The board of Oval Medical Technologies Limited (‘Oval’) announces that effective from 1st May 2013, Barbara Lead has succeeded Dr Catherine Beech as Chief Executive Officer of Oval Medical Technologies Limited.

Catherine was instrumental in establishing Oval with Matthew Young in late 2009 and completing the initial Angel financing in early 2010. Since then, with her support and leadership, the Company successfully completed a second Angel round and a third financing attracting an investment from AptarGroup Inc. She was instrumental in executing a number of commercial deals.

Catherine is an experienced non-executive director and adviser to healthcare businesses and was not a full time employee of Oval until she was persuaded to take over the CEO role from Matthew Young in late 2011 and even then she retained a number of outside interests. It was Catherine’s intention that she revert back to advising a number of businesses and effective from the end of April the Board and she reached arrangement to achieve this.

Barbara Lead is an existing non-executive director of Oval and therefore knows the business well. She has over twenty years’ experience in leading pharmaceutical companies, having worked with a number of companies including Fisons, Rhone Poulenc Rorer, Orion Pharma and Akela Pharma.

Barbara has considerable experience in the development and commercialisation of drug device combinations, having been involved in bringing 15 products to the market and more recently in medical device development as a Director of Anaxsys Technology Ltd. Her experience and leadership skills are ideal for the next stage of the company’s development as it concentrates on bringing development projects to a conclusion, conducting clinical trials and commercialising the company’s products.