Emmanuelle Coutanceau

Partner of Novo Seeds. Emmanuelle has more than 10 years of experience in venture capital investment. She sits on the board of directors of… several European biotech companies, including IO Biotech, Inthera, Corwave, Antag Therapeutics and Minervax. Prior to joining Novo Seeds, Emmanuelle was Partner Life Sciences at Auriga Partners, where she was in charge of seed stage investments for Auriga IV Bioseeds, a seed fund dedicated to projects related to infectiology and microbiology. From 2007 until 2014, she was part of Omnes capital (formerly Crédit Agricole Private Equity) life sciences team with multiple portfolio companies leading to successful exits or IPOs. She was also in charge of the Seed Stage Investment Program and actively invested and sat on the board of directors of several companies in Belgium and The Netherlands.

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Jeroen Bakker

Joined Novo Holdings in 2018 and is a Principal in the Novo Seeds team. Jeroen has a broad background comprising of life science consultancy, biotech and venture… capital. Previously, Jeroen worked at M Ventures, the corporate investment group of Merck, focusing on early-stage investments in US, EU and Israel. Through his work in consultancy, Jeroen raised 10+ EUR million in funding for biotech and translational academic research. Jeroen worked in biotech at Syntaxin Ltd (acquired by Ipsen) and through his scientific training published several articles on innate immunity. He holds a PhD in immunology from the University of Amsterdam and has been a visiting fellow at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology and University of Iowa.+

Morten Graugaard Døssing

Morten joined Novo Holdings in 2016 and serves as Partner in the company creation team of Novo Seeds. Morten primary role is within… early-stage private investments and to lead new company formation with the focus on development of new medicine as well as drug discovery platform technologies. Morten spearheaded the formation of BiOrgin Labs to expedite venture formation in the drug discovery space. He has more than 15 years of experience in research, business development and licensing, M&A, equity investing, corporate strategy and company creation.
Morten currently serves on the Board of Acesion Pharma, Avilex Pharma, BiOrigin, Hoba Therapeutics, Muna Therapeutics, NMD Pharma, Precirix, and STipe Therapeutics. Furthermore, he is the executive chair of HyperBio Therapeutics and Orbis Medicines.
Morten led the spin-out and EUR 17 M Series A financing of Syndesi Therapeutics in 2018 which was subsequently acquired by Abbvie in 2022 for USD 130 M upfront and a total deal value of USD 1.0 Bn.
Prior to joining Novo, Morten was Director of Corporate Development at H. Lundbeck A/S where he was involved in M&A, corporate strategy, BD&L, portfolio management and equity investments. While at Lundbeck Morten successfully led the acquisition of orphan neurology company Chelsea Therapeutics for 658 USD m and was involved in a range of other deals including the 1.8 USD Bn alliance with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals as well as equity investments and spinouts.
Morten holds an MSc in Human Biology from the University of Copenhagen.+

Casper Tind Hansen

Casper has 15 years of expertise in pharma, biotech, and venture capital. He has taken on various roles in Marketing and Business Development… at Lundbeck and Nycomed, he was part of the investment team at Novo Ventures, and has been CEO of Pcovery, a Danish Discovery stage biotech company. Casper is the co-founder of Orphazyme and Embark Biotech. He holds a M.Sc in Human Biology from the University of Copenhagen.
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Ian Laquian

Ian has over 15 years of experience in building companies, franchises, portfolios and products. He has had senior roles with increasing responsibility within R&D,… Business Development, and Marketing at Nycomed and Takeda; overseeing development of key assets in Alzheimer’s Disease, Schizophrenia and Depression. Ian holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Waterloo, and a M.Sc. in Biochemistry and MBA from the University of Ottawa.

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Søren Skjærbæk

Søren is a business-oriented lawyer focused on biotech and has more than 20 years of experience from private law firms and as both in-house and external legal counsel. Søren is executive manager of several… start-up biotech companies within the Novo portfolio+

Line Kromann Jørgensen

Line has more than 20 years of experience in financial management. She has a background as senior auditor at Deloitte followed by Finance Manager roles at Momondo A/S. …In addition to her main focus on accounting and reporting, Line is well founded in general tax and VAT matters. At BiOrigin, she supports client management with budgeting, reporting and other financial management. Line holds a M.Sc. in Business Economics and Auditing from the Copenhagen Business School.+

