Speaker Bios
Yuval Binur »
Torbjörn Bjerke »
Conny Bogentoft »
Mark Carthy »
Robert Charpentier »
Andy Davis »
Anil Diwan »
Douglas Fambrough »
William J. Gedale »
Glen Giovanetti »
Udayan Gupta »
Dr. William A. Haseltine »
Karin Hehenberger »
Peter Morgan Kash »
Christian Kinch »
Thomas von Koch »
Johan Kördel »
Dr Laurent Leksell »
James T. Lenehan »
Anders Lindström »
John F. Manzello »
Matthew J. Meyer »
Martin Nicklasson »
Lars Nittve »
Niklas Prager »
Tomas Puusepp »
Dr. Ann H. Rose »
Jeffrey A. Rosen »
Vijay B. Samant »
Camilla Soenderby »
Dr. Eugen Steiner »
Prof. Mathias Uhlén »
Jacob Wallenberg »
Per Olof Wallström »
Hans Wigzell »
Dr. James W. Williams »
Leslie Wolf-Creutzfeldt »
Dr. Kjell Öberg »
Top of page »
Yuval Binurn
Dr. Binur has over 23 years of venture capital experience in the US, Europe and in Israel. In addition to co-founding ATI together with Martin B. Leon, MD and Rick Geoffrion, Dr. Binur has been a founding partner of Medica Venture Partners, a global health care and life sciences venture capital fund operating from Israel. For 9 years prior to co-founding Medica, Dr Binur was a member of Adler & Co., a major U.S. venture capital firm based in New York. He has been a board member of over 30 venture-backed companies in the areas of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, software and electronics among other boards. Dr. Binur was a director of Percutaneous Valve Technologies, Inc. (PVT), a company that has revolutionized the replacement of heart valves and was sold during 2004 to Edwards Lifesciences, Inc. Dr. Binur holds a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and Ph. D. degree in physics.
Top of page »
Torbjörn Bjerke
President and CEO of Orexo AB, MD. Dr Bjerke joined Orexo AB in 2007 and held the position as President and CEO of Biolipox AB from 2004 to 2007. Previously, he has held Director of Research positions at AstraZeneca, and has served as Executive Vice President of R&D at ALK-Abello. Dr. Bjerke serves on the board of directors of NeuroSearch AS and TopoTarget AS.
Top of page »
Conny Bogentoft
CEO of Karolinska Development I and II, Investment companies at Karolinska Institutet. Ph.D in Medicinal Chemistry, Associate Professor in Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Has, with more than 30 years' experience of pharmaceutical industry, as senior R&D management positions and as a member of board of directors for a number of companies, demonstrated his ability to successfully plan, implement and develop clinical and business strategies. Previous appointments include Vice President of Astra Arcus, President of Kabi Invent, Research Director at Aco Läkemedel, and Chairman of the Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Top of page »
Mark Carthy
Founder and general partner Orion lifesciences equity partners Boston US and London UK. Mr. Carthy has more than 20 years of experience operating or investing in lifesciences companies. He is responsible for investments in Salix Pharmaceuticals, ImpactRx, Astex Therapeutics, Solexa, Cyberkinetics, Xanthus, PowderMed, Trubion, Cardiome and Ensemble. Prior to joining Oxford, he was Biotechnology Portfolio Manager at the venture capital firm of Morningside Ventures where he focused on early stage private equity investments. Previously, he was Chief Business Officer of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Senior Director of Business Development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated. He received his B.E. in chemical engineering from University College Dublin, Ireland, an M.S. in chemical engineering from University of Missouri and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Top of page »
Robert Charpentier
Mr Charpentier, born in 1965, graduated with a MSc in economics with a focus on international finance from the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki in 1989. He joined Goldman, Sachs & Co. in London in 1989 where he worked as an analyst and associate before becoming the Executive Director of Debt Capital Markets for Nordic clients. In 1997 Mr Chapentier moved to Sweden and became Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Banking, for Swedbank Markets, the investment and merchant banking unit of the Swedbank Group. In 2000 he was promoted to the position of Executive Vice President at the Swedbank Group as Deputy Head of Swedbank Markets. Finally, in 2006 Mr Charpentier was appointed Managing Director of Kaupthing Bank Sweden.
Top of page »
Andy Davis
Andy Davis is Director, Business Development, at Amgen Inc. Since joining Amgen in Business Development in 2002, he has been instrumental in the acquisitions of Tularik, Abgenix, Avidia, Alantos, and Ilypsa – companies with a combined value of nearly $5 billion. In 2007, he served as Chief-of-Staff for both the Alantos and Ilypsa integrations and also led Amgen’s first spin-out with venture capital backing, Relypsa. Prior to Amgen, Andy spent five years in healthcare strategy consulting. He holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University and received his MBA, with a concentration in Finance, from The Wharton School.
