Being a chartered accountant is a vital qualification for leading a biotechnology firm that continually needs an injection of funds to support its research and development programmes. And John Dawson, Chief Executive of UK-based Oxford BioMedica, is no stranger to financial deals, having spent his career amassing experience in a number of industries.
After his degree he did his accountancy training at chartered accountancy firm Hereward Scott Davies, then went into industry, joining Unigate (now Uniq), which was initially a dairy and cheese business but diversified into convenience foods and transport. Dawson rose to become Financial Controller of Unigate’s Wincanton Car Contracts business, later entering the pharmaceutical industry and spending five years at Serono Laboratories (UK), followed by more than a decade at Cephalon, a biopharmaceutical firm co-founded by Dr Frank Baldino, a pharmacologist and former scientist with DuPont. Here Dawson achieved a management board position as Chief Financial Officer and Head of Business Development Europe.
While at Cephalon, Dawson led the many deals that built the European business to more than 1,000 people and a turnover of several hundred million US dollars. In 2005 he led Cephalon’s US$360m acquisition of Zeneus. Cephalon became part of Israeli firm Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in 2011.
After a short spell as a consultant, in 2008 Dawson was approached to join Oxford BioMedica. ‘I had done some financial deals in London and I was known in the sector,’ he says. Since then he has been putting his financial and biopharmaceutical knowledge to good use at the Oxford firm.
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