BioLeaders

Cell & Gene Therapy Specialist and Board Member (October 2023) Dr Sven Kili, is Principal at Sven Kili Consulting Ltd. where he provides specialist strategic consulting services to innovative Cell & Gene Therapy companies. His clients include small and medium sized companies from creation through to clinical development and commercialisation, as well as investors. He has deep experience in all stages of Cell & Gene Therapy development, including previous roles as CEO of Antion Biosciences, where he built an academic team into a financed, development company focussed on engineered CAR-T therapies; he was also Head of Development for the [...]

Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Draupnir Bio, Co-founder of Teitur Trophics and Muna Therapeutics (September 2023) Simon Glerup is CSO, co-founder and board member of Draupnir Bio, co-founder of Teitur Trophics, and co-founder of Muna Therapeutics. He is also associate professor at Aarhus University and committee member at the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Prior to spinning out Draupnir, Muna and Teitur from his Aarhus University laboratory in the period between 2017-2020, Simon was leading a research team focused on studying a particular class of membrane proteins involved in neurological and metabolic disorders. The scientific work formed the basis of [...]

Serial Entrepreneur and Value Creator for European Life Science (September 2023) Serial entrepreneur and value creator in European life science companies. As CEO built two businesses (Oxford Asymmetry International plc and Ablynx nv), led their successful IPOs on the LSE, EuroNext and NASDAQ and raised over €500M in equity and debt financing. Was responsible for developing the business plans and implementing them. Ran the sales process for each company generating values of £316M (Evotec) and €3.9Bn (Sanofi) respectively. Expertise in high value service provision to the pharmaceutical industry and in drug discovery and development. At Ablynx, oversaw the whole [...]

Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Gene Technology (August 2023) Adrian Smith is the CEO of Oxford Gene Technology, a Genomic testing company working in the areas of cancer and hereditary disease. Prior to joining Oxford Gene Technology, Adrian spent 8 years at Hologic initially as the head of Hologic’s UK&I In vitro Diagnostics Division and latterly as General Manager/ Managing Director of the Hologic Divisions including medical imaging and surgery alongside IVD. From 2010 to 2014 Adrian was EMEA Marketing Director for Women’s Health and cancer screening at QIAGEN. From 2003 to 2010 Adrian held various commercial roles at Roche [...]

Chief Executive Officer, SynaptixBio (July 2023) Dan Williams is an accomplished biopharmaceuticals leader with two decades of industrial experience from bench to operational and scientific executive roles. During his career Dan has served as Vice President of Research Operations at Adaptimmune PLC. and Chief Product Officer at Meatable B.V. Dr. Williams is the CEO and co-founder of SynaptixBio LTD., a developer of therapeutics to treat TUBB4A leukodystrophy. Key milestones in your career journey to date? The decision to keep my education broad, including my PhD from Dundee, proved invaluable; along with being in the right place at the right [...]

Managing Partner, Jeito Capital (July 2023) Sabine Dandiguian is Managing Partner at Jeito Capital and has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and medical devices industry. These years of experience have enabled her to acquire in-depth operational and strategic capacities, particularly in market access, innovative "business models" and management. She has spent the last 20 years at Johnson & Johnson, in operational positions of increasing responsibility, notably at Janssen (Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical sector) as President France in 2005, then Managing Director of European emerging countries, in charge of a cluster covering Russia, Turkey, the Middle East [...]

Chief Executive Officer, Engimmune Therapeutics (June 2023) Lars Nieba serves as CEO of Engimmune Therapeutics, a biotech company developing soluble, multispecific TCRs as therapy for solid tumours and auto-immune diseases. Lars brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in the development of several pharmaceutical products and innovative technologies. He was CTO and CEO at Nordic Nanovector, a biotech company developing novel radio-immunoconjugates for treating cancers, before that he served as VP and Strategic Product Lead at Bayer and held several leadership roles at F. Hoffmann-La Roche responsible for clinical operations, clinical supply planning, biologics technology and business development. [...]

Chief Executive Officer, Nykode Therapeutics (May 2023) Michael Engsig joined Nykode Therapeutics in 2017. He is a broadly anchored pharmaceutical professional with extensive experience, from early-stage drug discovery to late-stage development and product launches in biotech and pharma and across all major geographical areas. His career history includes specialist and managerial roles at Takeda and Nycomed. Michael holds a civil engineering (MSc) degree in chemistry specializing in biotechnology from the Technical University of Denmark, and a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (HD) in organization and leadership from the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Key milestones in your career journey to [...]

Board Director Cantargia AB, Targovax ASA, CytoSeek, Imophoron, Resolys Bio (May 2023) Damian Marron is an experienced Board Chair and Non-Executive Director, corporate advisor and former serial Biotech CEO with a successful track record of value creation through public and venture capital financing, portfolio planning, M&A, licensing agreements and R&D collaborations, both as an executive and in advisory roles. He has notably specialized in immuno-oncology, cell therapy and orphan diseases. Damian is currently Non-Executive Chair of the Board at Targovax ASA, Imophoron Ltd and CytoSeek Ltd and Non-Executive Director at Cantargia AB and Resolys Bio Inc. He is also [...]

Chief Executive Officer, Stablepharma, Board Director and Investor (April 2023) Özgür Tuncer has over two decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry with deep expertise in executive leadership, strategy, M&A and investments. Most recently, he was Global Vice President in IQVIA, leading company’s Financial Investors practice. In that role, Özgür was involved in more than 300 industry-shaping transactions with valuations of $100m-10bn+, working with world’s leading Private Equity & Venture Capital investors. In addition to being the CEO & Executive Director of Stablepharma, Özgür is an investment partner with Ascension Ventures and co-founder of the Ascension Life Fund. In [...]