Dr. Jason Jones,

Commercial Manager

Biography

Jason has a degree in Chemistry, Industrial Technology and Economics and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of York and over 25 years’ experience, both in industry and academia, in R&D and business development in the pharmaceutical and chemical research sector. Jason has extensive experience in business development and business management and is a proficient research project manager and is currently Commercial Manager across the Faculty of Life Sciences. With a focus on the pharmaceutical industry and bioscience research the role involves managing and growing the commercial and grant funded revenues of Research and Knowledge Transfer (RKT) Centres across the Faculty including the Institute of Cancer Therapeutics, the Centre for Pharmaceutical Engineering Science and the Centre for Chemical and Biological Analysis and academics within the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. Responsible for all aspects of University partnerships with industry and other external organisations key activities include developing commercial strategies, lead generation and marketing, negotiation of commercial proposals and contractual documentation, client relationship management from enquiry to invoice, research project management and generation and support for collaborative grant applications. Between 2020-2024 he has overseen projects with industry partners with a value of over £2.4m ensuring all projects contracted with professional client management, and all successfully completed. Jason devised and successfully led the inaugural Yorkshire BioPartnering Event (April 2022) at the UoB and followed-up with a second and a third meeting each attracting over 80 delegates, many from regional industry, establishing this excellent annual partnering meeting between academics and industry in Bradford. Jason was part of the team that won the ERDF funded “project CAYMAN” and a key member of the CAYMAN project team (0.5FTE for 3.75yrs) that successfully delivered all target outputs between Oct19 and June23. The original 3yr project was extended by 9mths and had a total value of £2.15 million of which £1.07 million was funded by ERDF. The success of project CAYMAN (UoB Outstanding Achievement Award in Knowledge Exchange category 2023) has developed an extensive network of SMEs in the region which UoB can exploit in further grant applications. Jason led business development of the project and had a major input in leading the overall project management and designing the strategy for successful delivery. CAYMAN gave UoB an excellent track record in delivery of this type of project, critical for the successful SIBLING UKSPF application. SIBLING is a £1.9m funded project which has met all its challenging targets, Jason has been driving the BD and project management for SIBLING putting UoB in strong position with funders WYCA for follow-on funding. He has responsibility for driving the commercialization of IP generated across the FoLS and was the UoB main driving force behind the UoB Ran Diagnostic project team that won an IUK BioMedical Catalyst grant for £900K and established a UoB spin out (CDT Ltd). Jason led the PR for this project which led to a BBC Look North News item filmed at UoB. He was also a key member of the “Effershield” commercialization team at UoB that promoted and successfully out-licensed this opportunity which won the BioNow Project of the Year Award (2019) and the Making Pharmaceuticals “Innovation in Manufacturing” Award (2022).