Top of page »
Anil Diwan
Dr. Diwan is the inventor of TheraCour technologies. The nanomaterials based on these technologies form the basis of nanoviricides drugs. A "nanoviricide™” is a specifically targeted antiviral drug that is comprised of a small beacon or ligand which is covalently attached to a polymeric micelle material. Multi-targeting allows binding to the virus particle like a Velcro tape, and Multi-specificity allows highly selective binding to a specific type of virus. Encapsulated API, if any, can get injected into the virus particle. The technology opens up applications to make virus specific drugs against commercially important diseases such as influenzas, HIV/AIDS, and Hepatitis C virus. We believe that it is also possible to make "broad-spectrum" nanoviricides that attack a large range of viruses. This makes it suitable for developing drugs against viral diseases that are of importance in a large portion of the world, but may not be commercially attractive, such as rabies virus, dengue viruses, and others. NanoViricides already has lead drug candidates against HIV/AIDS, against common influenzas, and adenoviral epidemic kerato-conjunctivitis (EKC). We have also developed broad-spectrum nanoviricides that should work against all highly pathogenic (avian) influenzas (HPAI), not just H5N1, but also H7N and H9N. In addition, we are developing drugs against rabies, dengue and other diseases important in the tropical and subtropical world. Anil holds a Ph.D. from Rice University, TX, a B.Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), India, and has consistently held high scholastic ranks and honors. Anil has over 18 years of Bio-Pharmaceuticals R&D experience with 12 years as an entrepreneur.
Top of page »
Douglas Fambrough
Dr. Fambrough is a General Partner for OBP VI, a Partner for OBP V, a Principal for OBP IV and an Associate for OBP III. His focus is on companies developing innovative technologies for pharmaceutical discovery and development. Prior to joining Oxford 1999, Dr. Fambrough was a genomic scientist at the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research (now known as the Broad Institute). He graduated from Cornell University and obtained his Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Fambrough’s current projects include Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, a second generation RNAi company co-founded by Dr. Fambrough; Ensemble Discovery, which is pioneering DNA-directed synthetic chemistry; Cambrios Technologies, a developer of biologically-inspired electronic materials for the display industry; Xencor, a protein engineering company that engineers antibody Fc regions to enhance potency; and Solstice Neurosciences, a neurology specialty pharmaceutical company. His past projects include
RNA interference pioneer Sirna Therapeutics, acquired by Merck for $1.1 billion, and the ultra-highthroughput DNA sequencing equipment company Solexa, acquired by Illumina for $600 million.
Top of page »
William J. Gedale
William J. Gedale is a Managing General Partner and co-founder of NGN Capital. He has been in the investment business since 1965. Mr. Gedale joined NGN from Mount Everest Advisors, which he founded in 1996. He has served as an investment advisor to individuals and as a full time consultant to Warburg-Pincus Capital Management, the world's largest venture capital firm, between 1999 and 2001. In this capacity, he initiated the $140 million dollar financing of ZymoGenetics. He also helped arrange the $350 million funding by Sandoz (Novartis) of the Scripps Research Institute and the $40 million funding of the Neuroscience Institute of La Jolla, California (of which he is a trustee). Before founding Mount Everest Advisors he was a Managing Director at John W. Bristol & Co. in 1995. Before this, as of 1989, Mr. Gedale was President & Chief Executive Officer of General American Investors, which he had joined in 1969. He is currently Chairman of Promosone and Vice Chairman of Enzybiotics. He has been a director of Gamco (Gabelli Holding), General American Investors, Allied Clinical Laboratories, U.S. Home Health Care, Unilab Corporation, and BioReliance Corporation. William Gedale holds an M.B.A. from New York University, a J.D. from Fordham Law School, and an A.B. from Syracuse University.
Top of page »
Glen Giovanetti
Glen is Ernst & Young’s Global Biotechnology Sector Leader. Glen has over 23 years of experience with Ernst & Young, including over 15 years serving clients in the biotechnology and medical device industries. He has extensive experience in assisting clients with strategic transactions including public equity and debt offerings, technology licensing and R&D collaborations, and acquisitions. Glen is also experienced in helping companies address the challenges of commercialization including revenue recognition, related reserves and channel inventory.
As Global Biotechnology Leader, Glen is responsible for leading of team of professionals in Boston dedicated to understanding the needs of clients, monitoring industry trends and business drivers, and networking and informing professionals serving biotechnology and medical device clients globally. The team is also responsible for producing the Ernst & Young Thought Leadership publications such as Beyond Borders, The Biotechnology Annual Report, now in its 22nd year, and the bio*link and medtech*monitor publications. Glen is a frequent speaker at biotech industry events in the US and around the globe.
