Welcome to Synthistat Ltd

Arfan Afzal our Chairman brings strategic oversight and cross-sector leadership to the company’s mission of advancing synthetic HDAC inhibitor therapeutics and engineered producer cell lines.

With decades of experience in international investment, regulatory governance, and board-level advisory, he supports Synthistat’s executive team in shaping IP strategy, commercialisation pathways, and global partnerships.

His guidance plays a key role in aligning the company’s scientific innovation with scalable, real-world applications across the CDMO, academic, and pharmaceutical sectors.

Email: arfan@synthisat.com

Zakeria Abdi is an experienced innovator in the CDMO and drug discovery space, with specialist expertise in HDAC inhibitor pharmacology and lentiviral vector (LVV) production enhancement.

He holds an MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Distinction) from Aston University, where he developed a strong foundation in medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, and translational drug development.

During his tenure at Virocell Biologics, Zakeria led pioneering work investigating the usage of clincally approved HDACi for improved viral vector yield. Most notably, he discovered and published that the synthetic HDAC inhibitor Panobinostat significantly outperforms sodium butyrate for lentiviral vector production (Abdi et al., 2025). These findings were presented at the ISCT Annual Meeting 2025, highlighting a scalable and translatable strategy for LVV yield enhancement.

Building on a structure-based understanding of HDAC inhibition and LVV induction biology, Zakeria at Synthistat identified opportunities to design proprietary next-generation HDAC inhibitors with superior vector induction capacity and improved pharmacological properties.

Beyond small-molecule innovation, he is also leading the company to advance gene-modified producer cell lines, designed to enhance viral vector yield and consistency through rational engineering of epigenetic and innate immune pathways. 

Email: zak@synthisat.com

 Dr George Okafo, BSc., PhD., ARCS. (Senior Scientific Advisor)

George Okafo is a seasoned scientific leader and R&D executive with over 30-year track record of driving innovation from early discovery to market in the pharmaceutical industry. 

His expertise spans building high-performing teams, pioneering novel discovery platforms, managing significant R&D budgets to deliver tangible outcomes and contributing to advancing drugs from discovery to market. This is exemplified in the successful delivery of Alvimopan (ENTEREG®) and Tafenoquine (KRINTAFEL®) during his tenure at GSK.

He holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry and a PhD in Chemical Carcinogenesis, both from Imperial College London.

George has pioneered novel discovery approaches during his career, where he led AI/ML-driven drug discovery programs for glioblastoma and introduced tunnelling nanotube biology to the pharma industry, securing multi-million-dollar funding and building global academic partnerships to identify new therapeutic targets. Most recently, he built and led a global healthcare data analytics team at Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany, deploying an end-to-end platform that generated scientific insights from global biobanks for over 5 novel early-stage drug discovery programs.

An author of over 60 scientific publications across many scientific areas, George has launched international conferences and served as a reviewer for Nature Scientific Reports. He is a proven leader in strategic budget management, pre-clinical due diligence, pre-clinical drug discovery, biobank data and building high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams.

    Email: info@synthistat.com