SPEAKER BIOS FOR THE 2010 SUMMIT
(In formation)
Jan Birgersson »
G. Steven Burrill »
Barbara Canlon »
Joseph M. Cohen »
Dag Dvergsten »
Gerald M. Edelman »
Murali Gopalakrishnan »
Udayan Gupta »
Uli Hacksell »
Maris Hartmanis »
Åsa Hedin »
Karin Hehenberger »
Andrew Hessel »
Dr. William A. Haseltine »
Daniel Kraft »
Ingemar Lagerlöf »
Niels Jorgen Larsen »
Stefan Larsson »
Laurent Leksell »
Ellen Lubman »
John F. Manzello »
Julie C. Muraco »
Aniruddh D. Patel »
Nikolaj Sorensen »
Johan Sundberg »
Fredrik Ullén »
Per Unckel »
Hans Wigzell »
Ylva Williams »
Jürg Zürcher »
Johan Öberg »
Download Speaker Bios for the 2010 Summit (pdf, 320Kb) »
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Jan Birgersson
Jan Birgerson is the Country Managing Partner of Ernst & Young, Sweden. Jan has been an authorized auditor since 1983 and joined Ernst & Young in 1984. He has spent 14 years of his career with Ernst & Young in Switzerland. Jan has years of experience as elected auditor of major Swedish and Swiss multinational corporations. He has comprehensive knowledge and experience relating to the management of international corporations, particularly in industrial industries and in the finance/bank industry. Furthermore, he has experience from IPOs, and transactions including acquisitions, disposals and joint ventures.
Jan served for ten years as a member of the Steering Committee of Ernst & Young’s International Global Accounts Group, which develops our service approach to Global Accounts.
Jan’s clients include the Scania Group, Swedish Export Credit Bank, Siemens AG Group and the Nynas Group. Previous engagements include Tetra Laval, Adecco Group, ABB, Skandia, Investor, Holcim AG Group.
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G. Steven Burrill
G. Steven Burrill has been involved in the growth and prosperity of the biotechnology industry for over 40 years. An early pioneer, Mr. Burrill is one the original architects of the industry and one of its most avid and sustained developers. He has been recognized as a biotech investment visionary by the prestigious Scientific American magazine (The Scientific American 50), received the BayBio Pantheon 2008 DiNA lifetime achievement award as well as the Alan Cranston Living Legend Award. He currently serves as Chairman of the Boards of Abunda, and Pharmasset (NASDAQ: VRUS), and is a member of the Boards of Directors of Catalyst Biosciences, NewBridge , Depomed (NASDAQ: DEPO), Proventys, Targacept (NASDAQ: TRGT) and XDx.
Burrill & Company has $1B under management in a series of venture capital funds, investments in 94 companies, a private equity business, a major merchant banking presence, a life sciences media business, and a life sciences search business.
Burrill & Company has recently formed the Burrill Nordic Group to leverage their expertise and knowledge in the life sciences to help the Nordic Biotechnology industry grow and prosper. Nordic Investors in existing Burrill Funds include many Nordic companies ( H. Lundbeck A/S, Novo A/S, SAMPENSION KP Livsforsikring A/S, the Lundbeck Fdn). Burrill & Company has also made a regional investment in Finnish company Biotie Therapies Corp.
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Barbara Canlon
Damage to hair cells of our inner ears is a leading cause of deafness and other hearing impairments. Professor Barbara Canlon has spent her career exploring the fundamental workings of the hair cells of the inner ear with the goal of understanding why they are so vulnerable to damage, and ultimately, how they may be protected, repaired, or even replaced.
Earning a bachelor of science from Brooklyn College she then received her Master´s degree in Physiological Acoustics from the University of Michigan. She then moved to Stockholm to pursue her Ph.D. in Hearing Physiology from the Karolinska Institutet followed by post-doctoral studies at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Upon return to the Karolinska Institutet she became Director of the auditory research section and over the past twenty years she has been educating doctoral and post-doctoral students on the molecular and physiological workings of the inner ear. She has been the Chairman for the Docentur Committee at the Karolinska Institutet for the past 5 years.
Barbara Canlon has several national and international networks in both academia and industry for understanding the manner in which hearing loss develops and finding novel means of preventing this disorder. She is the author of over 100 scientific publications and book chapters and is a member of several societies for Neuroscience and Hearing Disorders. She recently became Editor-in Chief for Hearing Research, an international scientific journal that peer reviews the top articles within the field of hearing science.
