The Team

Takaaki Takai

President, Kyoritsu Seiyaku Corporation

Director, Carus

Experience: Takaaki is a charismatic figure who started Calmic Japan Limited, a joint venture with Rentokil Initial PLC UK, in 1969 and rapidly grew this into a successful business which employs 700 people with an annual sales turnover of £97 million. In 2011, Takaaki became the President of Kyoritsu Seiyaku Co. Ltd. Established in 1955, with 600 employees and a turnover of £310 million, Kyoritsu Seiyaku Co. Ltd is the number one animal health company in Japan and ranked eleventh globally. He values relationships with people and has an extensive network in multiple sectors which he uses to strengthen business development opportunities.  Takaaki has a driven leadership style that is focused on achieving targets.

Personal: He is a huge rugby fan. Attending the Brighton Community Stadium on 20th September 2015, he cheered the Japanese National Team on with a strong belief of victory when no one believed it possible they could beat South Africa!

Tokiyoshi Sakakibara

International Business Corporate Planning & Strategy Division Director, Kyoritsu Holdings Corporation

Director, Carus

Experience: Toki has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry with more than 30 years with Japanese pharma company, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (formerly Tanabe Seiyaku Corporation).

Initially, he was involved in a range of tasks, including sales and marketing, regulatory affairs, and business development. He has worked globally in Asia, Europe (including the UK), and the US. More recently his focus has been on the prevention and treatment of diseases.

A keen advocate of using data for key decisions, Toki’s motto is: work hard and play hard.

Personal: Toki is keen on golf and trips to hot springs (Onsen).

Jolian Howell

Chief Commercial Officer

Experience: Jolian Howell is commercial director at Carus Animal Health. He has over 20 years’ experience in the animal health sector with several leading companies including MSD, Zoetis, Pfizer, Novartis and Leo in a variety of commercial positions both in the UK and the EU.

Jolian began his career in animal health as a sales representative, then moved into marketing to manage the Rimadyl (Carprofen) brand. Following the creation of a central European function at Pfizer, Jolian relocated to Paris to take on the newly created role of European Brand Team Leader, launching both Cerenia and Trocoxil across the EU region.

Since 2007 he has led teams at a European level and been a member of the European Business Unit leadership team. This involved working in a variety of European marketing and strategic planning positions across multiple species sectors, to bring new medicines from clinical trial development to a pre-launch, and subsequently to full commercial launch. In 2010 he led the integration process between the Pfizer and Fort Dodge equine business units. This involved supporting local countries to develop operational teams and establish a business unit portfolio through new product development, phase IV planning, geographic expansion and licensing.

Following a return to the UK in 2013, Jolian led the marketing and technical team that oversaw the launch of Bravecto, a novel innovation in the ectoparasiticide sector. To further broaden his healthcare experience, he entered the human health dental sector with Simplyhealth leading the marketing team for Denplan.

Carus focuses on developing an innovation led portfolio and novel life science technology platforms for application in the animal health sector. Jolian is looking forward to shaping this strategy and partnering with organisations to achieve these goals.

Personal: With four children he has a busy home life keeping the peace but when he does find the time enjoys cross country and water sports.

Dr. Rajesh Odedra

R&D Director

Experience: Raj has more than 17 years’ experience in supporting research and development activities for young life science companies, particularly in the fields of molecular biology and in vitro diagnostics.

After gaining his PhD at Manchester University, studying the mechanisms of blood vessel growth in wound healing, Raj moved to the Royal Veterinary College in 1991, as a Senior Research Fellow, to study pathogen-induced gastrointestinal damage and repair. During his tenure he developed and commercialised several in vitro diagnostic tests and set up a molecular genetics laboratory to study inherited disease in dogs.

Raj joined Nycomed Amersham plc in 1998 and was involved in innovating novel sequencing and genome analysis tools for the company. Upon leaving the company in 2002, Raj was retained as a consultant to support the progression of the Intellectual Property (IP) he had generated.