Glen is a Certified Public Accountant in the states of Massachusetts and California and a member of the American Institute of CPAs, the California Society of CPAs, and the Massachusetts Society of CPAs.
Top of page »
Udayan Gupta
Udayan Gupta is one of the senior most South Asian business journalists in the United States.
He is editor of the new "Done Deals: Venture Capitalists Tell Their Stories" (Harvard Business School Press, September 2000). Gupta is the founder of biztrail.com, a multimedia news and information publisher. A small-business development and strategy consultant and freelance business journalist, he served as a Senior Special Writer for the Wall Street Journal for over a decade. Gupta was also a Walter Bagehot Fellow in Business & Economics Journalism. Gupta graduated in Economics from Harvard University, then took up filmmaking and film criticism. He is the director of two documentary film portraits and has a Masters in Film from Boston University. Late in the 1970s, Gupta began developing an interest in the new technologies and in the entrepreneurial revolution that was taking place. He started writing for a startup magazine, Venture, and for a number of other national publications. In 1985, he joined the Wall Street Journal to cover venture capital and continued doing so until his departure in 1996. Between 1992 and 1995, The Media Guide recognized Gupta as one of the leading business writers in the U.S.
He resides in New York.
Top of page »
Dr. William A. Haseltine
Dr. William A. Haseltine, PhD, is Chairman of Haseltine Global Health, LLC, a virtual pharmaceutical company dedicated to developing new and more efficient means to develop new life saving drugs and medical devices. He is also President of the Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts, a foundation that supports access to high quality health for the poor and middle class of developing countries and that also fosters a dialog between sciences and the arts. He is an Adjunct Professor at The Scripps Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Haseltine has an active career in both Science and Business. He was a professor at Harvard Medical School from 1976-1993 where he was the chair of two academic research departments. He is well known for his pioneering work on cancer and HIV/AIDS. He is the Founder of Human Genome Sciences, Inc and served as the Chairman and CEO of the Company until 2004.He is also the founder of seven other successful biotechnology companies. He serves as an advisor to CMEA, a venture capital company, and to several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Haseltine is active in public service. He is Co-Chair of the President’s Council of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Coalition on HIV/AIDS, a member of the Board of One World Health, a member of the CEO Council of the New York Academy of Science, and Chair of the Berkeley Center of Synthetic Biology. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Brookings Institution, a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, and a member of the Chairman’s Circle of the Asia Society. He resides in Washington DC and New York City.
Top of page »
Karin Hehenberger
Karin Hehenberger is Vice president, Metabolics strategy at Johnson & Johnson. She plays an instrumental role in helping develop the strategic framework for JNJ’s global metabolic disease efforts and reports to Don Casey, WW Chairman Comprehensive care. Her mission is to create new growth areas for JNJ by focusing many of her efforts on linking existing projects together, while identifying new opportunities externally and globally to improve the lives of the many patients suffering from metabolic disease.
Karin holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, where her thesis focused on diabetic complications. She continued her research as a post-doctoral fellow in the United States at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School. She then moved into the business aspect of medicine as a strategic management consultant at McKinsey & Co., where she continued to focus on projects related to diabetes. Karin also has experience in the financial sector. There, too, she focused on healthcare, both as a buy side analyst, covering healthcare equities, and as a partner at a global venture capital firm, SLS Venture. In addition, Karin worked for Eyetech Pharmaceuticals prior to and during the time of its IPO, and approval and launch of its product for Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy.
Karin has held multiple management board positions throughout her career. She currently is a board member of The Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research, which aims to fund research and education in diabetes in Scandinavia. In addition, she continues to serve as a member of the faculty at the department of Molecular Medicine at the Karolinska Institute, as Senior Advisor, Biotechnology and Medical Innovations.
Top of page »
Peter Morgan Kash
Peter Morgan Kash is a co-founder and President of Two River Group Holdings, LLC. He has been a Biotechnology Venture Capitalist for 20 years, during which he has raised over $800 million and co-founded more than one dozen biopharmaceutical companies in the fields of oncology, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and ophthalmology. Mr. Kash is also the President of Riverbank Capital Securities, Inc., which has raised over $200 million since its inception in September 2005.
Mr. Kash currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nile Therapeutics, Inc. and as a director of Arno Therapeutics, Inc. and Danube Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Mr. Kash served as an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and International Venture Capital at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania from 1996-2000. He was a Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Business at Nihon University in Tokyo 2000-2002.
Mr. Kash earned his B.S. in Management Science from SUNY Binghamton and his M.B.A. in Banking and International Finance from Pace University. He is currently writing his thesis for his Doctorate of Education. He serves on the Boards of Cancer Schmancer, an organization dedicated to women’s cancers, and Keren-Or, a charity for blind and multi-handicapped children. Mr. Kash is the author of two books: Make Your Own Luck, now available in eight languages worldwide, and the recently released Freedom From Disease, co-written with Dr. Jay Lombard.