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Joseph M. Cohen
Joseph M. Cohen is Chairman, JM Cohen & Co., LLC. He joined the former Cowen & Company in 1967, became co-managing partner in 1971, and was appointed sole managing partner and Chairman in 1986. He actively managed and directed expansion via acquisition and internal development. Under Mr. Cohen’s leadership, Cowen & Company attained a global reputation for excellence in research and investment banking, specifically in health care and technology and developed into one of the most successful private partnerships on Wall Street. In July 1998, Cowen & Company was sold to Societe Generale. Mr. Cohen resigned from SG Cowen Securities Corp. in 2000 and became the Chairman of JM Cohen & Co, LLC, a private family investment firm.
Mr. Cohen currently serves as Vice Chair; an Emeritus Trustee of The Jackson Laboratory, a leading genetics research and non-profit mouse production facility; on the Board of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, a member of the Chairman’s Council, Stielglitz Society and Visiting Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Collector’s Committee of the National Gallery.
He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in economics and from Columbia University with an MA in economics.
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Dag Dvergsten
Mr. Dvergsten is the president and sole owner of Dag Dvergsten AS. Prior to establishing the company in 1994, Mr. Dvergsten held several positions in Fred Olsen & Co, a Norwegian shipping conglomerate. Dvergsten has through Dag Dvergsten AS initiated and developed several industrial projects within the areas of energy/resources, marine sectors, life science and technology. Dvergsten has served and is currently serving on several corporate and civic organization boards.
Mr. Dvergsten holds a Master of Science in Business degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH). He is also Venture Partner at Burrill & Company.
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Gerald M. Edelman
Dr. Edelman is Director of The Neurosciences Institute and President of Neurosciences Research Foundation, a publicly supported not-for-profit organization that is the Institute’s parent. Separately, he is Professor at The Scripps Research Institute and Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at that institution. His early studies focused on the structure, diversity, and function of antibodies. In 1972, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on antibodies. His subsequent work led to the discovery of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), which have been found to guide the fundamental processes by which an animal achieves its shape and form and by which nervous systems are built. To understand higher brain functions, Edelman and his colleagues designed and constructed a series of mobile devices with simulated brains. These brain-based devices (BBDs) were shown to be capable of operant conditioning and episodic memory. Dr. Edelman has also formulated a detailed theory to explain the development and organization of higher brain functions. This theory was presented in his volume Neural Darwinism (Basic Books, New York, 1987). More recently, he described a theory of consciousness in his book Wider Than The Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2004). His latest book, Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge (Yale University Press), appeared in October 2006.
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Murali Gopalakrishnan
Murali Gopalakrishnan is Head of Global External Research, in the Global Pharmaceutical Discovery (R&D) Division at Abbott.
Murali joined Abbott in 1993 and subsequently held various positions of increasing responsibility leading research programs in neuroscience, pain and urology, and advancing multiple clinical candidates in disease areas such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. He has extensively published in the field of ion channel and receptor pharmacology in various scientific journals and was inducted to the Volwiler Research Society in 2002. Since December 2008, Murali has taken the role as Head of the, then newly formed, Global External Research group in Discovery, focused on accessing and developing external collaborations around emerging science, targets, technologies and preclinical compounds.
Murali obtained his undergraduate training in pharmacy from Banaras Hindu University, India, a PhD in biochemical pharmacology from the School of Pharmacy, SUNY at Buffalo, New York under Professor David J Triggle, and his post-doctoral training in molecular biology/electrophysiology at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston under Professor Arthur M Brown. He has an MBA degree from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.
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Udayan Gupta
Udayan Gupta is co-founder of Books Beyond Boundaries, an interactive publishing company based in New York. He also is the author of the best-selling Done Deals:Venture Capitalists Tell Their Stories (Harvard Business School Press. 2000).
A small-business development and strategy consultant and freelance business journalist, Gupta 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. One of Books Beyond Boundaries’ current projects is the creation of a global life science research exchange.
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Uli Hacksell
Uli Hacksell, Ph.D. has served as Chief Executive Officer of ACADIA Pharmaceuticals since September 2000 and was made a member of its Board of Directors that same year. Dr. Hacksell joined ACADIA in 1999 as Executive Vice President of Drug Discovery. From 1991 up to when he joined ACADIA, Dr. Hacksell held various senior executive positions at Astra, a pharmaceutical company, including Vice President of Drug Discovery and Technology as well as President of Astra Draco, one of Astra's largest research and development subsidiaries. From 1991 to 1994, he served as Vice President of CNS Preclinical R&D at Astra Arcus, another Astra subsidiary. Earlier in his career, Dr. Hacksell held the positions of Professor of Organic Chemistry and Department Chairman at Uppsala University in Sweden and also served as Chairman and Vice Chairman of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry. He has published over 200 scientific articles. Dr. Hacksell is a member of the Board of SLS Invest AB. He received a Master of Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from Uppsala University.
