BII - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Laboratory Assistant
Alma works as a lab assistant and helps to ensure that the lab runs smoothly. She assists with various tasks such as autoclaving and helps with the maintenance of different equipment like CO2 incubators.
She is studying for her bachelor's in biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen.
Job Titles:
- Senior Communication and Public Relations Specialist
Andrew is part of the Global Markets project at BII, co-funded by NNF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The LMICs project and eventually Andrew's task is to connect BII's startups and their breakthroughs which are often affordable in bigger economies, to emerging markets in low and middle-income countries, and in this way, tap into BII's vast potential to improve the lives of millions of people, while being part of building our global-scale presence and impact. On this journey, Andrew is delving into workable go-to-market strategies, bridging society, ethics, policy, and technology, while taking care of our people, our planet, and impact-driven business.
Born in rural Uganda, Andrew moved to Denmark in 2009 and has since lived in Nørrebro with his wife and two children - Taj & Liv, where their biggest adventures are nature walks and active playgrounds trips. He carries a wide range of training & skills, including - process facilitating, public management, partnerships brokering, international development, project management, fundraising, donor relations, intercultural engagement, and business diplomacy. This has afforded him a blended 25 years+ career in the social services and civil society (NGOs) sector globally - where the past 5 years have focused on building social equity and zooming into impact funding/investments.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Women 's Health
- Senior Associate, Women 's Health
Angela is a member of the Women's Health team, where her main focus is scouting for new projects for the Bio Studio program. She works with applicants throughout the proposal, due diligence, and approval process of the Bio Studio calls to turn translational science into successful companies.
Anne Marie works as a Junior Analyst in the Business Development team and is co-responsible for the facilitation and organization of pitch meetings between VC funds and BII's Human Health startups. Additionally, she helps the BD team with ad hoc tasks and general administrative support.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Senior Associate
Ben is an analyst in the Business Development department and is responsible for the interaction between the VC funds and our startups. In addition, he is part of the Planetary Health team where he assists the anchors in their efforts while supporting the selection & assessment process of the new companies coming in.
Bo is the Head of Facilities and is responsible for most of the practical issues of the daily operation of BII. His main focus is on managing and expanding laboratory activities, along with the physical expansion of BII.
Bo has a Ph. D from Mainz University in Molecular Biology and a long track record of small molecule screening and DMPK. He has built up several laboratories and screening facilities in both Germany and Denmark.
Job Titles:
- IT Manager
- Senior IT Manager
Bo Jiang is the IT manager at BII and is responsible for the overall IT operations, development, security as well as vendor management. Before joining BII, Bo has a long record of time working as an IT project manager in both start-up and large-scale enterprises/consulting firms. With close to 20 years of work experience in IT and an M.Sc. in Telecommunication, Bo has accumulated extensive knowledge in the field and is skilled in bridging the gap between business and IT.
Job Titles:
- Chief Business Officer ( CBO )
Carlotta works as a Junior Analyst in the Science and Technology department where she assists the science strategy team with various scouting activities for projects relevant to Bio Studio.
Caroline works as a lab assistant and helps to ensure that the lab runs smoothly and assist with various task like autoclaving and help with the maintenance of equipment like CO2 incubators.
She has a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University of Copenhagen. And she is currently M.Sc. in biochemistry with a specialization in Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology at the University of Copenhagen.
Job Titles:
- Senior Innovation Manager
Cathrine is part of BII's Women's Health Initiative, which includes work such as ecosystem analysis, network building, awareness raising, and project scouting. She is passionate about promoting this important area and highlighting the great commercial potential and unmet medical needs. Cathrine also drives our effort in helping BII start-ups secure non-dilutive funding. With a background as a grant proposal writer and business developer, she knows how to navigate the ocean of opportunities.
Cathrine holds an MSc in International Business Communication & European Studies from Copenhagen Business School.
Do you want to know more about the development projects at BII? Cecilie is a Project Manager working with external development and collaboration projects in BII. Cecilie has a cross-functional role, supporting the overall business priorities and developing BII as an organization.
