Speaker Bios
Carl Bildt »
Johan Björkegren »
Mikael Brönnegård »
Dimitrios T. Drivas »
Frederick Frank »
William J. Gedale »
Kai Hammerich »
Magnus Lundberg »
Mats Pettersson »
Jesper Tegnér »
Johan von Heijne »
L. John Wilkerson »
Viveka Åberg »
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Carl Bildt
With a background in politics in Sweden and Europe, Carl Bildt is today focused mainly on different aspects of international policy and business.
In Sweden, he served as Member of Parliament from 1979 to 2001. He was Chairman of the Moderate Party from 1986 to 1999, and served as Prime Minister between 1991 and 1994. He was also Chairman of the International Democrat Union from 1992 to 1999.
His government negotiated and signed the 1995 accession of Sweden to the European Union, and undertook far-reaching liberalization and structural reforms to improve the competitiveness of Sweden and modernize its old-style welfare system.
After his term in government, he was asked to become the European Union Special Representative to Former Yugoslavia in 1995 and served as Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Talks later the same year. He then served as the first High Representative of the international community in Bosnia during 1996 and 1997. In 1999, he was asked to re-engage on the Balkan issues as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and served in that capacity until 2001.
Presently, he is Chairman of the Kreab Group of public affairs and strategic communication companies (www.kreab.com), of the Nordic Venture Network (www.nordicventure.net) and of Teleoptimering AB (www.teleopti.se).
In Sweden, he also serves as non-executive Director of Vostok Nafta (www.vostoknafta.com), Lundin Petroleum (www.lundinpetroleum.com), HiQ (www.hiq.se) and Öhmans (www.ohman.se). He also advises the investment firm East Capital (www.eastcapital.com).
In the United States he serves on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation (www.rand.org), is non-executive Director of the global asset management company Legg Mason (www.leggmason.com) as well as member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org) in New York.
In the field of international public policy, he serves on the Board of the Centre for European Reform (www.cer.org.uk) as well as the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (www.iiss.org) in London, the Board of the European Policy Institute (www.theepc.org) in Brussels and of the Aspen Institute Italia (www.aspeninstitute.it) in Rome. In Moscow, he is on the Editorial Board of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs (www.globalaffairs.ru) as well as the Board of the New Eurasia Foundation (www.neweurasia.org.ru).
He has headed and taken part in different commissions and policy groups advising the European Commission, the European Space Agency as well as the global Internet body ICANN. Most recently, he was a member of the International Commission on the Balkans.
Apart from different national awards, he has an honorary degree from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he is a Fellow at its renowned Institute for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.
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Johan Björkegren, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A.
Founder, on the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Björkegren is an Associate Professor in Molecular Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet where he is the head of the Computational Medicine Unit at the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics together with Dr. Tegnér. Dr. Björkegren is also heading a Research Group at the Atherosclerosis Research Unit at the King Gustav V Research Institute, Karolinska University Hospital, Solna.
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Mikael Brönnegård
Director Business Development Healthcare. Mikael joined InnovationsKapital in January 2001 from Pharmacia Corporation, where he held a position as Vice President of Global Medical & Scientific Affairs. He has several years of pharmaceutical industry experience at both local market company and corporate levels. He is a specialist in Paediatrics and has extensive experiences in clinical research and in basic science/research including molecular biology, protein biochemistry and immunology. He has an M.D., Ph.D. degree from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, where he also holds a position as Associate Professor.
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Dimitrios T. Drivas
Mr. Drivas is the co-chair of the Firm's global Intellectual Property Practice Group. His practice is in patent litigation and counseling and technology transfer.
Mr. Drivas is a registered U.S. patent attorney and represents clients in patent and technology related disputes in the Patent office, courts and before arbitration panels.
In addition to his litigation practice, Mr. Drivas advises clients on the acquisition and licensing of intellectual property rights, joint development agreements and strategic alliances.