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Maris Hartmanis
Maris Hartmanis is currently CEO of BioPhausia AB, a Swedish listed Specialty Pharma Company headquartered in Stockholm. He has 24 years of industrial experience from a number of executive positions in the life science arena, both as an entrepreneur and as an administrator. Maris has worked within Biotech, Pharmaceuticals and Biopharmaceuticals, Drug Discovery, Life Science Supply, Diagnostics and MedTech. He has extensive international managerial experience from very large corporations with more than 4 billion USD in turnover, as well as from small entrepreneurial start-ups. His career has included roles such as: Senior Vice President of Corporate Research at Gambro, President and CEO at Gyros, Vice President of Global R&D at Amersham Biosciences and Pharmacia Biotech (now part of GE Healthcare) and Director of Research at Pharmacia & Upjohn, Pharmacia and KabiGen. Maris has founded two companies, MetaXen in California and Gyros in Sweden and raised more than 100 MUSD in venture capital during his time at Gyros. Over the years he has been responsible for a number of successful, large and complex international life science platform and systems projects, which have generated several billion USD in sales. During the last five years he has focused on the stem cell and regenerative medicine areas.
Maris obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where he also is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry. Prior to his industrial career, he spent four years doing basic research at NIH in the US.
In addition to other current affiliations, Maris serves as Director of the board at Vitrolife AB in Gothenburg and Vice Chairman of the board at ProNova, a Center of Excellence for Protein Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology. He is also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) in Sweden and the Latvian Academy of Sciences in Latvia.
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Åsa Hedin
Åsa Hedin is currently Executive Vice President for Business Area Neuroscience at Elekta AB and also President for Elekta Instrument AB.
Åsa has a robust global background of Medical and Business where she has been involved in several dimensions of business from both biotech start-ups and Medtech multinationals e.g. Gambro, Siemens Medical and Medtronic. Her experience includes the areas of general management, product development, product management, sales and marketing, business development and M&A.
During the past ten years Åsa’s focus has been on commercialization, business development strategies and M&A, where she spent some years in the design and consumer business as COO and Executive VP for Filippa K AB, and previous to Elekta five years with Gambro AB, a global medical and healthcare company with revenues of € 3.0 billion and 22,000 employees. At Gambro Åsa was a member of the Executive Committee responsible for Corporate Development and Strategic planning. During this period Åsa was in charge of driving and setting Gambro’s overall strategic process to guide investments in those areas and initiatives with highest impact and return. These included initiatives within innovation, geographic growth and M&A. Examples of activities are the divestment of Gambro Healthcare and Gambro’s delisting from the SSE.
Åsa currently holds Board of Director positions in Segulah AB a Swedish private equity company, Rodebjer AB a private Swedish design company and MedCap AB a publicly listed Investment company.
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Karin Hehenberger
Karin Hehenberger, M.D., Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President, Strategic Alliances, for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, where she manages JDRF's scientific, financial and commercial partners.
Most recently, Dr. Hehenberger served as Vice President, Metabolics Strategy and Business Development for Johnson & Johnson. In this capacity, Dr. Hehenberger developed the strategic framework for Johnson & Johnson's global metabolic disease efforts.
Previously, Dr. Hehenberger was a consultant at McKinsey & Co., where she focused on projects related to diabetes. She has experience in the financial sector, both as a buy-side analyst covering healthcare equities, and as a partner at a global venture capital firm focusing on healthcare. Dr. Hehenberger worked for Eyetech Pharmaceuticals prior to and during its IPO, and on the approval and launch of its product for age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy.
Dr. Hehenberger holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She continued her research as a post-doctoral fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Hehenberger is on the Board of The Rolf Luft Foundation for Diabetes Research and The Core Sight Council associated with the Lighthouse foundation.
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Andrew Hessel
Andrew Hessel is an outspoken champion of DNA technologies, catalyzing new project developments, investment, and relationships in synthetic biology and bioengineering. His overarching message is that biology is poised to become the IT industry of the 21st century, fueled by a new generation of young researchers and entrepreneurs armed with technologies like DNA sequencing and DNA synthesis that are becoming exponentially more powerful yet much less expensive. The possible applications are virtually limitless and include the typical global challenges (sustainable fuel production, environmental remediation, and better diagnosis treatment of human disease) but also extend into new, uncharted scientific territories.
