Board of Directors

Peter Francis LLB Grad Dip (Intellectual Property) non-executive Chairman

Appointed 23 February 2006.

Mr Peter Francis is a partner at Francis Abourizk Lightowlers (FAL), a firm of commercial and technology lawyers with offices in Melbourne, Australia. He is a legal specialist in the areas of intellectual property and licensing and provides legal advice to a large number of corporations and research bodies.

Mel Bridges BAppSc FAICD non-executive Director

Appointed 12 October 2007.

Mr Mel Bridges has more than 30 years experience in the global biotechnology and healthcare industry. During this period, he founded and managed successful diagnostics, biotechnology and medical device businesses. Mel is currently Chairman of a number of listed and unlisted companies. He is Chairman of Alchemia Ltd and Impedimed Limited. He also co-founded the listed company Panbio Ltd. Mel has extensive experience as a public company director and has been recently appointed to the board of Campbell Brothers Limited. Mel is also an Non-Executive Director of Tissue Therapies Limited and Genera Biosystems Limited.

The businesses that Mel has founded have won numerous awards including the Queensland Export Award, Australian Small Business of the Year, Queensland Top 400, BRW's Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies for seven consecutive years and The Australian Quality Award. Mel has won numerous awards for his achievements including the Ernst and Young 2002 Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2004 he was anointed the Queensland Entrepreneur of the Year, and in 2005 industry group AusBiotech awarded him the Chairman’s Industry Gold Medal for contributions to the Australian biotech industry.

Sue MacLeman BPharm MMrkg MLaw FACPP FAICD Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Appointed as Managing Director 1 July 2007.

Ms Sue MacLeman has extensive international senior management and leadership experience in product development and commercialisation in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector.

Sue graduated with a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Queensland in 1984. In addition to pharmacy qualifications, Sue MacLeman has completed a Fellowship with the Australian College of Pharmacy Practice, Masters of Marketing at Melbourne University (Melbourne Business School) and Masters of Commercial Law (Deakin University). She is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Sue is also a member of the Pharmaceutical Industry Council (PIC) and the Chair of the Pharmaceutical Industry Development Taskforce (PIDT).

In 1991 Sue joined the pharmaceutical industry with Schering Plough in the biotechnology business unit. She then went on to work with Amgen Inc and Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals in the areas of medical, marketing, sales management and business development. In 2002 Sue took up the position of global Vice President for Agenix Ltd where she was responsible for the product development of the molecular clot imaging project. From 2004 to 2006 she was the CEO of a listed public biotechnology and investment company EQiTX Ltd. Sue joined Benitec Ltd as CEO in September 2006.

John Chiplin Ph.D non-executive director

Appointed 1 February 2010.

Dr John Chiplin has broad-based experience in the life science and technology industries, both from an operational and investment perspective.  His most recent accomplishment was the corporate reengineering of Arana Therapeutics, a world leading Antibody developer, which resulted in the acquisition of the company by Cephalon for a significant premium to market (July 2009).  Immediately prior to running Arana, Dr. Chiplin was head of the $300M ITI Life Sciences investment fund in the UK. 

His own investment vehicle, Newstar Ventures Ltd, has funded more than a dozen early stage companies in the past ten years.  Dr. Chiplin’s Pharmacy and Doctoral degrees are from the University of Nottingham, UK. In addition to Benitec, John currently serves on the Boards of Progen Pharmaceuticals Limited and ScienceMedia, Inc.