While studying for PhDs at the University of Cambridge, Sina Habibi and Seyed-Mahdi Khaligh-Razavi bonded over how dementia had touched their lives. The overwhelming feeling was that their loved ones had been diagnosed too late to reduce the disease’s devastating toll. Dementia diagnosis is broken, the pair realised. Cognetivity was set up to fix it.
About us
Cognetivity wants to transform cognitive testing so it's fit for the future
Meet the team
The Cognetivity team is working to transform cognitive testing and help millions around the world. With deep sector experience in neuroscience, business, finance, regulatory affairs, AI, medicine and neurology, we’re delivering a new paradigm in global healthcare.
MBA, University of Wollongong; RN, American University of Beirut, Business Director Philips; 9 years of clinical experience and 15 years in Healthcare Information Technology Sales and Marketing in international markets
PhD in Engineering, University of Cambridge. Dr. Habibi simplifies complex challenges and develops compelling and collaborative ways to solve them. In addition to business executive roles he has experience in research (nano-technology and synthetic biology), product management, and high-tech consultancy (big data and fin-tech). Sina has been an active member of Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE) since 2010 and chaired the society in 2013-2014. CUE is the most successful entrepreneurial student society in Europe (funding over 60 start-ups worth over USD300 Million, providing over 500 full time jobs).
Seyed is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur. He obtained his PhD from the Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University; he then became postdoctoral researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Department. He has extensive research experience in studying the human brain in the field of health and disease using a combination of multimodal neuroimaging techniques, computational modeling, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
With an EMBA from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from University of Glasgow, Thomas has nearly two decades of experience in entrepreneurship, consulting, private equity investment, corporate finance and strategy in sectors including biotechnology, IT, logistics and natural resources across the globe. He has held CTO, CFO, CEO and COO positions, advises and mentors startups and MBA students at the University of Cambridge, and is currently an honorary lecturer at University College London’s School of Pharmacy.
PhD in Engineering, University of Cambridge. A former GSK Senior Executive with over 30 years experience in the pharmaceutical, diagnostics and life sciences industries. He has led global teams in research and development, and in manufacturing to create new businesses and transform performance. He currently is a non-executive director for a number of life-science startups and teaches innovation and strategy at a number of universities.
Family medicine physician and flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force. Biomedical Engineer and adjunct Lecturer at Rice University. Texas Medical Centre Innovation advisor. Medical director
A former InterSystems sales executive delivering sustained growth and customer success over a 20-year period in the healthcare IT market. Experienced in winning multi-million dollar end user contracts, taking new products to market, building revenue generating alliances between major I.T. providers, and managing distribution networks. Earlier, held leadership and sales roles at Oracle, and Digital, and engineering roles at Racal and Thorn EMI.
Passionate about innovation, and the importance of values in leadership Duncan is now helping technology innovators achieve sustainable success in the healthcare market.
A Cambridge University graduate with a degree in Engineering, a member of the IET, and a Chartered Engineer.
Ed has had considerable experience in top roles within the UK’s publicly-funded healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS). He is the former Chairman of NHS Improvement and Deputy Chairman of NHS England, two of the most significant bodies overseeing patient care in the NHS, which together receive the majority of the Department of Health and Social Care’s core annual budget of around £160 billion. He remains involved in the NHS as Independent Chair of Birmingham Health Partners, a strategic alliance between the University of Birmingham and two NHS Foundation Trusts that is dedicated to applying healthcare innovations in clinical care. Additionally, Ed has held many senior positions within the private healthcare sector, currently sitting as Chairman of the Advisory Board at HCA Healthcare UK, the UK’s largest provider of privately-funded healthcare. Its parent company, HCA Healthcare, is the largest private healthcare provider in the world, operating around 200 hospitals and 2,000 sites of care across the UK and US. He is also an Independent Non-Executive Director at the video consultation provider Push Doctor – which offers services to 6 million NHS patients – as well as Chairman of Assura PLC, the UK’s leading real estate investment trust (REIT) for primary care medical centres. Prior to assuming his portfolio of healthcare roles, Ed spent 30 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in a variety of top UK and international roles, including Strategy Chairman and Global Assurance Chief Operating Officer. Beyond the world of healthcare, he is Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of HS2 Ltd, which is developing the UK’s new High Speed Two (HS2) rail network, a project with a budget of roughly £100 billion.