He co-chairs the Bioinformatics and Biotechnology track at the Singularity University, an institution founded by futurist Ray Kurzweil and X Prize Foundation CEO Peter Diamandis, with sponsorship from world-leading organizations that include Google, Autodesk, and NASA. He is also the founder of the Pink Army Cooperative, an experimental biotechnology venture working to open source personalized cancer therapies.
His work has been featured in The New York Times, Futurist Magazine, H+, and Wired News.
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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.
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Daniel Kraft
Daniel Kraft MD, is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician with extensive experience in healthcare and biomedical innovation. He is founder of IntelliMedicine Systems.
Following an undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Brown University and medical school at Stanford he completed a combined Harvard residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital & Boston Children’s Hospitals and is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.
During his residency, Daniel founded, ran and later sold one of the first online medical marketplaces for health care professionals. Daniel returned to Stanford where he completed fellowship training in hematology/oncology and bone marrow transplantation, and went on to become NIH funded faculty at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and on clinical faculty at UCSF.
Daniel has extensive biomedical research experience. He was the first to conceive demonstrate and publish a novel antibody based approach to preventing allergic reactions (basis for the drug, Xolair). Daniel completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford in the stem cell laboratory of Irv Weissman, and has multiple publications including in Science and Nature. Daniel completed the Stanford BioDesign program, has multiple patents, including as inventor of technologies to enable stem cell therapies, such as the ‘MarrowMiner’, a minimally invasive device for the harvest of bone marrow stem cells (now being commercialized by Hospira). He is a venture partner with Proteus Venture Partners, and a member/graduate of the Kauffman Fellows Program.
Daniel has a passion for space and aviation, has worked on developing medical countermeasures and personalized physiology monitoring devices for NASA, was a finalist for astronaut selection, and serves and flies as flight surgeon with an F-16 squadron in the California Air National Guard.
Daniel chairs the medicine track for Singularity University, a 10 week summer program held at NASA-Ames research center. Singularity University examines exponential technologies and works to leverage and integrate them in a multidisciplinary way to address significant global challenges. Daniel has been a speaker at both the TED and TEDMED conferences on medical technology and its future.
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Ingemar Lagerlöf
Founder and CEO of LinkMed 1998, a private equity company in the life science area listed on Nasdaq OMX since 2006. Over 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, including sales manager, product manager at Sandoz, area manager for Vitrum’s German language and Eastern European markets, country manager Sweden for Kabi Pharmaceuticals in the Kabi-Vitrum group, General Manger and Head of Nordic Operations for Fisons Pharmaceuticals and CEO of MiniDoc.
Other assignments: Chairman of the Board of Biovator AB, NovaHep AB, Recopharma AB and Olerup SSP AB, vice chairman in AnaMar AB as well as board member of AbSorber AB, IMED AB, Olerup International AB, Olerup Inc, Olerup GmbH and HLA Intressenter AB.
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Niels Jorgen Larsen
Niels Jørgen Larsen is since 10 years heading the Swedish corporate finance team of Danske Bank, the leading Nordic financial adviser in the life science and health care services sectors. Mr. Larsen and his team has managed a large number Nordic of M&A and Equity Capital Markets transactions including most recently advising Triton and KKR on the acquisition of Ambea, the largest Nordic healthcare services company, the sale of the leading Swedish diagnostics company AB Biodisk to bioMérieux as well as share issues in Meda and Getinge, two of the largest listed Swedish companies in the sector.
Prior to moving to corporate finance, Mr. Larsen was a Senior Equity Analyst at SEB Enskilda and Danske Bank and has worked in investment banking in Stockholm, New York and Copenhagen.
Mr. Larsen holds a Master degree in Finance and Economics from the University of Copenhagen with post graduate studies at INSEAD and IMD.
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Stefan Larsson
Stefan is a Senior Partner of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the leader of its Nordic Health care Practice group and the Global leader of BCG's Scientist network.
The Boston Consulting Group is a global Management Consulting firm and a leader in the field of Health care Strategy. Stefan joined BCG 1996 and has advised clients across the Health care industry covering both strategy, organization and operational improvement projects. In BioPharma he has lead projects througout the value chain from Preclinical and Clinical Development to Sales Force Effectiveness. He has lead over 40 Due diligence projects for European Private Equity clients.
