FibroFind Appoints Co-Founder Lee Borthwick as CEO as Preclinical CRO Doubles in Size and Expands Leadership Team

• FibroFind, a Newcastle-based preclinical CRO providing biopharmaceutical companies with precision-cut human tissue slice testing using proprietary bioreactor technology, has appointed co-founder Lee Borthwick as Chief Executive Officer, succeeding fellow co-founder Jelena Mann who transitions to a non-executive director role.

• The leadership change coincides with a period of rapid growth that has seen FibroFind more than double its team from 15 to 32 in the past 12 months, alongside three senior appointments — Chief Business Officer Mark Chadwick, Chief Financial Officer Laurence Provost, and Chair Andy Black — as the company scales its operations to meet growing biopharma client demand.

FibroFind, a preclinical CRO specializing in human-relevant tissue-based testing for biopharmaceutical drug development, has appointed Lee Borthwick as Chief Executive Officer, effective June 10, 2026, from Newcastle, UK. Borthwick, a co-founder of the company and its former Chief Scientific Officer, succeeds fellow co-founder Jelena Mann, who led the organization for seven years and transitions to a non-executive director role, providing continued strategic scientific oversight.

The appointment marks the beginning of a deliberate next phase of growth for FibroFind, supported by a simultaneous expansion of the company’s senior leadership team. Mark Chadwick joins as Chief Business Officer, bringing over 30 years of experience across biotech, CRO, and platform technology companies, with responsibility for commercial strategy and biopharma partnership development. Laurence Provost joins as Chief Financial Officer with experience in private equity-backed and high-growth environments, tasked with building the financial and operational infrastructure to support the scaling business. Andy Black joins as Chair, bringing a track record of scaling a global life sciences service business to a successful exit, and will provide governance and strategic oversight across the company’s growth program.

FibroFind’s CRO platform is built around precision-cut human tissue slices cultured using proprietary bioreactor technology that preserves native tissue structure and function. The system enables controlled, extended study in living human tissue — providing biopharmaceutical sponsors with human-relevant preclinical evidence spanning target identification and validation, lead optimization, and pharmacology and toxicology studies. The platform is designed to address the translational gap between conventional preclinical models and clinical outcomes, particularly in the context of chronic disease research including fibrosis, where the predictive limitations of animal models have contributed to high late-stage clinical failure rates.

The leadership transition follows a period of sustained growth. Over the past 12 months FibroFind has more than doubled in size, expanding from a team of 15 to 32 scientists, technical specialists, and operational experts. Since its founding in 2019 as a university spin-out and its subsequent transition to a standalone entity backed by Vespa Capital, Borthwick has been central to developing the precision-cut tissue platform and establishing its application within drug discovery and preclinical research programs through academic and industry collaborations.

“Taking on the role as CEO is an important next step for me and the business as we embark on the next stage of our growth trajectory. My focus over the next 12 months will be to help scale the business and our operations to serve the needs of our growing client base and be recognized as the global benchmark for human-relevant evidence in discovery and preclinical decision-making.”

Lee Borthwick, Chief Executive Officer, FibroFind