Executive Chairman

David is the founder and Chairman of Sheffield based diversified engineering group OSL Group Holding Ltd and a senior figure within the Cutlers’ Company. David set up his first company in 1980 and has built up his business, by acquisition and organic growth, to a group of five manufacturing companies based in the UK, USA and Germany, serving a global market. 

He was awarded an MBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List for his Services to Industry and Regeneration in Sheffield, has served on the Sheffield City Region LEP as well as many of the other Region’s boards including Sheffield City board. 

He has recently stepped down from a 7 year tenure as Chairman of Cavendish Cancer Care Charity having recently negotiated and guided the charity through a merger with Weston Park Cancer Care. The enlarged charity is now the largest cancer charity in the Sheffield Region. David’s wealth of experience serves mainly to provide advice and strategic direction to the Elixir Board as it pursues its growth strategy.

CEO & Co-Founder

Paul co-founded Elixir Software, with a focus on improving communication between scientists, managers, and external partners. From his industry experience in senior positions at AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen and Tularik, he set out to simplify complex workflows and enhance transparency, enabling teams to focus more on scientific discovery.

Expanding on this success, Paul led the development of advanced Design-Make-Test-Analyze (DMTA) capabilities within iTraX™, transforming how organizations manage complex experimental workflows.

As a leader in scientific collaboration technology, Paul continues to help the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries work more transparently and efficiently, enabling researchers to spend more time on what matters most; advancing science.

CTO & Co-Founder

Martin has over 20 years of software development experience in the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical sectors including AstraZeneca, Amgen, Tularik, Protherics and Proteus Molecular Design. His activities have focussed on the integration of chemoinformatics with process management and scheduling to support the Design-Make-Test-Analyze (DMTA) cycle of the drug discovery process. He has won numerous awards including an AstraZeneca Global Innovation Award for contributing to effective management of global drug discovery projects.

At Elixir Software Ltd, Martin’s extensive experience in agile development across both Scrum and Kanban frameworks, complements his skills in test-driven development and product ownership. As the original author and product owner of the web-based iTraX™ workflow solution, he has played a pivotal role in shaping a tool that exemplifies our commitment to improving R&D project delivery through better team working.

Technical Director

David has experience of creating innovative partnerships across academia and industry. With a career spanning more than 25 years across academia, and pharmaceutical R&D in AstraZeneca, he has embraced synthetic and medicinal chemistry, the development of chemical technologies, and science policy shaping successful R&D.

As well as overseeing medicinal chemistry programmes and implementing technology platforms, David initiated early Discovery outsourcing at AstraZeneca, Alderley Park. His extensive knowledge from working with collaborators world-wide, and understanding of successful partnering underpins the business aims.

Commercial Director

David joined Elixir Software as Commercial Director, in 2020 and is responsible for the commercial strategy of the company. Through his global experience and direct interactions with people across the industry he is always seeking ways for the commercial team to serve customers better. His fundamental rule is to listen to the customer in order to discover and understand their needs. 

David has been responsible for strategic commercial growth at Cresset and also previously held senior business development positions at Symyx Technologies and CambridgeSoft. David has a PhD and BSc in Microbiology from the University of Wales, Cardiff.

Head of Infrastructure

Ray brings over 25 years of experience as both a software and network engineer, having worked with several blue-chip companies on a broad range of projects. His career has been marked by a deep commitment to improving software quality and streamlining development processes. For over a decade, Ray has leveraged AWS to design and deploy robust, scalable solutions, and he has been involved with Elixir since its early days, contributing to its evolution and adoption in modern software development.



With extensive expertise in software architecture, networking, infrastructure, and task automation, Ray has successfully introduced methodologies like Test-Driven-Development (TDD) and Continuous-Integration (CI) to enhance productivity and quality across development teams. His focus on ensuring that platforms are both secure and scalable continues to drive innovation and build resilient systems that meet the demands of today’s digital landscape.

Head of Global Sales

Nicola has extensive industry knowledge in SaaS solutions for the scientific market. Prior to Elixir, Nicola gained commercial experience at Torx Software (responsible for the commercial delivery of DMTA SaaS solutions to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry across EMEA and North America) and the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as industry experience at AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.

Nicola has a 1st Class Master’s Degree in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Leeds.

Head of Global Sales

Bio goes here.