Simon Feldbæk

Simon has 25 years of experience from biotech and pharma. Most recently Simon was heading the Drug Design unit at LEO Pharma… (Medicinal Chemistry & DMPK). Prior to LEO Pharma he worked at NeuroSearch and LICA Pharmaceuticals (co-founder).
Simon brings extensive drug discovery and project leadership experience from Target ID to clinical PoC – having taken several projects from initiation in Research to Phase 1/2 clinical studies. Key expertise areas cover discovery of small molecule formats like PPI modulators and PROTACs. Simon holds a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from University of Copenhagen.
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Thomas Kirkegaard Jensen

Thomas has more than 15 years’ experience within life science and biotech as both scientist, founder, and executive.…He was the founding CEO and later CSO of Orphazyme A/S, a company based on his patented discoveries as a Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellow at the Danish Cancer Society. In Orphazyme A/S, Thomas led the company’s R&D efforts in rare and neurodegenerative diseases across protein and small molecule therapeutics, successfully enabling the progression of the company’s lead asset all the way to final NDA and MAA regulatory interactions. At Orphazyme, Thomas furthermore held responsibility for interactions with patient organizations, Orphazymes quality assurance and global project management organizations as well as Orphazymes intellectual property rights. Thomas has extensive experience across the whole drug discovery and development process from discovery to pivotal clinical trials and regulatory filing, holds more than 60 granted patents across oncology, lysosomal biology, rare and neurological diseases, has published in several high-impact journals such as Nature, been invited speaker at scientific, clinical and biotechnological conferences, and received grants from both national and international organizations such as the Fulbright Foundation, Wellcome Trust, EU Horizon 2020 program, Eurostars and Innovation Fund Denmark.
As Founder and part of the executive team at Orphazyme A/S, Thomas has been instrumental in raising more than 300M USD for the continued development of Orphazyme A/S in both private and public markets.
Thomas holds a M.Sc. in Human Biology and a Ph.D. in Medicine from University of Copenhagen. +

John A. Kemp, PhD

John has over 35 years of leadership experience in neuroscience research, drug discovery and development and was most recently founding CSO of Syndesi Therapeutics.… Prior to Syndesi, John was Head of Neuroscience Discovery at Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Belgium. John was previously Chief Research and Development officer at Evotec, and prior to that CEO of Evotec Neurosciences, which span-out from Evotec and raised €25 million in a series A round in 2004 before subsequently being sold back to Evotec. Before joining Evotec, John was Head of CNS Research at Roche in Basel. He also held senior research positions in Neuroscience R&D at Merck Sharpe and Dohme in the UK where he rose to the position of Senior Investigator. John has published over 140 peer reviewed articles, was an original member of ISI’s Most Highly Cited Researcher Database, and has an h-index of 75. John has a B.Sc. (Hons) in Pharmacology and a Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology from the University of Southampton.+

Jonatan Fullerton Støier

Jonatan Fullerton Støier comes from a post-doc position in Kristian Helin’s group at BRIC, where he worked under the supervision of associate professor Paul Cloos.… During his employment in the Helin Group, starting September 2021, Jonatan has contributed significantly to uncover the MoA of a novel compound with encouraging pre-clinical data on hard-to-treat cancer models. He has a solid background in neuroscience from working on diverse research projects at Lundbeck’s Drug Discovery and Neurodegeneration departments and from his Ph.D. studies under Dr. Ulrik Gether at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen. Jonatan is an expert in most standard molecular biology and imaging techniques as well as being experienced in cell-based assay development and transgenic mouse models.+

Itys Vacher-Comet

Senior scientist at BiOrigin. Itys is a molecular biologist with more than 15 years’ experience in research in the fields of chromatin and… gene regulatory mechanisms involved in development and cancer. He performed his PhD in the group of Dr. Giacomo Cavalli at the University of Montpellier (France), before joining in 2009 the group of Prof. Kristian Helin at the University of Copenhagen for his postdoctoral studies. In 2015, Itys became an assistant professor in same group. His work in both France and Denmark led to important contributions that were published in top peer reviewed journals. In 2020, Itys started as a scientific consultant for Inthera Bioscience where his work on their lead compound led to decisive breakthroughs in understanding its mode-of-action.+

