2025 Annual BFHBS Dinner - In Conversation: Dame Kate Bingham (MBA 1991) with Sir Harpal Kumar (MBA 1991)

Kate Bingham has spent over 30 years building and investing in biotech companies as Managing Partner at SV Health Investors, one of the longest tenured biotechnology investors globally. These investments have resulted in the launch of 26 new innovative drugs including 6 new drug classes each addressing a major unmet medical need. Kate played an active role in setting up the Dementia Discovery Fund in 2017, focused on developing novel drugs targeting new biological mechanisms to treat dementia.

In May 2020 Kate was appointed Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, reporting to the Prime Minister to lead UK efforts to find and manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine. It was a six-month engagement and she stepped down as Chair in December 2020. On 8 December 2020 the UK started COVID-19 vaccinations – the first western country to do so. She serves on the board of the Francis Crick Institute and ARIA.

Kate is Class of 1991, graduating as a Baker Scholar and has been in the same job ever since. Professor Amy Edmondson has taught a case she wrote on the UK Vaccine Taskforce for the last 4 years, following an earlier case on SV’s launch of the Dementia Discovery Fund.

Sir Harpal has been a President at GRAIL since 2020. Before GRAIL, he was SVP and Head of Innovation EMEA at Johnson & Johnson. Prior to this, Sir Harpal spent more than 15 years with Cancer Research UK - serving as CEO from April 2007 until June 2018 - and CEO of Cancer Research Technology. Before CRUK, he worked with McKinsey & Co, and was CEO of The Papworth Trust and Nexan Group.

Sir Harpal received a Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge, and an MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, and the Institute of Cancer Research, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Royal College of Radiologists, Association of Cancer Physicians (UK) and St John’s College, Cambridge. In 2016, he was knighted for services to cancer research.

He is a Board Member of Our Future Health and Chair of Our Future Health Trading Ltd. He chairs the Global Advisory Group for the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and is a member of the Advisory Council for EACR. He previously served on the Board of UKRI and the Francis Crick Institute.