Stefan is the proud father of two teen-agers and spends his past time with wife and friends enjoying art, good food/wine and music. Stefan is an MD from the Karolinska Institute. He did his PhD at the Karolinska Institute and Harvard Medical School and PostDoc at the MRC Human Genetics unit in Edinburgh and at the EMBL in Heidelberg.
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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.
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Ellen Lubman
Ellen Lubman is a Group Director in the Strategic Transactions Group at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Ellen focuses on Mergers and Acquisitions, identification of new transaction opportunities, and initiation of “String of Pearls” transactions, as well as spearheading novel business initiatives and venture capital outreach.
Prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ellen worked with Celtic Pharma, L.P., a private equity fund that acquires direct ownership or controlling stakes in commercially attractive pharmaceutical products in the late stages of clinical and regulatory development, and VIA Pharmaceuticals, a start-up cardiovascular disease biotechnology company incubated at Bay City Capital in San Francisco.
During the heyday of the Human Genome Project, Ellen was a Biotechnology Equity Research Analyst at Robertson Stephens where she focused on Genomics, Proteomics, Drug Discovery and Technology Platform companies, and developed research pieces on Genetic Intellectual Property, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms and other discovery technologies.
Ellen holds a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Rutgers College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, including a Certificate in Global Management. She is a member of Springboard Enterprises and New York Academy of Sciences.
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John F. Manzello
Mr. Manzello came to Promosome in April of 2007 to serve as President & CEO, bringing 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 bioproduction technologies.
Prior to joining Promosome, Mr. Manzello held positions in business and commercial development at San Diego's Althea Technologies. Prior to Althea, Mr. Manzello held was Director of Business Development at Massachusetts based Cohesive Technologies, culminating those efforts with the acquisition of Cohesive by Fisher Scientific.
Prior to Cohesive he was Director of Commercial Development at Massachusetts based Genzyme Transgenics which was proceeded by his position as Director of Biopharmaceutical Development Services at Genzyme’s subsidiary Primedica Corporation, culminating his efforts there with the acquisition of Primedica by Charles River Laboratories.
Mr. Manzello serves as a board member with Promosome LLC, Recopharma AB, and is an active member of BIO International as well as other regional biotechnology organizations.
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Julie C. Muraco
Julie C. Muraco, Managing Partner, Praeditis Group LLC, is a consultant working with private companies and fund groups seeking access to global public and private capital sources, as well as, providing operational expertise in strategic planning, sales & marketing and corporate communications. She founded Praeditis Group LLC, a capital markets and corporate advisory firm in 2008.
Prior to founding Praeditis Group, Ms. Muraco was a Senior Managing Director and head of Global Capital Markets for The NASDAQ OMX Stock Market. She was responsible for strategy and client relations with corporate advisors, such as investment banks and financial sponsors, transitioning private companies to the public markets. She had been with the NASDAQ Stock Market since February, 2004.
Ms. Muraco spent more than 20 years on Wall Street as a vice president with J.P. Morgan’s Cash Markets Division, based in New York, and as a managing director in the Capital Markets Division of Smith Barney, based in Chicago and earlier in Cleveland. She has extensive experience with institutional investment firms and advisors throughout the U.S., Canada and Asia, and has been involved with public company investments since 1980.
Ms. Muraco spent two years as vice president, Investor Relations, for Archstone-Smith, a publicly traded REIT specializing in luxury high-rise apartments.
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Aniruddh D. Patel
Aniruddh D. Patel studies music and the brain at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California, where he is the Esther J. Burnham Senior Fellow. Patel received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Virginia, and a Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University. His research focuses on how the brain processes music and language, a topic he has pursued with a variety of techniques, including neuroimaging, theoretical analyses, acoustic research, and comparative studies of nonhuman animals. He has published over 40 research articles in a wide range of journals, including Nature, Nature Neuroscience, The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognition, and Current Biology. His scholarly book Music, Language, and the Brain (2008, Oxford Univ. Press) won the 2008 ASCAP Deems-Taylor Award. In 2009 he was awarded the Music Has Power award from the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function in New York City. He is president of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition (2009-2011), and is interested in promoting research in the emerging field of music neuroscience.
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Nikolaj Sorensen
Nikolaj Sorensen is the Managing Director for Pfizer AB, Sweden. He has worked for Pfizer since 2004 in various leadership positions in both business development, marketing and sales. He has been the country leader for Sweden since early 2009. He has been a member of the board of the industry association, LIF for the last year and has taken an active part in negotiation with the government on future pricing and reimbursement models for pharmaceuticals in Sweden.