Top of page »
Christian Kinch
Christian Kinch graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics in 1992 and began working at Roche as a pharmaceuticals consultant. Two years later, Kinch started Kinchard, a consulting company in the pharmaceuticals industry which provides pharmaceutical consultants to the industry. In 2006, the company was sold to Europe's largest company in the field, Consulting Pharmexx GmbH. Kinchard is now the Nordic region's largest "rent a representative" business with over 140 employees.
In 1997, Kinch started his second company, Netpharma, which provides parallel imports of pharmaceuticals. After two and a half years, the turnover at Netpharma was SEK 350 million. Netpharma entered the market as number 10 and in 2004 was the second largest company in the field. Kinch felt that in order to expand further Netpharma needed a partner. In 2001, IVAX (then listed on Nasdaq and the fifth largest generics company in the world) purchased Netpharma and Kinch remained as the Managing Director for the Nordic region until 2004.
In the spring of 2004, Kinch made contact with Bactiguard and on 13 June 2005 he acquired a majority stake in the company together with another private individual. Bactiguard is a profitable Swedish medical technology company which manufactures and exports urinary catheters coated with a patented surface for infection-sensitive products. Bactiguard's catheters reduce the risk of urinary infections by up to 40 per cent.
At the time of the acquisition, Bactiguard had 3 employees and sales of SEK 45 million. The number of patients who have used products with Bactiguard's coating has increased from 9 million in 2005 to 14.5 million in 2007, sales have increased from SEK 45 million for the 2005 financial year to SEK 127 million for the 2007 financial year, and the company was profitable during the entire period. There are currently 20 employees.
Top of page »
Thomas von Koch
Mr. von Koch was part of the original team that founded EQT Partners in 1994.
Previously, Mr. von Koch worked at Investor AB which he joined in 1992 to work in equity research, corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. von Koch is currently a director of the board of Kabel Baden Württemberg GmbH.
As per 1 January 2008 Mr. von Koch was appointed Head of EQT Equity. In this role he leads the EQT equity business line and reports to the Managing Partner of EQT.
Mr. von Koch graduated from the Stockholm School of Economics in 1992 with two majors (Financial Economics and Accounting & Finance).
Top of page »
Johan Kördel
Johan Kördel, PhD, Assoc. Professor, is the CEO of Sound Biotech, a Danish start-up biotech company focussed on accelerated development of small molecule drugs in inflammatory diseases.
Johan has more than 15 years of experience from the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry. He worked for Pharmacia Corporation 1992-2000 where he started as a scientists and ended as the Director of the Metabolic Diseases project portfolio and deputy head of Metabolic Diseases Research. He co-founded the biotech company Biovitrum in 2001 and was responsible for Biovitrums Research 2001-2003 and Business Development 2004-2005.
He is a member of the iNovacia AB, EQL Pharma AB, Respiratorius AB and Index Pharmaceuticals AB boards and the chairman of the Chori Pars AB board.
Johan received his PhD from University of Lund, Sweden and Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California in 1991 and spent a post-doc year at Harvard Medical School, Massachusets.
Top of page »
Dr Laurent Leksell
Dr Laurent Leksell, born in 1952, is Executive Director & Founder in Elekta AB, a company in which he was President and Chief Executive Officer from 1972 to 2005.
Dr Leksell received his MBA in 1974 and his Ph.D. degree in Business Administration in 1981. Both degrees were received from the Stockholm School of Economics where Dr Leksell also conducted research. In 1978-79 Dr Leksell was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School in Boston. He has been on the faculty of the Swedish Institute of Management, the Stockholm School of Economics and a visiting Professor at INSEAD,France. Dr Leksell was a founder and partner of an International Management Consulting Firm during 1981-1986.
Dr Leksell is an active collector of contemporary Swedish art.Elekta’s extensive corporate collection is well known in Sweden and on display at the corporate head office in Stockholm, for the enjoyment of Elekta’s employees.
Elekta is an international medical technology group, providing
oncologists, radiation therapists, neurosurgeons and many other medical specialists with state of the art tools to fight serious disease. All over the world, at over 5,000 hospitals, patients can benefit from the advanced clinical solutions, comprehensive information systems and services developed by Elekta for efficient and high precision treatment of cancer and brain disorders.
The company was founded in 1972 by Lars Leksell, Professor of Neurosurgery at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, together with his son Laurent Leksell, President & CEO of Elekta up until 2005.
With almost 2,500 employees, Elekta’s corporate headquarters is
located in Stockholm and the company’s shares are listed on the Nordic Exchange since 1994.
