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 our CEO is an experienced professional in the CDMO innovation field, specialising in developing techniques for improving LVV production.

He also has an academic background in the pharmaceutical sciences, being an MSc Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate from Aston University (Grade Distinction).

Zakeria, with Virocell, most recently discovered and published on how the synthetic HDAC inhibitor, panobinostat, significantly outperforms sodium butyrate for lentiviral vector production (Abdi et al 2025). The findings were presented at the New Orleans ISCT Conference 2025.

As a direct consequence of this discovery and the development of structure based understanding of HDAC inhibitors and improved lentiviral vector induction potential. Zakeria Abdi and Arfan Afzal have launched Synthistat Ltd, to develop novel HDAC inhibitors which can even outperform panobinostat for lentiviral vector production.

In addition, we are exploring the field of gene modified producer lines for viral vector production, utilising our knowledge of lentiviral vector biogenesis, the innate immune system and HIV-1 biology.

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