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Kate Bingham
Dame Catherine Elizabeth Bingham (born 19 October 1965) is a British venture capitalist, who is a managing partner at a venture capital firm, SV Health Investors. In 2020, Bingham chaired the government's Vaccine Taskforce, steering procurement of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
Bingham was born in London, the only daughter of the barrister and judge Tom Bingham (later Lord Bingham of Cornhill) and Elizabeth (née Loxley) and the eldest of their three children. She attended St Paul's Girls' School, London, before going on to study at the University of Oxford where she was an undergraduate student of Christ Church, Oxford. She graduated with a first-class MA in biochemistry.
Bingham then pursued further studies at Harvard Business School, taking the degree of MBA. She has an honorary doctorate from Imperial College London.
Bingham worked in business development for Vertex Pharmaceuticals and consultants Monitor Company before joining Schroder Ventures in 1991 (now SV Health Investors). She became a managing partner specializing in biotechnology, and has served on the boards of companies in the UK, US, Ireland, Sweden and Germany.
As of January 2021, Bingham is listed as being a director of the following active companies: Mestag Therapeutics Ltd; Cybele Therapeutics Ltd; Bicycle tx Ltd; Bicycle Therapeutics plc; Sitryx Therapeutics Ltd; Pulmocide Ltd; Autifony Therapeutics Ltd; Bicycle RD Ltd; SV Health Investors Ltd (whose subsidiaries include the Dementia Discovery Fund); and SV Health Managers LLP.
She also serves on the boards of the Francis Crick Institute and the British government's Advanced Research and Invention Agency.
In May 2020, Bingham was appointed chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, without a competitive recruitment process. The taskforce was set up to manage the path towards the introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine in the UK and its global distribution. In this temporary unpaid role, which finished at the end of the year, she reported to the prime minister, Boris Johnson. In October, she was one of the participants in a trial of a vaccine by Novavax. Her work on the UK's vaccination rollout programme has been praised by scientists and international media, particularly for securing 350 million doses of six vaccines and setting up infrastructure for clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution.
According to leaked documents seen in November 2020 by The Sunday Times, Bingham charged taxpayers £670,000 for a team of eight full-time consultants from London public relations agency Admiral Associates. In his 2024 memoir Unleashed, Johnson wrote that criticism of this expenditure was unwarranted because "she was in fact trying to gauge public sentiment about vaccines – an absolutely crucial consideration given some of the challenges we were to face in the subsequent roll-out".
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Kate Bingham
Dame Catherine Elizabeth Bingham (born 19 October 1965) is a British venture capitalist, who is a managing partner at a venture capital firm, SV Health Investors. In 2020, Bingham chaired the government's Vaccine Taskforce, steering procurement of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
Bingham was born in London, the only daughter of the barrister and judge Tom Bingham (later Lord Bingham of Cornhill) and Elizabeth (née Loxley) and the eldest of their three children. She attended St Paul's Girls' School, London, before going on to study at the University of Oxford where she was an undergraduate student of Christ Church, Oxford. She graduated with a first-class MA in biochemistry.
Bingham then pursued further studies at Harvard Business School, taking the degree of MBA. She has an honorary doctorate from Imperial College London.
Bingham worked in business development for Vertex Pharmaceuticals and consultants Monitor Company before joining Schroder Ventures in 1991 (now SV Health Investors). She became a managing partner specializing in biotechnology, and has served on the boards of companies in the UK, US, Ireland, Sweden and Germany.
As of January 2021, Bingham is listed as being a director of the following active companies: Mestag Therapeutics Ltd; Cybele Therapeutics Ltd; Bicycle tx Ltd; Bicycle Therapeutics plc; Sitryx Therapeutics Ltd; Pulmocide Ltd; Autifony Therapeutics Ltd; Bicycle RD Ltd; SV Health Investors Ltd (whose subsidiaries include the Dementia Discovery Fund); and SV Health Managers LLP.
She also serves on the boards of the Francis Crick Institute and the British government's Advanced Research and Invention Agency.
In May 2020, Bingham was appointed chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, without a competitive recruitment process. The taskforce was set up to manage the path towards the introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine in the UK and its global distribution. In this temporary unpaid role, which finished at the end of the year, she reported to the prime minister, Boris Johnson. In October, she was one of the participants in a trial of a vaccine by Novavax. Her work on the UK's vaccination rollout programme has been praised by scientists and international media, particularly for securing 350 million doses of six vaccines and setting up infrastructure for clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution.
According to leaked documents seen in November 2020 by The Sunday Times, Bingham charged taxpayers £670,000 for a team of eight full-time consultants from London public relations agency Admiral Associates. In his 2024 memoir Unleashed, Johnson wrote that criticism of this expenditure was unwarranted because "she was in fact trying to gauge public sentiment about vaccines – an absolutely crucial consideration given some of the challenges we were to face in the subsequent roll-out".