As a consultant, Raj has worked on projects including, IP development, managing proofs of principle studies to secure IP, preparing and progressing research and development plans, identifying commercialisation opportunities for novel technologies, and managing multi-centre grant applications.

Personal: Raj lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and three children. He enjoys cooking and spending time with his family. He is an avid reader and is borderline obsessive about the music of Beethoven and Miles Davis.

Greg Firth BVetMed, CertVOphthal, PhD, MRCVS

Clinical Director

Experience: Greg is a veterinary surgeon with experience in both first and second opinion practice. He graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 1992 and was appointed House Surgeon at Glasgow University Veterinary School. Following his return to London as a Wellcome Trust Veterinary Clinical Training Scholar, he was awarded a PhD and went on to work as a molecular biologist for Nycomed Amersham PLC.

Greg subsequently returned to a clinical career path, initially working in mixed general practice before founding a companion animal practice, of which he remains a director.

Personal: When not working, Greg enjoys spending time with his family, exploring the natural charms of the Peak District National Park and playing sport and music.

Paul Elder

Finance Director

Experience: Paul qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant in 2013 and has concentrated on the pharma sector since 2018, assisting the financial management of growing drug discovery companies.
The first 20 years of his professional career involved 10 years as an engineer in heavy industry and motor racing after which he founded, grew and exited a leisure business based in France, focused on winter holidays.
Having completed an MBA in 2010, he worked as a portfolio financial advisor, helping SMEs in the leisure industry, electrical goods distribution, commercial property, retail data and scientific research.
From 2018 he has concentrated on the pharma sector with finance roles for Domainex Ltd, a fast-growing, privately owned, contract research organisation and Nodthera Ltd, a private equity-financed biotech company developing a new platform of inflammation inhibitors.

Personal: Married with two sons, Paul spends his free time in Savoie, France, practising his French and enjoying the outdoor life with his family.

Keiko Hattori

Non-executive director

Experience: Keiko brings a rich experience from the Life Science and Pharmaceutical industry. She began her career working for Hoffman la Roche in Japan and then moved to a Swedish pharmaceutical and life science company Pharmacia, which later merged with Amersham and was acquired by GE Healthcare. Keiko held various marketing/commercial and management roles in those companies.

Since leaving GE Healthcare, Keiko has been employed in a range of management positions in international life science companies covering the genomics, proteomics and transomics product portfolio.

Personal: Married with one son, Keiko enjoys gardening and occasional travel.

Howard Wilder

Non-executive director

Experience: Howard Wilder is an entrepreneur and Chartered Director, plus an animal health specialist. With more than 30 years’ experience in industry, he has held sales, marketing, strategy formulation and general management roles in local and multi-national pharmaceutical and agribusinesses, predominantly in the B2B and B2C veterinary sector.

In the first half of his career he was engaged both in the UK and overseas in blue chip big pharma companies such as Dow Agriculture, Duphar, Solvay, American Cyanamid and Fort Dodge. He held responsibilities for new product development and procurement, as well as for establishing Europe and Asia-wide distribution and marketing strategies. He has also played a key role in merger and acquisition activities and for developing integration strategies for global marketing and distribution post purchase. He has run businesses of a scale up to $50 million including those with the complexity of production facilities and multiple national organisations.

He founded Genitrix in 1997 and grew it from scratch into a top 20 UK veterinary pharmaceutical company which was exited via a trade sale to Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC in December 2010. An award-winning board director and chairman, he was elected twice to serve as Chairman of NOAH, the industry association for the vet pharma industry. He is now investing in private limited companies on his own account, providing strategic advice and using his Chartered Director qualification to help various organisations to develop effective boards and winning strategies. Howard was part of teams that achieved very successful exits in Lintbells and Slate Hall Veterinary Practice.

Awards: 2006 Animal Pharm Awards Informa Winner Outstanding Contribution by SME
2009 IoD Director of the Year

Personal: Howard lives in Horsham, West Sussex, has two successful adult daughters and is a keen scuba diver and yachtsman.