Oxford Nanopore strengthens executive leadership team

Appointment of first Chief Medical Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief People officer

Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc (LSE: ONT), the company delivering a new generation of nanopore based molecular sensing, today announces the appointments of Davide Manissero MD as Chief Medical Officer, Andrew Watson as Chief Information Officer and the joining of Tina St Leger as Chief People Officer. Together, these roles strengthen the Company’s leadership as it expands into clinical and regulated markets while scaling its data, software and machine learning capabilities.

As Oxford Nanopore’s first Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Davide will lead the Company’s global clinical strategy leveraging his considerable experience across regulated clinical environments. Davide joins from Radiometer (a Danaher company), where he is currently CMO. He previously served as CMO at QIAGEN, leading global medical and clinical affairs, and held roles at ECDC and the WHO focused on infectious diseases and public health.

Andrew Watson will lead the Company’s information systems, data, digital transformation, machine learning, and product software development. He will focus on scaling the Company’s digital and customer-facing platforms, improving user experience, and embedding machine learning across its technology and product development. Andrew joins from Mimecast, where he leads AI and threat protection engineering. He has previously held senior roles at Healx and Dyson, where he established machine learning and biomedical research teams.

Tina St Leger joins as Chief People Officer. She will lead the company’s people strategy, with a focus on building organisational capability at scale and supporting the continued development of a high-performing, globally connected workforce. Tina brings deep experience from life sciences including CPO roles at Immunocore and GW Pharmaceuticals, and senior HR roles at GSK.

Francis Van Parys, Chief Executive Officer of Oxford Nanopore, commented: “Oxford Nanopore has built a strong track record of innovation, and we are now building on that with focus on execution and scaling. Davide and Andrew bring deep expertise in clinical development, data and machine learning, strengthening our ability to scale our business and translate our technology into real-world impact in research and healthcare.”

Davide Manissero, MD, added: “What drew me to Oxford Nanopore is the ability to generate rich biological information, rapidly, and the potential to bring this benefit to traditional and broader care settings. That opens up possibilities you don’t see with many existing technologies. The opportunity now is to focus on where this can genuinely enhance clinical decisions and patient outcomes. I’m looking forward to working with our teams, customers and partners to help deliver on this promise.”

Andrew Watson, said: “Oxford Nanopore’s technology sits at the intersection of biology, data, and advanced computing, creating a powerful platform for innovation. I am excited to help scale the Company’s digital and software capabilities, harness machine learning across the company and product portfolio, and deliver seamless, high-performance user experiences that enable customers to extract maximum value from their data as adoption continues to grow.”

Tina St Leger said: “I am excited to be joining a high growth, positive impact environment and to work with our leadership and broader teams. Together, we will continue to build a high-performing organisation with a fantastic culture that can scale with ambition and deliver sustained impact.”

Andrew Watson and Davide Manissero join the Company on 15 June and 3 August respectively. Their appointments follow the announcement that Tina St Leger will join Oxford Nanopore as Chief People Officer in June 2026. Davide, Andrew and Tina will join the Executive team.