Top of page »
James T. Lenehan
Mr. Lenehan served as President of Johnson & Johnson from 2002 until March 2004 after 28 years of service; Vice Chairman of Johnson & Johnson from August 2000 until his retirement in June 2004; Worldwide Chairman of Johnson and Johnson's Medical Devices and Diagnostics Group from 1999 until he became Vice Chairman of the Board; and was previously Worldwide Chairman, Consumer Pharmaceuticals and Professional Group. Mr. Lenehan has been an investment consultant since October 2004.
Top of page »
Anders Lindström
Anders Lindström is a partner in the corporate finance department of Delphi’s Stockholm office, specialized in Private Equity and Venture Capital. His key business areas of expertise include Life Science and Biotech. Anders mainly represents clients with establishment of private equity and venture capital funds, structuring of funds, investments in funds and mergers and acquisitions. Anders is thereto commonly appointed as an arbitrator in legal disputes.
Anders received a LL.M. from Uppsala University 2000 after completing international law and business studies at K.U. Leuven in Belgium during 1997–1998. Following his degree, Anders professional career started as an associate at Advokaterna Liman & Partners in 1999 before he joined Mannheimer Swartling Advokatbyrå, where he worked at the private equity department during 2001–2003. Together with two partners and five other colleagues Anders left Mannheimer and established Andulf Advokat 2004, a niche law firm within Private Equity, before he joined Delphi in 2007.
Anders regularly represents national and international funds and fund managers, institutions and private, as well as public companies, conducting business within his areas of expertise.
Anders is a member of the Swedish Bar Association and the International Bar Association.
Top of page »
John F. Manzello
Mr. Manzello had been appointed President and CEO of Promosome in April of 2007 following nearly 20 years of executive and director level experience in the biopharmaceutical industry with a concentration on business development and strategic alliances for the introduction of novel technologies supporting large molecule development.
Prior to joining Promosome, Mr. Manzello was most recently at San Diego's Althea Technologies. While at Althea, Mr. Manzello initiated and directed business development efforts supporting late phase biopharmaceutical production, and led the Altus/Genentech ALTU-238 rHGH program and the build out of its dedicated late phase clinical manufacturing facility.
Prior to Althea, Mr. Manzello utilized his talents and gained significant industry experience as Director of Business Development at Cohesive Technologies where he assisted in the positioning of Cohesive for acquisition by Thermo-Fischer Scientific. Mr. Manzello also served s Director of Commercial Development at Genzyme Transgenics for several years at the height of the mammalian transgenic industry.
Mr. Manzello started his biotechnology career with Primedica Corporation, a contract research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing organization, we he ascended to the position of Director of Biopharmaceutical Services. While at Primedica Corporation he initiated and guided business development activities inclusive of the planning and commissioning of a dedicated phase III recombinant protein manufacturing facility for Beaufour Ipsen’s North American affiliate Biomeasure Inc.
Mr. Manzello also serves on the Board of Managers of Promosome LLC and is a member of several biotechnology industry organizations including BIO and the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
Top of page »
Matthew J. Meyer
Matthew Meyer joined Cerimon in January 2008 as its General Counsel and Vice President of Business Development and Licensing. Mr. Meyer has considerable experience in the areas of commercial law, business development, marketing and licensing with large pharmaceutical, medical device and early stage companies in the US and Europe. Before joining Cerimon, Mr. Meyer held senior management positions at Draeger Medical Systems, a global medical device company, most recently serving as Vice President and General Counsel. Prior to Draeger, Mr. Meyer held several positions of increasing responsibility at Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, Switzerland, including serving as Head of Global Marketing Channel Innovations. While at Novartis, he also coordinated and implemented strategic commercial, marketing, research and development initiatives for the Arthritis, Bone, GI and Urology (ABGU) global marketing franchise. Previously, Mr. Meyer spent four years as Vice President, Global Business Development and Legal Affairs at Allscripts LLC and five years as a commercial attorney at Pfizer Inc in New York. Mr. Meyer graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from Villanova University School of Law.
Top of page »
Martin Nicklasson
Born 1955. Has a degree in Pharmacy, and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Science. Since 1985 he has been an associate professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy at Uppsala University. Martin Nicklasson joined Biovitrum from a position as member of the executive management of AstraZeneca Plc. as Executive Vice President and head of Global Marketing and CEO of AstraZeneca AB. Has previously held a number of leadership positions within AstraZeneca; including President of Astra Pain Control AB and President of Astra Hässle AB, Executive Vice President of the Astra and AstraZeneca Gastrointestinal Franchise in addition to Executive Vice President of Global Drug Development in AstraZeneca. Martin has also held research leadership positions at Kabi Pharmacia.
Top of page »
Lars Nittve
Lars Nittve is the Director of Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
He was born in Stockholm in 1953. He served as lecturer in art history at the University of Stockholm during the period 1978-85. He also contributed regularly as an art critic for Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, and Artforum, New York.
