Dr Ajay Mistry

Dr Ajay Mistry is a life sciences entrepreneur and investor whose career spans academic gene-therapy research, corporate venture capital, and biotech business development. He holds a BSc (Hons) from King's College London and a PhD in Molecular Biology / Gene Therapy from Imperial College London (research conducted in the late 1990s). Early in his career he carried out gene-therapy research at leading institutions, including the Institute of Ophthalmology (Moorfields) and the Institute of Child Health (Great Ormond Street Hospital), work linked to programmes that fed into companies such as MeiraGTx and Orchard Therapeutics.

Mistry moved from the bench into investment and dealmaking. He established and managed a European investment portfolio for the Japanese corporation Olympus / ITX Corporation, and he is associated with EEP (European Equity Partners) — a privately owned London investment firm with more than 25 years in life sciences that backs early-stage healthcare technology, biologics, cell-and-gene-therapy manufacturing, and pharma-services companies. He also held business development and licensing roles at Abzena (formerly PolyTherics) and Synpromics, where he executed deals ranging from equity investments to licensing agreements.

Today his principal role is Co-Founder and CEO of Oppilotech, a UK biotechnology company (headquartered in London, with laboratories in Stevenage) that combines systems biology and machine learning to build predictive computational models of bacterial and human cells for drug-target discovery. He founded the company with a small group of collaborators (John, Cora and Keith) whose collective expertise covers pharma R&D, drug discovery, business development, investment and IP management. Alongside his operating role, Crunchbase lists him as an angel investor.

• Invests at seed and early stage in life sciences ventures, drawing on both scientific and venture-capital experience.
• Sector conviction sits in biotech, drug discovery, gene and cell therapy, healthcare technology, biologics, and pharma services — the same domains EEP targets ("Healthcare Technology, Biologics and CGT manufacture, and Pharma Services companies").
• Reflects EEP's stated, highly selective philosophy: *"We don't invest in many companies. But when we invest, we are 100% engaged"* — favouring deep involvement over a broad, passive portfolio.
• Looks for companies aiming to build "best-in-class" technology with the potential to become a global leader in their field.
• Brings hands-on value beyond capital: deal structuring, licensing, business development and operational guidance grounded in his own experience founding and running a biotech.