Independent advisory practice
The independent practice of Tom Fleming. A decade building and scaling an autonomous drug discovery company, brought to the founders, boards, and investors building the future of the life sciences.
The premise
The science is hard. The timelines are long. Capital is patient or it is gone, and the people building it are usually doing several jobs at once.
What they rarely have is an advisor who has actually done all of it: someone who understands the science and the engineering, has built and scaled a company through those pressures, and can hold the boardroom and the policy room in the same conversation. Crucible Consulting is that advisor.
The difference
Most advisors in deep tech are one of two things: a strategist who has never run a lab, or an academic who has never managed a cap table. Tom Fleming is neither.
He is an operator-scientist. Real scientific and engineering depth alongside real commercial and leadership depth, from someone who built and scaled a category-defining company rather than advising it from the outside. That is the practice's defensible edge, and everything else ladders back to it: an operator, not a career consultant; both sides of the science-and-business divide, not one; in the room, not reporting from a distance.
What you get
Tom reads the science, the engineering, and the commercial reality at once, so the advice holds up technically and commercially, not just on a slide.
Proof. Chemist by training (MChem); executive MBA (LSE, NYU Stern, HEC Paris).
Judgment earned by building. Tom has hit the operational milestones and made the hard calls, so he knows what a plan costs to execute.
Proof. A decade as co-founder, COO and CEO of Arctoris; built the Ulysses® platform.
Crucible designs and stands up new operating and funding models across the full spectrum of research-organisation design.
Proof. Pioneered the PRO model; experience across CRO, PRO and FRO structures.
A cross-sector network put to work for clients, with senior government standing on science, AI, and sovereign capability.
Proof. Senior UK government engagement; relationships across pharma, biotech and techbio.
The work
Most relationships combine a few of these, scoped to the moment that matters.
A senior sounding board through start-up and scale-up, with a people-driven approach to teams, culture, and the hard calls.
Category creation, the commercial model, partnerships, and the fundraising narrative.
Non-executive and advisory roles, board effectiveness through growth and pressure, and the investor relationships that decide the next round.
Strategy at the frontier: autonomous labs, closed-loop experimentation, and the structured data that makes biology usable for AI.
Building and launching new models, from CRO and PRO service businesses to FROs, consortia, and funding across public, private, and philanthropic sources.
Convening cross-sector networks across pharma, techbio, government, and philanthropy, and advising on sovereign capability in science and AI.
Track record
Arctoris
A decade as co-founder, COO and CEO of an Oxford-based autonomous drug discovery company.
Ulysses®
Built a fully automated, data-native drug discovery platform.
OpenImmune
Founder and lead of an FRO research consortium spanning academic, clinical, industrial, and AI partners.
New models
Pioneered the Partnership Research Organisation as an AI-ready alternative to the CRO.
Capital
Raised venture and grant funding, designed across public, private, and philanthropic sources.
Government
Senior UK engagement on the life sciences, AI, and sovereign capability.
Qualifications
MChem; executive MBA (LSE, NYU Stern, HEC Paris); FRSC, FRSB, FRSA.
Focus
The UK, with particular depth in the Oxford, Cambridge, and London ecosystem.
A short introductory call, at no charge, to understand your situation and whether Crucible is the right fit.