In 1986 Nittve was appointed chief curator at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, after which he served as director of Rooseum – Center for Contemporary Art - in Malmö, Sweden, 1990-95. In July 1995, Nittve became the director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. In 1998, he was appointed director of Tate Modern, London, which opened in May 2000. On November 1, 2001, he took up his post as director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
Lars Nittve has curated a large number of major exhibitions and has served on the jury of numerous international prizes. He is the author of several books on art, as well as articles in journals and catalogues in Sweden and abroad.
Top of page »
Niklas Prager
Mr. Prager started his professional career in the pharmaceutical industry with Merck in the US in 1996. After having held positions of increasing responsibility in both sales and marketing in the US and in Sweden with Merck/MSD, Mr. Prager was recruited to Pfizer in Sweden as Sales Director in 2004 and he was appointed Country Manager in 2005 after having been with the company for one year. Mr. Prager holds a MBA degree from the Stockholm School of Economics and did parts of his MBA at the University of Michigan School of Business Administration in Ann Arbor. He currently serves as vice chairman on the Board of the Swedish Pharmaceutical Industry Association, and serves on the board of the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.
Top of page »
Tomas Puusepp
Tomas Puusepp has brought a wealth of knowledge to Elekta, with his 26-years record of International Management experience in the field of high-tech Medical equipment which included: successfully introducing new technologies, methodologies and financing systems in the fields of Radiation Oncology and Neurosurgery on a worldwide basis.
Mr. Puusepp has held Executive Management positions with Elekta since 1988, including President of Elekta Neuroscience Business Area and President and CEO of Elekta’s North and South American (NASA) division located in Norcross, Georgia. In 2003 he became the Executive Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Service worldwide. In May 2005 Mr. Puusepp assumed the position as President and CEO of Elekta AB.
Prior to his career within Elekta Mr. Puusepp held positions as Research Engineer at the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, University of Stockholm, as well as Project Manager, Military Projects and later Marketing and Sales Manager, Medical accelerators at Scanditronix.
With his unique vitality and enthusiasm, Mr. Puusepp is in popular demand as a speaker, promoting innovation, methodologies, technology, and financing systems in the Radiation Oncology and Neurosurgery medical communities.
Tomas Puusepp’s educational background includes a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and Physics from the Stockholm Institute of Technology and University of Stockholm. He also holds an International Executive Program degree from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Top of page »
Dr. Ann H. Rose
Dr. Ann H Rose is President/CEO of ViCro, a boutique consulting company, which draws upon a consortium of experts in a variety of science, business and regulatory matters to enable companies and academic institutions bring their biomedical products expeditiously through the regulatory approval and/or compliance processes and onto the world market. The company and the consortium it represents have broad experience in the area of drugs, biologics, medical devices and functional foods.
Prior to founding ViCro, Dr. Rose was invited to join the staff of the U.S. Congress in 1981 as a health technology analyst, where she influenced congressional health policy decision-making. She worked on issues ranging from genetic testing to post-marketing drug surveillance studies. Her work led her to testifying on some of the findings before the Congress. From 1983 –1987 at the behest of the Reagan Administration she joined the Department of Health and Human Service (DHHS) Office of the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary for Health, as a scientific and policy analyst. During her tenure she had liaison and oversight responsibilities for the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health. She also served as Deputy to the Department’s Science Advisor. During her tenure @ DHHS, she was involved in structuring several sentinel pieces of legislation, e.g. the 1983 Orphan Drug Act, which fosters development of treatments for rare diseases and the 1986 Technology Transfer Act that has major impact on how federal laboratories, academia and industry do business together. Dr. Rose was charged with forming the first interdepartmental Task Force on AIDS and held a key role in the licensing of the initial HIV blood test and government-supported AIDS drug development candidates. In addition she represented the Secretary on several inter-agency task forces and committees e.g. biotechnology, risk assessment/risk management, dietary supplements, patents, environmental issues and commerce.
Following her government experience, Dr. Rose worked in senior management/corporate officer positions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Responsible for regulatory affairs, strategic planning and business development activities, she consistently positioned companies to bring in millions of dollars in research funding and in positioning a company’s/institutions most promising technologies for US and foreign regulatory approvals. Prior to coming to WDC, Dr. Rose held academic positions @ the University of Houston and The University of Texas and was involved in extensive community public health projects.
Dr. Rose earned her doctorate degree from University of Texas, in public health/epidemiology and a MS from Purdue University and a BA from Hunter College. She is well published, is a member of several Advisory Boards and has received numerous awards.
