David Lawrence

Independent Non-Executive Director

David started his career with GSK (Glaxo at the time) as a graduate trainee in Finance. During his 13 years at GSK he held several increasingly senior positions in Finance as well as commercial and information management roles. He worked on the integrations of Wellcome and SmithKline.

Following GSK David was VP of Finance, Business Development and Strategy at Chiron Vaccines before becoming CFO of Acambis plc – a FTSE and Nasdaq dual listed vaccine company based in Cambridge UK and Cambridge MA.

Between 2006 and 2015 David turned his focus to early stage companies and advising Venture Capitalists (and Angel investor groups). Start-ups include Synpromics, a Scottish based synthetic biology business, which was acquired by Ask in 2019 and generated substantial returns for investors, including Scottish Enterprise.
In 2017 David joined Valneva, a Vienna based vaccine biotech business, as CFO, having previously advised MVM (a successful London and Boston based investment fund) on its investment into Valneva in 2016. David was a member of the Management Board at Valneva, leading the finance and investor relations functions for the company. He developed the company’s capital strategy culminating in a successful Nasdaq IPO in 2021 and led several fundraisings for the company including both debt and equity.

During his career David developed extensive international experience and has spent considerable time in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

In his spare time David can often be found in the mountains of Scotland where he plans to complete all 282 munros in 2022. He’s an active runner, golfer and former rugby coach. David is married with two teenage kids.