Mark Ferguson
Chairman of the European Innovation Council Board

Mark is Chairman of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Board. He was Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of Ireland. He was co founder and CEO of the Biotechnology company Renovo developing novel pharmaceuticals to prevent scarring and accelerate healing, based on patented discoveries from his University research laboratory. He built the company from 2 to 200 employees, raised £32M in private equity, floated on the LSE raising £62.5M on IPO and licensed the lead drug in a US$825M deal. Following a negative phase 3 trial ,he restructured the company to become Inspired Capital plc ,which was subsequently sold to the Tavistock Group. Previously Professor and Dean of Biological Sciences at The University of Manchester, Mark is the recipient of numerous international research prizes and awards including the 2002 European Science Prize ( jointly ),author of 329 papers and book chapters,61 patent families , author/editor of 8 books and supervised 77 Phd students with key discoveries of the molecular and cellular basis of scarring and temperature dependent sex determination in alligators. He has served on numerous international committees on research and innovation including Chair of the EIC pilot Advisory Board.