Top of page »
Jeffrey A. Rosen
Mr. Rosen is a Deputy Chairman of Lazard worldwide. He has extensive experience advising companies on domestic and cross-border transactions, in particular in financial services, consumer products and retail, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Rosen joined Lazard in 2002. He began his investment banking career in 1972 and most recently was Deputy Chairman and Member of the Executive Committee of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. Prior to that, he was a founding Managing Director of Wasserstein Perella & Co., Inc. and Chairman of Wasserstein Perella International.
Yale University, B.A. in Economics. Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, M.B.A. with Distinction
Top of page »
Vijay B. Samant
Vijay B. Samant is President and Chief Executive Officer of Vical Incorporated, a leading developer of DNA vaccines and other biopharmaceutical products based on the company’s patented DNA delivery technologies. Vical has independent development programs in melanoma (Phase 3), cytomegalovirus (Phase 2) and pandemic influenza (Phase 1), and partnerships with Merck, sanofi-aventis, and others for infectious disease vaccines, angiogenesis and cancer. The company also has a broad vaccine collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, including an advanced HIV vaccine program.
Before joining Vical in November 2000, Mr. Samant had 23 years of diverse U.S. and international sales, marketing, operations, and business development experience with Merck. From 1998 to mid-2000, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Merck Vaccine Division. From 1990 to 1998, he served in the Merck Manufacturing Division as Vice President of Vaccine Operations, Vice President of Business Affairs, and Executive Director of Materials Management.
Mr. Samant earned his M.B.A. from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He received a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Columbia University in 1977 and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay, University Department of Chemical Technology, in 1975.
Top of page »
Camilla Soenderby
Camilla Soenderby joined Abbott in 2008 in her current role as General Manager, Abbott Sweden.
Prior to joining Abbott, she was a Turnaround Project Manager for Schering-Plough in China. During her tenure at Schering-Plough, she was also General Manager, Taiwan and Senior Management Associate, Regional Headquarters, based in Singapore.
Previously, she was a Senior Strategic Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she specialized in the pharmaceuticals and medical products industry and served clients across Europe.
Before working at McKinsey & Company, she was as a Commercial Assistant at the Royal Danish Embassy in China and an Intern at United Nations’ Headquarters in New York.
Camilla Soenderby earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen. She also completed McKinsey’s MBA program.
Top of page »
Dr. Eugen Steiner
Eugen Steiner, MD, PhD, is a partner of HealthCap, a leading European health care venture capital fund.
Dr. Steiner is a serial entrepreneur and has served as Chief Executive Officer or Chairman of the Board of several biotechnology and biomedical companies, including Affibody, Biolipox, Biostratum, Calab Medical, Creative Peptides, Eurona Medical, Global Genomics, LTB4, PyroSequencing, Melacure Therapeutics and Visual Bioinformatics.
Until 1987 Dr. Steiner practiced Medicine at the Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge/Stockholm. He became a specialist in Clinical Pharmacology and was active in pharmacogenetic research at the Karolinska Institute, where he had also received his medical and scientific degrees.
Top of page »
Prof. Mathias Uhlén
Mathias Uhlén is Professor of Microbiology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Uhlén is member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science (IVA), the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (KVA) and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). He is Vice-President of the European Proteomics Association (EuPA) and member of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) council. He was Vice-President of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), responsible for external relations, from 1999 to 2001 and he was the chairman of the Swedish Biochemical and Molecular Biology Society (SFMB) from 1994 to 1999. Dr Uhlén has more than 290 publications in bioscience with the focus on the development and use of affinity reagents in biotechnology and biomedicine.
In the early eighties, Dr. Uhlén cloned and characterized staphylococcal protein A, which is now used extensively for purification of antibodies both in diagnostics and therapy. He also showed in 1983 that protein A could be used as an affinity tag for purification of other proteins. The use of affinity tags for purification of recombinant proteins are now widely used in bioscience. In the late eighties, Uhlén published the use of magnetic micro spheres with streptavidin for automated solid phase applications. Such laboratory systems based on streptavidin beads are at present frequently used both in research and diagnostics. In the 90:ies, his group described a new principle for affinity reagents, called Affibodies, and showed their use as research tool and recently as potential cancer therapeutics. Uhlén and colleagues also developed a new strategy for DNA analysis called Pyrosequencing, a method that has recently been further developed by a US company into a highly parallelized sequencing instrument.
Dr Uhlén is currently working on the Human Protein Resource Project (HPR), with the aim to systematically map the human proteome. In August 2005, the first version of a Human Protein Atlas was published (www.proteinatlas.org) with more than 400,000 high-resolution images representing 700 human proteins.
He has founded several companies, including Pyrosequencing AB (Biotage AB), Affibody AB, SweTreeGenomics AB, Magnetic Biosolutions AB, Atlas Antibodies AB and Creative Peptides AB. He has received numerous awards, including The Svedberg prize in 1992, the Göran Gustavsson prize in 1993, the gold medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2004, the Most Noble Order of the Seraphim - the Order of His Majesty the King in 2004, the Jerker Porath award in 2005, the Akzo Nobel Award in 2005 and the HUPO Distinguished Award and KTH Great Prize both in 2006.