Cecilie has previously worked with strategic transformation, which gives her great experience with project management and organizational development. With an educational background in Political Science and an additional degree in Journalistic Communications, she has a strong analytic foundation and is an expert in consensus-building and navigating in a multi-stakeholder landscape.
Job Titles:
- Director of Planetary Health
Job Titles:
- Personal Assistant
- CBO
- Senior Coordinator
Danielle is the Personal Assistant to CBO Bobby Soni. Furthermore, she supports the Business Development team with managing call processes and coordination of venture programs. She also assists with cross-functional projects and organizing events and conferences.
Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, she holds a degree in Business Administration and Chinese from Copenhagen Business School and has extensive experience as PA and coordinator.
Christina Smolke is a leader in the fields of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.
Dr. Smolke is a Professor (Research) of Bioengineering at Stanford University and CEO of Antheia, Inc, and has received numerous honors including Nature's 10 and NIH Director's Pioneer Award.
Job Titles:
- Member / Weizmann Institute of Science
Eran Segal is heading the Segal Lab with a team of computational biologists and experimental scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
His research focuses on the relationship between nutrition, health, and gut microbes in human individuals and his research group has extensive experience in machine learning, computational biology, probabilistic models, and analysis of heterogeneous high-throughput genomic data from various technologies such as next-generation sequencing.
Eran Segal has published over 150 publications and received several awards and honors for his work, including the Overton prize, awarded annually by the International Society for Bioinformatics (ICSB) to one scientist for outstanding accomplishments in computational biology.
Job Titles:
- Member / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Feng Zhang is one of the pioneers in the development of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing and a leader in the field of optogenetics.
He has a BA from Harvard and a Ph.D. degree from Stanford. He holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship of Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and professorship in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering at MIT.
In 2018, Feng Zhang was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Job Titles:
- Member / KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Mathias Uhlén leads a research group at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Biotechnology.
He is a part-time professor at the Technical University of Denmark and a guest professor at Karolinska Institutet. His research has led to more than 650 publications, and 25 start-ups have come out of his group at KTH- four of which have IPO'ed - two in Sweden, one in Norway and one in Korea.
In 2010, he founded the national center for molecular bioscience, SciLifeLab, in both Stockholm and Uppsala, which bring more than 1000 scientists together
Job Titles:
- Chairman / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Robert Langer is one of 12 Institute Professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a widely recognized researcher in biotechnology, especially in the fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering.
He has been cited more than 325,000 times, and his h-index of 280 is the highest of any engineer in history.
He has more than 1,360 issued and pending patents worldwide, which have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies.
Sang Yup Lee is a biochemical engineer and is well known for the development of microbial strains and the bioprocess for the fermentative production of many chemicals including polylactic acid, succinic acid, and gasoline.
Job Titles:
- Junior Analyst
- Strategy Specialist
Emilie works as a junior analyst. She is studying for a bachelor's in Economics and Business Administration at Copenhagen Business School and has experience in Marcom and business development from her student position at VITA Accelerator and Symbion.
Job Titles:
- Junior Analyst
- Legal Junior Analyst
Frederik works as a Junior Analyst in BII's legal team. His main tasks are to support and assist the legal counsels and Operations in a variety of tasks, including contract management, drafting, and negotiating.
He holds a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Copenhagen and is currently studying for his Master's degree in Law, LL.M. Previously, he worked at Topsoe A/S in their legal department within contract and company law.
Hannah is BII's Grant Manager and ensures the high quality of our call processes and grant management. She also manages our Porgram Advisory Board as one of BII's key stakeholders.
She has previously worked in London, UK, at The Royal Society and Wellcome Trust in Grants Management. She holds a Ph.D. in Medical Science from Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / CEO at Galecto, Inc
Serial entrepreneur with a background in drug discovery and development, corporate strategy, financing and management. Hans Schambye has an extensive experience in managing biotech companies, based on in depth biological understanding of diseases and pharmaceutical R&D.