Bo Rode Hansen, PhD, MBA

Seasoned Life Science Executive, Board member & Serial Entrepreneur with background in biotech and big pharma both in Europe… and US for 20+ years. Previously, CEO & President of Scandion Oncology A/S, CEO & President of Genevant Sciences Inc, Global head of RNA therapeutics in Roche pRED, General Manager of Roche Innovation Center Copenhagen and Executive in Santaris Pharma A/S. Raised +80M$ for biotechs in US and EU and established multiple partnerships between biotech and pharma. Led platform- and clinical stage companies- both private and public. Led numerous drug discovery-, innovation- and alliance projects.+

Christoph Rosenbohm, PhD, MBA

Christoph has more than 20 years of experience from biotech and pharma. Most recently Christoph was Chief Technology Officer… of Ceptur Therapeutics and prior to Ceptur he worked for Roche both at the innovation centre in Copenhagen where he was part of the leadership team and at headquarters in Basel where he led the technical development of oligonucleotides. Christoph brings extensive technical development and drug discovery experience from target identification, lead selection to clinical PoC. Key expertise areas cover technical development and discovery of oligonucleotides and RNA molecules.
Christoph holds a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Southern Denmark and an executive MBA from Copenhagen Business School. +

Thomas Sandal, PhD, MBA

Thomas is a biotech leader with 30+ years of experience within the Biotech and Biopharmaceutical industry…. He has been responsible for early-stage discovery and CMC development of antibodies and antibody fragments within indications such as RA (Sub cutaneous delivered), ALI (pulmonary delivered) Psoriasis (topical delivered), oncology (CPI’s, ADC’s and autologous T cell therapy) and Microbiome bacterial consortia products. Thomas brings deep insight to biotech company building, R&D strategy, planning, implementation and prioritization from his executive and senior positions at PokeAcell, AGC Biologics, Microbiotica Ltd, Crescendo Biologics Ltd, GSK, Ltd. and Domantis. In these positions Thomas has progressed several compounds to clinical stages.
Thomas graduated as a molecular biologist and holds a degree in engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and a Business Administration degree from Copenhagen University College of Engineering.+

Daniel Greve, PhD, MBA

Daniel has more than 20 years of experience from the pharma industry, most recently from LEO Pharma… where he was head of a Medicinal Chemistry department and also leading different technology platforms and drug discovery projects. Prior to LEO Pharma he worked at Lundbeck A/S as bench chemist and medicinal chemist.
Daniel brings extensive drug discovery and project leadership experience from hit identification campaigns, lead optimization projects and candidate nomination phases. Key expertise areas cover discovery of small molecule formats like PPI modulators, hit finding and lead optimization campaigns, as well as usage of AI/ML tools in early drug discovery. Daniel holds a PhD in organic chemistry from University of Copenhagen.+

Rodrigo Santos

Rodrigo has over 10 years of experience in biotech and is currently an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at BiOrigin… and Novo Holdings Seed Investment Team.
He was the Director of Cell Technologies at Mogrify, a company developing in vivo reprogramming therapies. Previously, he was the Head of Technology at bit.bio working on synthetic biology and cellular reprogramming, and prior to that, he was a Principal Scientist at Horizon Discovery working on iPS cell genome engineering. Rodrigo completed his PhD at the Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge.+

Anders Hinsby

Anders has more than 15 years of experience as a biotech executive and investor. He is a co-founder of Orphazyme A/S where he served as CEO from 2009 … to 2019. In Orphazyme he led the formation of a late-development stage biopharmaceuticals company with a focus on rare and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as the IPO on NASDAQ in Copenhagen in 2017 raising 90 MUSD. Prior to Orphazyme, he was a Partner in a major Danish life science dedicated venture capital fund, BankInvest Biomedical Venture, where he also served as a Director in Boards including Santaris Pharma and F2G. Anders holds a M.Sc. in Human Biology and a Ph.D. in Medicine from the University of Copenhagen. +

John Haurum

Non-executive Director in various European biotech companies (Adcendo Aps. (DK), Synklino Aps. (DK), Neophore Ltd. (UK), Storm Ltd. (UK), Agomab Therapeutics (BE), and CatalYm (DE)…. Previously, he was the CEO of F-star in Cambridge, UK (2012-2018), where he built a successful biotech company, that initiated two clinical trials in oncology and generated more than €200M in non-dilutive revenue. Before, he was VP Research at ImClone Systems, New York (2010-2012) and Chief Scientific Officer and cofounder of Symphogen A/S, Denmark (2000-2009). After graduating in Medicine in Aarhus, Denmark (1992), Dr. Haurum received a D.Phil. in Immunology from University of Oxford, UK based on work done at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. Subsequently, he took up positions as Associate Professor at the Danish Cancer Society and completed his medical training.+

