Robert Allen, Ph.D.

Rob is one of three Managing Partners who run the Dark Horse Consulting Group practice (the other two being DHC’s Founder and CEO Anthony Davies, Ph.D., and DHC’s COO, Katy Spink, Ph.D.). Rob joined DHC in early 2019 as a Principal on what was then a much smaller consulting team. His expertise ranged from manufacturing to process development to regulatory, as well as project/program management, market research, and due diligence/business strategy. During his tenure, the UK-based team grew rapidly (from two individuals to thirteen as of 2022) and in 2021, Rob became General Manager of the UK office and European team.

During his career, Rob has been a part of companies ranging in size and development stage from small entrepreneurial organizations to large corporate pharmaceutical companies. Before joining DHC back in 2019, Rob served as Senior Director of Immunotherapy at Asterias Biotherapeutics, a small biopharmaceutical company developing embryonic stem cell-derived therapeutics for spinal injury and cancer. As a project leader in the biopharmaceutical industry with broad understanding of cell therapies and biologics development, Rob oversaw overall development strategy, cross functional team leadership and clinical trial initiation of the company’s allogeneic cancer immunotherapy platform therapy. He delivered substantial progress of the cancer immunotherapy pipeline asset and a large part of his role was representing the organization to investors and at scientific conferences.

Earlier in his career, Rob’s focus was on clinical research and clinical trial management. Site selection and monitoring, patient recruitment, trial negotiation, and data collection were parts of his early responsibilities at ICON and Parexel. Moving into managerial roles at Johnson and Johnson, and Amgen, Rob led clinical studies from Phase I to IV. He led teams of clinical research associates, CROs and suppliers, while reporting on recruitment, study milestones, data collection plus other key quality and performance drivers.

At Amgen, Rob moved from Global Clinical Trial Manager to International Program Manager for oncology and hematology products. He was responsible for management of international development, medical, and branding teams for marketed and pipeline development assets. He used integrated project management best practices in global programs to ensure project delivery and alignment with regional and global commercialization strategies. At Circassia, as Associate Director of Project Management, Rob’s responsibilities shifted to a heavy focus on international regulatory submissions, development planning, and resolution of manufacturing deficiencies. He drove program management through the development of a Target Product Profile (TPP) to deliver project resourcing, oversight and reporting to senior management.