Top of page »
Jacob Wallenberg
Jacob Wallenberg is Chairman of the Board of Investor AB and Vice-Chairman of SEB, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB and a Board member of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. AB.
Mr. Wallenberg serves also on the Boards of Atlas Copco AB (Vice Chairman), SAS AB (Vice Chairman), The Coca-Cola Company and ABB Ltd. Mr. Wallenberg also serves on a number of non-corporate Boards such as the Nobel Foundation.
Born in Stockholm 1956, Mr. Wallenberg was educated at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics in 1980 and an MBA in 1981.
After extensive training programs at a number of international banks Jacob Wallenberg joined SEB in 1984 and held various posts at the bank in primarily in Sweden but also in Singapore, Hong Kong, London and New York.
From 1990 to 1992, Mr. Wallenberg was Deputy Managing Director of Investor AB, an investment company with substantial interests in several major Swedish corporations.
After rejoining the SEB Group in 1993, Mr. Wallenberg was appointed CEO in 1997 and was Chairman of the Board between 1998-2005.
Mr. Wallenberg attended the Royal Swedish Naval Academy and is today an Officer in the Royal Swedish Naval Reserve.
He has three children and outside family life he enjoys golf and sailing.
Top of page »
Per Olof Wallström
Primary education or title: President & CEO Karo Bio, M.Sc. Pharm
Primary experience: 28 years with Big Pharma (Merck, Astra, Pharmacia, Bristol-Myers Squibb). Scandinavian and International postings and experience. Since 1999 active in biotech with CEO-positions in Q-Med (1999-2001), Melacure (2002-2004) and Karo Bio (2005-).
Other significant engagements: Envirotainer Holding AB; Swedish Orphan Holding, ArosGruppen Holding AB (chairman).
Top of page »
Hans Wigzell
Born 1938. MD, Ph. D. Professor Immunology. Board member of Biovitrum since 2004. Chairman of Biovitrum Scientific Advisory Board since 2001. Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. President of Karolinska Institutet 1995-2003. Member of the Board of the Karolinska Development AB (Chairman) RaySearch AB, Probi AB, Intercell AG and Vibratech.
Top of page »
Dr. James W. Williams
James W. Williams, MD, has been involved in organ transplantation since 1978. Dr. Williams was one of the early pioneers in organ transplantation in the US, starting the second major liver transplant program in the US in 1980. His contributions to defining the details of liver allograft rejection and early allograft dysfunction were pivotal to improving the success rates of transplantation. His group has defined the unique features of leflunomide in the laboratory and validated these observations in clinical practice. Work from his group suggests that this novel approach to controlling allograft acute and chronic rejection also reduces the risk of viral infection in immune suppressed patients. In addition to the advances in patient care, Dr. Williams has trained and mentored a number of young surgeons from China who have returned to China and are running major kidney and liver transplant programs there.
Top of page »
Leslie Wolf-Creutzfeldt, Managing Director
Leslie Wolf-Creutzfeldt has more than 20 years of experience in corporate and financial communications, providing full-scale strategic counsel to senior management on a global basis. She specializes in building proactive corporate communications programs for companies at all stages of their life cycles, ranging from private and pre-IPO initiatives to expanding the reach of established multinational corporations.
She has held senior healthcare consulting positions at leading communications firms, including Thomson Financial, Interpublic, and the Anne McBride Company. In addition, she worked as Director of Communications at the Palladin Group, L.P, a leading hedge fund focused on heathcare and technology.
Leslie led the China Division at Adam Friedman Associates, helping Chinese companies in a variety of sectors including biotech, technology, real estate, and natural resources heighten their exposure globally.
Leslie attended the London School of Economics where she earned a Masters of Science degree in International Relations. She received a B.A. degree from Wellesley College. As part of her buy-side experience, Leslie holds Series 7 and 63 certifications.
Top of page »
Dr. Kjell Öberg
Kjell Öberg, PhD, is a business consultant and work as advisor and project leader/CEO in startup Life Science companies.
During his PhD Dr Öberg started his first company and are now helping other in similar situations as a business consultant. After ten years of academic research Dr. Öberg started as a business coach at Uminova Innovation with focus on commercialization of research projects. During the time at Uminova Innovation Dr. Öberg was engaged as project leader of Umeås Life Science cluster , BioTech Umeå.
He has several years of experience with a number of startup companies from research based spinouts in Life science. Today Dr. Öberg has its own company Kjell Öberg Konsult AB and is engaged as CEO in Likvor AB and are board member and advisor for several companies.