Heike is our Senior IP Manager and part of the Innovation team, an essential part of shaping high-quality IP portfolios for all BII Bio Studio projects and providing advise to our Venture companies.
She has a Ph.D. in molecular/cell biology from the University of Dundee and is a European Patent Attorney. She has 15+ years of experience in life science IP from IP law firms, patent information providers, and pharmaceutical companies.
Job Titles:
- Academic Relations Manager
Iben is involved in the recruitment processes for the Bio Studio Program and works closely with applicants during the application stages. She also manages the Bio Studio grants during the whole project life cycle. Additionally, she drives our efforts to capture the impact we create through our programs, events, and other activities and is responsible for gathering and processing impact data from our grantees, as well as coordinating the creation of the BII Annual Impact report.
Iben holds an MSc. In Molecular Biomedicine from the University of Copenhagen, and she is experienced in synthetic biology and biomedical engineering methods. She has participated several times in the iGEM competition, both as a student project leader and as a supervisor. Previously, Iben has worked as a consultant, helping clients in the Nordics secure public funding for their large-scale innovation projects.
Jens Nielsen has been elected into several academies, including the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the National Academy of Engineering (USA),the National Academy of Medicine (USA) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Jens Nielsen has several years of entrepreneurial expertise as the founder of biotech companies such as Fluxome A/S, MycoTeQ A/S, MetaboGen AB, Melt&Marble AB, Elypta AB, and Chrysea Inc.
As BII's Relationship Manager, Jeppe is responsible for BII's network of Partners, Collaborators, and Service Providers who engage with BII's startup community. On top of that, he is responsible for the BII Residence program, which offers startups and corporations opportunities to co-locate in the BII building.
Jeppe holds a Master's in Organizational Innovation & Entrepreneurship from Copenhagen Business School. Before BII, he worked at the Technical University of Denmark and Innovation Center Denmark Silicon Valley.
Job Titles:
- Grant & Impact Specialist
Johanna looks after BII's Women's Health Initiative. This includes strategy development, network building, scouting, due diligence, and project support across BII's programs to help facilitate innovation specifically in this underserved area with huge unmet needs.
Johanna hails from Estonia and is a scientist by training. She studied microbial physiology at the University of Tartu for her MSc, holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Heidelberg, and has extensive postdoctoral experience from the Francis Crick and Cancer Research UK London Research Institutes. She joined BII from the Wellcome Trust where she managed their cell biology, biomedical resources, and technology development portfolio.
Julie is a Principal in our Business Development team focusing on solutions with high impact potential on Planetary Health. She supports the selection & assessment of projects for our venture programs while acting as Anchor for our Planetary Health portfolio companies. Julie is a former part of Novozymes' Venture team, where she was Head of Scouting, and prior to joining the biotech universe, she made a lot of slides as a Management Consultant at Accenture.
She holds a Master's in Business Administration & Psychology from Copenhagen Business School.
Kamilla works as a Legal Counsel with Legal Administration in the Operations Department.
She holds a Master's Degree in Law from the University of Copenhagen and has a background in company law and M&A transactions.
Katrine has a background as a journalist with a lot of experience in journalism, communication, marketing, and branding. With +10 years of experience, she has worked in foundations, private companies, and political organizations.
Having previously held the position of Head of Communications at Vækstfonden (now EIFO), Katrine brings valuable insights from the domains of investment and entrepreneurship. As MSc of Arts in American Studies, Katrine is also interested in US politics and acts as a spokesperson in the media where she debates the role of social- and digital media use in US politics.
Kenneth has a long track record in different laboratories, both in active science and support functions. He has spent 28 years at Novo Nordisk and three years at AJVaccines.
Job Titles:
- Entrepreneurship Education Specialist
Leonie is the Entrepreneurship Education Specialist in the Science & Technology team, where she is responsible for activities such as the BII Summer School and an EU project on life science entrepreneurship education together with Nova SBE Lisbon.