A member of the UK House of Lords, James O’Shaughnessy has been involved in healthcare at the highest levels of government for many years. Between 2016 and 2018, he served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health (later the Department of Health and Social Care), leading efforts to enhance innovation in the NHS. He was responsible in this role for the development of the UK’s Life Sciences Industrial Strategy and acted as ministerial lead for key public sector organizations such as NHS Digital and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Before joining the House of Lords, James held a variety of policy roles, including Deputy Director and later Visiting Fellow at the highly-influential think tank Policy Exchange. He was Director of Policy to Prime Minister David Cameron, having served as Director of Policy and Research at the Conservative Party between 2007 and 2010, and he played a leading role in writing the Party’s manifesto for its successful 2010 general election campaign. James is currently a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity and a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London. He also supports many organizations as an advisor or director, including Health Data Research UK, the healthcare and life sciences consultancy Newmarket Strategy, the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge, Bain & Company and a number of successful healthtech ventures. These include Healthy.io, which uses AI to provide smartphone-based remote clinical testing, and Push Doctor, a video consultation platform.
Carol is a hugely respected and experienced figure in the world of neuroscience research, having worked in the space for over 30 years. She began her career at the pharmaceutical firm Syntex, later moving to Wyeth and SmithKline Beecham before taking up a senior leadership role in Clinical Pharmacology and Discovery Medicine (Psychiatry) at the newly-formed GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2000. From 2004 to 2009, she was Head of Clinical Development at BTG, after which she rejoined GSK as Head of Translational Medicine (Biopharma Discovery) until 2015. Carol has also utilised her expertise to drive R&D efforts from outside the pharmaceutical industry. Between 2017 and 2020, she was Director of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK), the UK’s leading dementia research charity. In this capacity, she was responsible for directing the charity’s research agenda, and initiated, established and led as managing director the Early Detection of Neurodegenerative diseases (EDoN) project – an ambitious global initiative backed by Bill Gates that is working to develop digital fingerprints for the early detection of dementia causing diseases. Prior to joining ARUK, she worked as a Venture Partner at the Dementia Discovery Fund – a £250m specialist venture capital fund, also part-funded by Gates, that focuses on investing in and creating new biotech companies to develop high-impact therapeutics for age-related dementias. Her work there centred on identifying and developing novel disease-modifying mechanisms for the treatment of all types of dementia, sourcing opportunities from academic research groups and small companies. More recently, Carol has returned to work in the pharmaceutical sector, as Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Small Pharma, a London-based firm that develops novel treatments for mental health conditions.
An internationally-renowned figure in the world of medicine, Dag currently sits as Chair of Old Age Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. Through the course of his distinguished career, he has also held professorships at the Universities of Bergen and Oslo, as well as the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Dag completed his PhD thesis on language disorders in patients with Alzheimer’s disease in 1998, and has since published more than 600 papers across the spectrum of dementia research, specialising particularly in dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease. He remains involved in a variety of ground-breaking research efforts, including PROTECT – an online cohort study tracking annual changes in cognitive function in 50,000 people over a 25-year period. Dag has a vast network of long-time collaborators that extends well beyond the world of academia. Within the pharmaceutical industry, he has acted as a consultant to global firms such as AstraZeneca, Novartis, Lundbeck and Biogen. He also remains active in the clinical sphere, continuing his work as a geriatric psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the largest mental health trust in the UK.
Keith Gibbs retired from AXA PPP healthcare last December after 17 years as Chief Executive. During this time, he served on the board of AXA UK and a number of its other subsidiaries, including AXA Insurance, AXA Wealth and AXA Sun Life. He received the Outstanding Contribution Award at the 2017 UK Health Insurance Awards. Since retiring, he has retained roles as a non-executive director of AXA Venture Partners and non-executive chairman of AXA Global Healthcare. Between 2002 and 2018, Gibbs also sat on the council of the International Federation of Health Plans (iFHP), the leading CEO network within the global health insurance industry, spending three years as chairman. In the past nine months, he has assumed board positions at Bluecrest Health Screening, insurance provider Saga Services and hospital group HCA Healthcare UK.
John is a computer scientist with over 15 years of experience in industries ranging from Med Tech, Manufacturing and Finance to Big Oil.
He lost his grandparents to Dementia and so decided to leave his city job to join Cognetivity as the company’s first official employee. He then became GCP & ISO 13485 certified to help build the compliance and tech teams from scratch; balancing modern practices with regulatory requirements to launch and certify the company’s flagship product.
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