About Pencil Biosciences

Amanda brings 20 years of business development and licensing experience, plus innovation, IP and external collaboration management gained across roles in biotech, pharma and universities.

Prior to joining Pencil Biosciences, she was Head of IP and Licensing at Horizon Discovery and Dharmacon, (both now part of Revvity), which specialised in the development and commericalisation of gene editing and RNA technologies.

After PhD and postdoctoral work in neurophysiology, Amanda spent seven years at The University of Queensland, Australia in technology transfer. She is a registered patent attorney and holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford and a Masters in IP Law from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Jon Moore is a molecular biologist and cell biologist with 22 years of scientific leadership experience in industry, across oncology, gene editing and company creation.

Jon spent six years at gene editing tools and services company, Horizon Discovery (now part of Revitty) serving as its CSO from 2014 to 2018. He subsequently joined Advent Life Sciences as an Operating Partner where he co-founded the cancer immunotherapeutics start-up Epitopea, and the remyelination start-up Pheno Therapeutics, serving both companies as their first CEO.

Earlier in his career, Jon gained extensive postdoctoral experience with Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt at Cancer Research UK and current MIT president, Sally Kornbluth at Duke University. He holds a PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Rajik is a highly innovative molecular biologist and serial entrepreneur with over two decades of experience. He is the principal co-Founder of Pencil Biosciences, relocating from Malaysia to the UK when the company received its first seed funding and Innovate UK grant.

After completing his doctoral studies at UPM University, Rajik cofounded Viramatix, an anti-infectives drug discovery company based on his PhD research deploying peptides as its therapeutic moieties. His second biotech venture, Pencil Biosciences is based on the imaginative concept of building a modular RNA-guided gene editing system from the ground up.