Jonathan Knowles

Professor Jonathan K.C. Knowles 

Visiting Professor, FIMM, HiLIFE, University of Helsinki, Finland

Visiting Professor, University of Oxford, U.K.

Professor Emeritus, EPFL, Switzerland

Professor Knowles was Head of Group Research and Member of the Executive Committee at Roche up to the end of 2009. He was a member of the Genentech Board for the last 12 years and a member of the Chugai Board for seven years. In this role he had oversight of an R&D budget of more than 8 Billion €.  Prof. Knowles was also the chairman of the Corporate Governance Committee of Genentech. Under his leadership, the company developed and implemented a strategy of highly effective therapies based on personalized healthcare.

He was, for 5 years, the Chairman of the Research Directors’ Group of EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations) and was the first chairman of the Board of the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a unique public-private partnership between 28 Pharmaceutical companies and the European Commission with the participation of over 200 academic institutions in Europe with a budget of more than 5 Billion Euros over ten years.

Prior to this, he served as Director of the Glaxo Institute in Geneva for 10 years and as Head of European Research for Glaxo Wellcome.

Prof Knowles attended Magdalen College School in Oxford and received a First Class Honours Degree in Molecular Genetics from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. He received his Ph.D. in Genetics of Mitochondria with Professor G. H. Beale F.R.S. from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Jonathan Knowles held a Distinguished Professorship in Personalised medicine at FIMM (Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland) at the University of Helsinki 2010-2014 and his work at FIMM continues as Visiting Professor.  Jonathan Knowles is also Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford, Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, Professor Emeritus at EPFL, Lausanne and a visiting Scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

In 2011, Jonathan Knowles was appointed as a Trustee of Cancer Research UK, one of the world’s leading Cancer Research Organisations and as  Board member of A*Star, the leading state research organisation in Singapore. He is currently Chairman of Immunocore Ltd. and Adaptimmune Ltd, two leading UK Cancer Immunotherapy companies and serves as a non-executive member of a number of Biotech company boards and on the international scientific advisory boards of several Public Organisations.

In April 2015 Jonathan Knowles was named as the Personalized Medicine World Conference 2015 Honorary.