John has extensive experience in establishing public companies in the medical sector. In 1981 he instigated and was programme manager for the flotation of the first private hospital in the UK, The West Yorkshire Clinic, now a part of Community Hospitals Group plc. In 1987 he founded a private company exploiting computer aided molecular design in drug discovery which became a subsidiary of Proteus International plc in 1990. Having led the successful flotation of Proteus International plc on the Unlisted Securities Market of the London Stock Exchange, he served as its managing director and subsequently as deputy chairman, retiring in 1995. He is a director of The Medical House plc, Eirx Therapeutics plc (chairman), IDMOS plc (chairman) and Physiomics plc

Robert has had over 20 years' experience in the natural products industry in both the United States and Europe. He is one of the main individuals responsible for the establishment of Chinese herbal medicine in the UK. He has had broad experience in the areas of product development, manufacturing, quality control and regulatory affairs relating to natural products. In 1997 he founded East West Biotech Limited, a company using proteomic technology for the development and quality control of botanical drugs whose assets were acquired by Oxford Natural Products Limited ("ONP") in 1999. Following the acquisition he was responsible for business development at ONP until October 2000.

Tony is a virologist by training and has spent over 15 years in biopharmaceutical business development. He helped develop several novel viral vaccines for the animal health industry, with Glaxo and then switched to Intellectual Property (IP) brokering at BTG International. At BTG Tony was a key individual in the team that created Acambis and he also licensed IP world wide to the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining Phynova Tony directed business development at BioVex, a privately owned clinical stage biotech company in the cancer space.

Michael has been a partner in Anvil Partners (now Anvil Partners LLP) since 1995 where he specialises in raising finance for management buy-outs and development capital. He previously spent 18 years in investment banking in London, New York, Paris and Dublin with Kleinwort Benson and Allied Irish Investment Bank and qualified as an accountant with Price Waterhouse.

Steve Harris, Non-Executive Director

Steve Harris (aged 66).  Graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Pharmacy in 1964, and was admitted to membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in 1965.  He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 2000. His entire career has been in the pharmaceutical industry working within multinational companies such as ICI Pharmaceutical Division (now Astra-Zeneca), Merck Sharp and Dohme, Eli Lilly and Reckitt and Colman, as well as start-up companies such as Gensia and Medeva.  He resigned as a Director of Medeva in 1995 to set up his own consultancy business.  Since then he has had a variety of non-executive directorships with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and has been involved in a number of IPO’s and fund raisings in addition to several business development consultancies.

Jin Li PhD, Non-Executive Director

Jin is a chemist with over 20 years of experience working in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. He currently works as Director of Global Compound Sciences in AstraZeneca R&D, with responsibilities for its corporate compound collection and global computational platforms for drug design. Prior to this, he held scientific and management positions at Protherics PLC, leading its effort in developing advanced computer-aided drug design methods and their applications in the design of enzyme inhibitors and large scale virtual screening.

Alan Brown, Director of Finance/Company Secretary

Alan has over 20 years experience in finance and specializes in providing financial management and financial controls for medical research companies including Avidex, Ribostem and Prosurgics. Alan has a degree in accountancy and computer science, qualified as an accountant with Dunn & Bradstreet and is a fellow of the Institute of Certified Chartered Accountants.

John practised as a physician and clinical academic in London and Oxford University teaching hospitals, specialising in both general and respiratory medicine. His biopharmaceutical clinical research experience extends over 15 years and over 100 clinical trials in a diverse range of therapeutic areas (eg respiratory, rheumatology, oncology, neurology, dermatology, infectious diseases). He has managed a broad range of drug development programmes and clinical development teams at GSK, Chugai, Genzyyme and Almirall in senior global development roles. He is an expert in the field of respiratory disease and has published over 50 primary papers and book chapters.

Wendy has worked in the healthcare industry since 1981, with SmithKline & French, Glaxo Animal Health and Cyanamid of Great Britain. At Cyanamid she was Regulatory Affairs Manager for its subsidiaries and Business Development Manager for Lederle Laboratories (a subsidiary of Cyanamid). Her responsibilities included in-licensing and out-licensing, identifying potential new business areas, and monitoring and advising on strategic developments in areas which included antiinfectives and Oncology. During this period Cyanamid registered a number of new chemical entities, and novel delivery systems for established pharmaceuticals and innovative devices. In 1995 she established Subiaco Associates, which provides consultancy services to the healthcare industry.

Shouming graduated from China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing and received his PhD in Phytochemistry from Strathclyde University, Glasgow. He is currently the Guest Professor of Guizhou University, Visiting Professor of Guiyang Medical College and a Principal with CMM Consultant Associates (UK). Shouming was previously employed at ONP as the Director of New Product Development, mainly responsible for the research and development of products containing Chinese medicinal plant materials. Previously, he was the Director of Research & Development at East West Biotech Limited, overseeing and executing the development of a number of natural products.

Hongwen was a lecturer in the Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai University. She has worked for several companies which were developing medicines from plants. She is experienced in the development of plant-based medicines from "field to final dosage form". She has prepared the initial Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control (CMC) documents for submission to ethics committees and regulatory bodies for clinical trial approval and has successfully managed several development programmes from concept to products in clinical phase. As a Pharmacognosist, she is experienced in the authentication and quality assessment of natural products.

Brian has over 40 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry and was co-founder of Phytopharm and GW Pharmaceuticals plc

The board has established an audit committee and a remuneration committee both with formally delegated duties and responsibilites. The audit committee comprises Michael Martin as the Chairman, John Pool and Stephen Marshall; and the remuneration committee comprises Michael Martin, as the Chairman, John Pool and Stephen Marshall.

The audit committee will receive and review reports from the Company's management and the Company's auditors relating to the annual and interim accounts and the accounting and internal control systems in use throughout the Group. The audit committee will have unrestricted access to the Group's auditors.

The remuneration committee will review the scale and structure of the Executive Directors' remuneration and the terms of their service contracts. The remuneration and terms and conditions of appointment of the Non-Executive Directors will be set by the Board. No Director may participate in any meeting at which discussion or decision regarding his own remuneration takes place. The remuneration committee will also administer any share option schemes and share incentive scheme.