Katya Smirnyagina
Senior Partner, Head of Life Sciences
Katya is an experienced venture capitalist with more than 20 years in the biotechnology industry. She joined Oxford Science Enterprises in September 2021 and leads the Life Sciences team, overseeing investments, new company creation, and the scale-up of existing businesses, while providing hands-on support to academic founders from early scientific-development to go-to-market strategies.
Katya started her VC career in 2002 with Alta Partners, a healthcare-focused fund in the US, followed by Capricorn Partners in Belgium. She has been a director of a number of public and private companies in Europe and is the former Vice-Chair of InvestEurope. She has a global network across the life sciences, finance, and healthcare industries.
Katya holds a PhD in Cellular & Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, followed by a post-doc in Microbiology & Immunology from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
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We partner with specialist global investors to fund and scale our companies – from pre-seed to growth. Together, OSE and our co-investors have invested more than £3bn.