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Frederick Frank
Frederick Frank is Vice Chairman and Director of Lehman Brothers, Inc. where he joined as a Partner in 1969. Mr. Frank brings to the Board over forty-five years of experience. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers he was co-director of research and a Director of Smith, Barney & Co. Incorporated. He serves on the Board of Directors of several public companies including Pharmaceutical Product Development; Predix Pharmaceuticals, Diagnostic Products; eSoft. In addition, he is a Trustee Emeritus of the Hotchkiss School; An Advisory Director of the Yale School of Management; The Bloomberg School of Public Health; The Harvard School of Public Health; Chairman of The Irvington Institute of Immunological Research, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and he serves on the Advisory Board of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation. Mr. Frank holds an undergraduate degree from Yale University, an MBA from Stanford University School of Business Administration, and he also has a CFA degree.
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William J. Gedale
William J. Gedale is a Managing General Partner 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.
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Kai Hammerich
Kai Hammerich is, since 1995, President and Director-General of Invest in Sweden Agency, ISA. He is also, since 2004, President of World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (Waipa).
At present Kai Hammerich is among other things Chairman of the Board of the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (Nutek) and of Almi Business Partner AB (parent company of 21 regional business agencies).
Kai Hammerich has a background in industry, in international organizations, and in journalism.
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Magnus Lundberg
Magnus Lundberg, CEO, Pharmacia Diagnostics AB, Uppsala, Sweden, since 1999. Previously, Magnus Lundberg was President of Chiron Vaccine & Therapeutics and member of the Executive Committee, for 3 years (1997-1999). Magnus' background is within the Pharmacia Corporation. Magnus is currently a board member of Onyx and Aerocrine.
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Mats Pettersson, CEO
Born 1945. B.Sc. in Economics and Business Administration. Mats Pettersson joined Pharmacia in 1976, where he mainly worked as CFO and in different business development positions. Before joining Biovitrum, he was Senior Vice President and member of the Management Committee of Pharmacia Corporation. Mats has been responsible for most of the major transforming mergers in Pharmacia over the last ten years and has spent more than 16 years abroad during his career. He is a board member of Biacore International AB and Lundbeck A/S.
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Jesper Tegnér, MSc., M.K., B.A., Ph.D*.
Founder, on the Board of Directors and Chief Scientific Officier. Dr. Tegnér holds the first Swedish Professor Chair in Computational Biology (2002-) at the Linköpings Institute for Technology. He is also an affiliated Professor at the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics at Karolinska Institute and heads the unit for Computational Medicine together with Dr. Björkegren.
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Johan von Heijne
Johan von Heijne joined Enskilda Securities in 2001 as Head of the Corporate Finance Healthcare sector team. Previous to Enskilda, Johan worked as Vice President Business Development for Amersham Biosciences. He has worked for Pharmacia and Amersham in various management positions for 16 years, and has a broad industrial experience both from the healthcare and biotechnology sectors. Johan holds a BSc in Molecular Biology and an MBA degree in International Business Management, both from Uppsala University, Sweden.
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L. John Wilkerson
John Wilkerson is Chairman and founding general partner of Galen, a $650 million private equity fund investing in late stage healthcare businesses. Prior to Galen, Wilkerson was the founder and Chairman of The Wilkerson Group (TWG) now IBM Healthcare Consulting. Before TWG, Mr. Wilkerson was a Vice President and Partner of Smith Barney, Harris Upham and Co. where he was responsible for medical supply security analysis. Wilkerson joined the health products industry in 1972 where he held a variety of marketing and management positions at Johnson & Johnson. Wilkerson holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University where he specialized in managerial economics and marketing research. Additionally, he holds an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences. Currently Mr. Wilkerson is a member of the Cornell biotechnology task force.
Wilkerson is a board member of Stericycle, a publicly held company and represents Galen on the boards of MedAssets, Paradigm Health, Dow Pharmaceuetical Sciences and JDS Pharmaceuticals. He is Chairman of Atlantic Health Systems, a New Jersey hospital system and immediate past President of the Board of the American Folk Art Museum where he continues to serve as a Board member.
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Viveka Åberg
Viveka Åberg, MD, has 20 years experience within the Swedish Pharmaceutical Industry. After graduating from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm she joined Astra in Södertälje followed by assignments at Eli Lilly and Pharmacia. In 1995 she joined Pfizer as Medical Director and has developed a highly skilled clinical research unit performing extensive clinical research in Sweden involving more than 8000 patients. Being a member of the Clinical Research Committee of the Pharmaceutical Industry Association and as vice chairman of the Swedish Association of Pharmaceutical Medicine, she is actively involved in influencing the conditions for clinical research in Sweden.