Michelle Lea, experienced senior healthcare executive, appointed CEO at Oxford Immune Algorithmics
We are delighted to announce that Michelle Lea, who has held various ‘C’ level roles in the NHS, will be joining Oxford Immune Algorithmics (OIA) as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Michelle’s appointment underlines our commitment to recruiting the most experienced leaders as we move towards commercialisation of Algocyte.
Since the company was founded by Hector Zenil, our dedicated team has taken great pride in being at the cutting edge of AI development and its application to precision medicine. Over the past five years, led by Dr. Zenil, OIA raised more than USD 10 million to fund the company, he assembled a talented team from the ground up, and paved the ground for the next funding round. The company is now ready to move to its next development stage. Michelle will define the commercial goals for the company to expand into OIA’s main markets and lead engagements with our key stakeholders.
Michelle brings her experience managing and leading teams and scaling start-ups, including successful exits and deals worth $300 million in CEO, CCO, and Executive roles. She has held COO positions within the NHS, including Head of Surgery & Turnaround at Ipswich Hospital, Director of Surgery at Milton Keynes, and Turnaround Director at Kettering NHS. Michelle's leadership excellence has been recognised with accolades such as the 2018 Leadership Fellow of Windsor Castle, 2019 IFAFH Top 100 Healthcare Leaders, and HSJ Patient Safety Award.
When I had the vision of OIA, I recognised the critical importance of bringing in the best possible leaders for each company position and I am delighted Michelle Lea has chosen to join us, as it will allow me to focus more on the product roadmap and the Intellectual Property (IP) around our unique approach to artificial intelligence for precision medicine towards our goal to end all preventable diseases. Michelle brings a wealth of experience from a lifelong career in the medical devices, healthcare delivery and start-up ventures, which will be critical as we bring our first solution to market and look to expand into new areas of opoprtunity.
Dr. Hector Zenil, Founder, Director and Chief Visionary Officer, Oxford Immune Algorithmics
Dr. Zenil is taking the role of Chief Visionary Officer (CVO), where he will focus and continue to drive the research and development of OIA’s approach to causal diagnostics, define the future product roadmap, expand and secure the company’s IP. OIA’s ground-breaking technology arose from Dr. Zenil’s extensive academic research into Causal Deconvolution AI. This is a cutting-edge, responsible, model-based approach to medicine, different from simplistic AI-powered approaches based on traditional statistical methods that are ill-equipped to deal with multifactorial complexity.
OIA has developed Algocyte, a cloud-based predictive medicine platform that applies algorithms for personalised medicine to monitor the immune system and blood-related conditions based on blood testing. Together with a family of smaller and easier-to-use medical devices, it will act as a remote medical assistant, enabling healthcare professionals to be more efficient at monitoring patients’ health, while increasing adherence and compliance. Long-term, this will enable significantly less invasive, at-home, regular, precise, and cost-effective health monitoring in various fields from oncology to community nursing, retirement, and nursing homes, and general health and wellness awareness.
This is an amazing time to be working in healthcare, as the breakthroughs that companies like OIA are making in AI are going to radically reshape how we think about the delivery of treatment. It will open up a new range of precision medicine approaches that will see us moving from reactive treatment of the sick to preventative strategies focused on keeping people healthy and well. OIA’s approach to AI combined with its deep understanding of immunology means we can be at the forefront of precision medicine and I look forward to working with clinicians around the world to show how Algocyte can help to improve outcomes for patients.
Michelle Lea, CEO, Oxford Immune Algorithmics