Nikolaj has prior to Pfizer worked as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in the Nordics with a strong focus on the life science industry.
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Johan Sundberg
Until his retirement 2001, Johan Sundberg (born 1936, Ph.D. musicology, Doctor Honoris Causa 1996 University of York, UK) had a personal chair in Music Acoustics at the department of Speech Music Hearing, KTH and was head of its music acoustics research group which he started in 1968. Presently he is Visiting Professor of the University of London and of the Universität Freiburg. His research concerns acoustical aspects of music in general, particularly the singing voice, music perception and the theory of music performance.
He has written The Science of the Singing Voice (1987) and The Science of Musical Sounds (1991), edited or co-edited 13 proceedings of international scientific meetings on music acoustic. He has practical experience of performing music as chorister and solo singer. He is Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (President of its Music Acoustics Committee 1974-93), of the Swedish Acoustical Society (President 1976-81) and fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, receiving its Silver Medal in Musical Acoustics 2003.
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Fredrik Ullén
Fredrik Ullén is professor in cognitive neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. His research concerns the neurobiology of expertise, i.e. the mechanisms in the brain that enable a person to reach a high level of competence in a field after many years of training. He focuses in particular on music and musicians as a model group. Research projects concern e.g. effects of long term training on the brain, skill learning and creativity.
Fredrik is also an internationally acclaimed concert pianist with numerous award winning CDs on BIS Records. He is a fellow of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music since 2007.
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Per Unckel
Per Unckel is County Governor of Stockholm and head of the County Administrative Board. He was born in 1948 and was elected to the Swedish Parliament in 1976. He was appointed secretary of the Moderate Party in 1976, a post he held until 1991 when he was appointed Minister for Education and Research in the Carl Bildt government. From 1994 until 1998, Unckel was party spokesperson on labour market issues, and in 1998 he became chairman of the Standing Parliamentary Committee on the Constitution. In 1999, he was elected leader of the Moderate parliamentary party, left his political career in 2002 to become Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, based in Copenhagen, a position he held until 2007. At present, Per Unckel is Governor of the County of Stockholm.
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Hans Wigzell
Born 1938. MD, Ph. D. Professor Immunology. Board member of Swedish Orphan Biovitrum since 2004. 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, Humabs, Intercell AG and AVIBiopharma. Chairman of Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship.
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Ylva Williams
Ylva Williams is CEO of Stockholm Science City (SSCi) since September 2009. She has a solid background from the life science industry and has lately focused on the industry from the investment and communications perspective. Ms Williams was appointed Director Life Sciences at Invest in Sweden Agency and she was recruited to SSCi from JKL Group, where she held a senior consultant position focusing on strategic communications within life science.
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Jürg Zürcher
Jürg Zürcher is Partner and Biotechnology Leader EMEIA at Ernst & Young Switzerland.
His 23-year career with Ernst & Young has involved extensive audit and corporate finance experience with local and international health sciences clients including Actelion, HBM BioVentures, Roche, Santhera Pharmaceuticals, Schwarz Pharma, Syngenta and Synthes. His experience of having worked with Ernst & Young in the United States has helped him to also successfully transition clients to International Reporting Standards (IFRS or U.S. GAAP).
In addition to serving as an audit partner to several venture capital companies, Jürg Zürcher is also active in the VC community, advising clients on fundraising opportunities and facilitating mergers. His rich understanding of the biotech market in the region was instrumental in providing the Swiss federal government with an in-depth analysis of the state of biotechnology in Switzerland and the launch of the 1st Swiss Biotechnology Report in March 2004.
Jürg Zürcher studied at the University of St. Gallen, where he obtained a degree in Business Administration, with focus on auditing. He is a Swiss Certified Accountant.
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Johan Öberg
Johan Öberg is a Parner of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) working in the global healthcare as well as private equity practices. Johan also leads BCG's European medtech practice.
Johan has been with BCG for over 10 years working with pharma and medtech clients across a broad range of topics ranging from strategy development and operational improvements. He has worked in both the US, Europe and Asia. Johan has supported many leading private equity firms in their assessments and investments in healthcare companies, as well as in further work with their portfolio companies.
Johan lives in Stockholm with his American wife and four small sons. He spends his spare time with family and firends, enjoying travel, sailing, sports, as well as good food and wine. Johan has an MBA from Indead after undergraduate business and economics studies in Sweden and California.