She holds a Master's in Social and Economic Psychology from the University of Basel, Switzerland. Before moving to Copenhagen, Leonie has been leading and managing the University of Basel's startup programs and educational activities on entrepreneurship as well as a female entrepreneurship initiative.
Job Titles:
- Senior Finance Controller
Job Titles:
- Director of Science Strategy
Job Titles:
- Board Member / CEO at the Novo Nordisk Foundation
- CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation
- Member of the Board of BB Biotech AG
Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen is the CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
He has a long career in Novo Nordisk, which he joined in 1991 as Head of Growth Hormone Research. In 1994, he was appointed Senior Vice President of Diabetes R&D, and in November 2000, he became Executive Vice President of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer. In this capacity, he was responsible for global drug and device research, CMC and global development, medical and regulatory affairs, and global safety within Novo Nordisk. During this tenure, he oversaw the development and approval of more than 20 medicinal products.
Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen is currently a member of the board of BB Biotech AG. He has been chairman of the board of the University of Copenhagen as well as President of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences and served on the editorial boards of several international, peer-reviewed journals. In addition to this, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, since 2000.
Education:
1991: DSc (Veterinary Science), the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
1989: Ph.D., the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark
1986: DVM, the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen
Job Titles:
- Chairman / Partner at Kromann Reumert, Lawyer, JD, L.M
Member of the Novo Nordisk Foundation's Board of Directors from 2014 and Vice-Chair since 2018. Marianne Philip serves on several boards including as chair of The Committee on Foundation Governance and is among others experienced in company and foundation law, investments and corporate governance.
Job Titles:
- PA to CEO & Board Assistant
Job Titles:
- Board Member / CEO at Inthera Bioscience, Ph.D., Chemistry
With + 25 years of international experience from the biotech industry, Martin Bonde has held several leadership positions as CEO for e.g. Vaccibody, Epitherapeutics, Natimmune, Combio,Torsana Biosensor, and Ostemeter Biotech.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Managing Partner, Wellington Partners
- Managing Partner at Wellington Partners Life Sciences
Regina is a Managing Partner at Wellington Partners Life Sciences (WPLS) and represents the WPLS funds on the Boards of Ayoxxa, Carisma Therapeutics, Endostim, GTX Medical, SNIPR Biome, STipe Therapeutics, Themis and TRiCares. She was a founding investor in Rigontec (acquired by MSD), Sapiens (acquired by Medtronic), Middle Peak Medical (acquired by Symetis / Boston Scientific), and an external director at GlaxoSmithKline's Respiratory TA Board. Since joining the industry in 2000, she has become an influential investor in the European VC industry, focusing on early-stage and growth deals in Life Sciences. She currently serves as the Spokesperson for the Board of the German PE and VC Association (BVK).
Before joining WPLS, Regina led the European life sciences efforts of Boston-based Atlas Venture. She was the founding investor in Bicycle Therapeutics, F-star, and Jenavalve, and served on several Boards, including U3 Pharma (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), Nitec Pharma (now part of Horizon Pharma NASDAQ HZPN), Egalet (NASDAQ: EGLT), and Novamed (acquired by SciClone NASDAQ SCLN). Before, Regina worked for Apax Partners, and built her extensive network in the global healthcare industry during her tenure at McKinsey. In the 90s, Regina gained initial insights into the fast-growing biotech sector as post-doctoral researcher at the MRC Cambridge UK. Regina studied chemical engineering in Vienna and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
Robert G. Urban has over 25 years of international experience in the healthcare industry. In 2018, Robert retired from Johnson and Johnson as the Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, LLC. Prior to joining J&J, Robert was the founding Executive Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was previously the CEO of Acretia Inc, he has also held founding and executive positions at ZYCOS Inc and Pangaea Pharmaceuticals. Robert has served on the Board of diverse companies and not-for-profit organizations.
Job Titles:
- Senior Associate, Innovation
Job Titles:
- Chief People Officer ( CPO )
Job Titles:
- Communication and Community Building Specialist
Job Titles:
- Senior Communication Specialist
Job Titles:
- Chief Innovation Officer
- CIO