Per Fischer

Dr. Fischer has 24 years experience from the biotech and pharmaceutical industry within product development and business development. He has experience from product… and business development in big pharma, founded and run several biotech companies, and served a business and product development consultant within the sector. He holds a D.Phil. from University of Oxford and has 6 years of laboratory experience within immunology and infectious diseases. He currently serves as the CEO of MinervaX ApS, Helion Biotech ApS, and Fischer BioConsult ApS.+

Rita Balice-Gordon

Rita Balice-Gordon, Ph.D., is the Chief Scientific Officer of Muna Therapeutics, a newly formed biotech company focused on disease modifying therapies for neurodegenerative diseases … and neuro-inflammation, with seed funding secured. She is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Novo Seeds/Novo Holdings/BiOrigin, developing R&D and financial strategies for biotech startups. Prior to taking on these roles, Rita was the Global Head, Rare and Neurologic Diseases Research Therapeutic Area at Sanofi, Inc. for several years. She led groups of ~200 scientists based in Boston and Paris working on a portfolio of ca. 30 pre-clinical and early development stage projects using small molecules, antibodies and gene therapy as modalities for innovative and transformative therapeutics for patients with rare genetic disorders including lysosomal storage disorders, inborn errors of metabolism and renal and musculoskeletal diseases; Multiple Sclerosis; Parkinson’s Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Before joining Sanofi, she was Vice-President and Head of Circuits, Neurotransmitters and Signaling in Pfizer’s Neuroscience and Pain Research Unit, led the psychiatry and pain portfolios, including bringing several assets to Ph1-Ph2a, and was Head of the Worldwide Research and Development Postdoctoral Program at Pfizer. Rita has consulted on the creation of several NewCos, and partnered with business development colleagues to spin out several assets into NewCos. Prior to her career in biopharma, Rita was Professor of Neuroscience and Chair of the Neuroscience Graduate Group in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where she currently holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor. Rita and her laboratory have studied the cell-cell signaling mechanisms underlying synapse formation and maintenance, mechanisms underlying neuromuscular development and disease, and pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying autoimmune CNS disorders affecting cognition and behavior. She was continuously funded by the NIH for more than 30 years, authored more than 100 scientific papers, received several awards and honors, has given hundreds of invited research talks around the world, has chaired or served on many NIH, national and international committees, study sections, editorial boards and research organization and biotech scientific advisory boards. Rita is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.+

Patrick Trojer, Ph.D.

Patrick joined TRIANA Biomedicines in December of 2021 as President & CEO and Board member after a successful career at Constellation Pharmaceuticals where he served as the …company’s CSO. As member of Constellation’s executive team Patrick materially contributed to several successful financing rounds and deals, including a $100M crossover round, a $65M IPO and the ultimate acqusition of Constellation in 2021 for $1.7b. Patrick‘s entrapreneurial mindset resulted in his co-founding of Constellation Pharmaceuticals in 2008. Patrick was instrumental to build Constellation‘s discovery platform, established a portfolio of competitive clinical candidates and drove the maturation of the company‘s development efforts, leading to one PhIII and two PhII assets and three additional clinical candidates. Prior to his industrial career he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at NYU, Medical School in the laboratory of Dr. Danny Reinberg, exploring the functional downstream consequences of changes to the histone posttranslational modification landscape on processes that require access to DNA, including the regulation of gene expression. Patrick received his Ph.D. in Natural Sciences, specifically Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, from the Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria.+

Mads Tang-Christensen MD, PhD

Experienced senior executive with a demonstrated history of working in the pharmaceuticals industry. Skilled in diabetes, obesity and metablic diseases, pre-Clinical Research…, Life Sciences, CRO Management. Strong professional with a MD, PhD integrative neuroendocrinology from University of Copenhagen. After PhD and post doctoral work Co-founder of the biotech companies Rheosciece and Gubra followed by 12 years at Vice President and Corporate Vice President at Novo Nordisk in obesity, diabetes and liver disease. Currently CSO in Embark Biotech and Antag Therapeutics and also serve as consultant in small and larger companies in the cardiometabolic space.+