Dr Will McCully is Co-Founder of Aithena, the company behind MLRcle, an AI-powered Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (MLR) review tool for the pharma and life sciences industries. A clinical pharmacist by background with six years in the NHS, Will brings nearly two decades of experience across healthcare and pharma, spanning regional and global roles in medical affairs and commercial strategy at companies including GSK and Gilead. As a final signatory, he drove the strategic development, approval, and regulatory compliance of high-impact materials for patients and healthcare professionals, and served on the Medical Science Liaison Committee. At Aithena, he is applying that signatory experience to AI, helping pharma teams compress MLR review cycles from weeks to days without compromising quality.
Our Mission
At Aithena, we want to eliminate the friction of the Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (MLR) review process in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries, so that medical affairs and marketing professionals can focus on what they do best: enhancing patient care and driving innovation.
Our Story
Founded by two pharma insiders
Aithena was founded by two people who had lived the problem they are now solving. Will McCully spent his career as a content creator, reviewer, and final medical signatory across four pharma companies, including GSK and Gilead. Hank Du brought commercial leadership from senior consulting roles in pharma. Both hold PhDs and describe themselves as scientists at heart, and both were in clinical practice at the patient level — so we understand the downstream impact this work has on patients.
Selected for the LSE Generate accelerator
By then the cost of MLR review was clear from the inside: weeks of cycle time per asset, and hundreds of pounds per document in external review fees. The LSE Generate accelerator gave Will and Hank the space to develop the solution that became MLRcle as it is today.
MLRcle meets the industry
One of the first times Aithena's flagship product, MLRcle, went in front of the people was at an industry event, Reuters Pharma Europe. The audience were immediately intrigued as they knew the MLR pains all too well themselves.
Independently examined
MLRcle completed its SOC 2 Type 1 audit and third-party penetration testing. Security controls are monitored continuously and published in our Trust Centre.
Full steam ahead and no signs of slowing
MLRcle is helping pharma and life cycle companies globally ensure their materials are compliant and to speed up their MLR review cycles. Aithena is working on additional tools to support the whole ecosystem of how pharma works.
Our Team
We are a UK-based team of pharma industry professionals, researchers, marketers and developers who have first-hand experience of the problems we are aiming to solve through MLRcle and our other products.
Dr Hank Du co-founded Aithena, the company behind MLRcle, an AI-powered Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (MLR) review tool for the pharma and life sciences industries. A clinical pharmacist trained in public health at Cardiff University and health policy and finance at LSE, Hank worked at Boehringer Ingelheim as a market access consultant and MSL manager. He built promotional and non-promotional materials for payers and clinicians, from budget-impact models to value dossiers, and reviewed materials and activities for code compliance, gaining first-hand insight into the repetition and bottlenecks inside pharma workflows, MLR review among them. At Aithena, he leads product, systems design, technical direction, and operations, combining clinical, commercial, and technical perspectives to architect AI that helps pharma teams move fast without losing quality.
Bob Du
Bob is a technology leader with over 30 years of experience in the telecom and network communication sector. He is a serving member of the Board of Directors at Connection Technology Systems Inc. and former Chairman of Askey Computer Corp., both publicly traded companies renowned for their impact on the technology industry. With his extensive expertise in building successful companies, Bob plays a crucial role in guiding Aithena in its strategic vision of innovation and global growth.
Paula Abiona is the Marketing Lead at Aithena, the company behind MLRcle, an AI-powered Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (MLR) review tool for the pharma and life sciences industries. Paula has years of marketing and operations experience across different industries: digital learning, construction, and social media. Her strengths lie in building systems that support team productivity, breathing life into marketing campaigns and seeing high-yield opportunities within everyday work. She has a BA in Journalism Studies with Employment Experience from the University of Sheffield. At Aithena, Paula leads the Marketing department, owning brand, growth, partnerships and events.
Joy Wong is the Product & Operations Associate at Aithena, the company behind MLRcle, an AI-powered Medical, Legal, and Regulatory (MLR) review tool for the pharma and life sciences industries. Joy has experience as a Research Associate in healthcare consultancy and market research, supporting pharmaceutical and biotech clients across healthcare research, evidence generation, patient insights, survey design, and qualitative and quantitative analysis. She has a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Health Psychology from University College London (UCL). At Aithena, Joy works in the Product team supporting product development, operations and customer-facing projects across Aithena. She is the point of connection between our products and customer needs.