Our mission

Weslie Janeway is an investor, author, philanthropist and scientist based in New York, USA and Cambridge, UK. While pursuing a career in financial services, she has served in a variety of non-executive roles in the not-for-profit sector, such as Treasurer of Cancer Care, Inc., a social services agency for cancer patients and their families, Board Trustee and Chair of the Development Committee of the New York Women’s Foundation and Vice-Chair and Head of the Nominating and Governance Committee of The Jackson Laboratory, a genetics institute based in Maine, USA.

Weslie is a founding investor and member of the Board of Directors of bit.bio, the cell-coding company based in Cambridge, UK. She serves on the Audit and Compensation Committees. Weslie is a graduate of both Columbia University in New York and Brown University in Rhode Island. Additionally, she has studied genetics at the University of Cambridge as well as in New York. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst and the co-author of Mrs. Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book.

At present, as well as being a Trustee for Myelopathy.org, Weslie is a Trustee of the Rockefeller University, where she serves on the Audit, Hospital and Technology Transfer Committees.  In addition, she is an Independent Director of the New York Genome Center.

After completing her medical studies in Rome and a post-doctoral fellowship focused on cellular immunology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda (USA), Dr Alteri spent 7 years in drug discovery and 5 years in clinical safety at Ciba-Geigy/Novartis in Basel. She was involved in major projects that yielded important drugs such as Gleevec for myeloid leukaemia, Coartem for malaria and Reyataz for HIV-AIDS. In 1998 she joined Serono in Geneva where she led the Pharmacovigilance and Risk Management team. At Serono, Dr Alteri was instrumental in establishing the company’s pharmacovigilance processes, as well as implementing the entire portfolio’s risk management strategy.
In 2012 she joined the European Medicines Agency, where she was Head of the Safety and Efficacy Sector for one year, being later promoted to Head of the Human Medicines Evaluation Division, and then to Head of the Human Medicines R&D Support Division.
She was member of the EMA Executive Board from 2013 until she retired in 2020.
In this roles, Dr Alteri was part of many high impact EMA’s initiatives, from the transparency of clinical trial data to the development of regulatory science strategy to 2025.
Dr Alteri has been consulting for the Swiss regulatory agency (Swissmedic), and is currently member of the Scientific Committee and faculty of the Master Course in Drug R&D of the University of Geneva. Dr Alteri regularly gives lectures on various aspects of R&D at the Universities of Rome, Cattolica and LUISS, and at the European Course in Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of Basel. Moreover, she is member of the CIOMS Working Group XIII (Real World Data/Real World Evidence), and the CIOMS. Working Group Education. Most recently, she has been appointed as Core Member of the Proposal Review Committee of Unitaid for a 3-year period.

Marie-Claire is a pioneering international expert in sustainability, law and public policy innovation. An award-winning expert jurist, executive and law professor specialised in corporate social responsibility, climate law and governance, sustainable trade and ethical investment rules, she is Visiting Chair of Sustainable Development Law and Policy at the University of Cambridge, and also serves as Senior Director of the global Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL). Having assisted in drafting the Paris Agreement, she has published over 24 books and 160 papers with world-class presses, edited five law journals and a Cambridge University Press book series, advised the United Nations and key countries, and helps purpose-led companies to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.