worked in global roles across research and strategy, as well as corporate and business development.

Serge served as Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development at CSL for 13 years where he was pivotal in multiple strategic initiatives including the company’s $US11.7 billion acquisition of Vifor Pharma AG and its global COVID-19 response.  Prior to this, he led Business Development for subsidiary CSL Behring, based in the US.  Serge is currently Principal for Poplar Advisory, a boutique strategic advisory firm focused on the healthcare sector.

Serge is a Board member of the Burnet Institute where he sits on both the Commercialisation and Investment Committees.   He is also a founding Director of private equity firm FinCap Pty Ltd, and is a member of its Investment Committee.

After obtaining his PhD in Structural Biology from La Trobe University, Serge undertook postdoctoral research studies at The University of Melbourne and completed a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California.  He also holds an MBA from The Melbourne Business School.

Our leadership team brings together unique expertise across medical research, clinical practice and business management.

A team of senior clinician and basic scientists leads our ambitious vision research program.