Nordic Life Science 1
THE LATEST LIFE SCIENCE CAREER NEWS FROM THE NORD
IC REGION MÅRTEN WINGE has been appointed new CEO of the biotech start-up company Cartana, a spin-out from the SciLifeLab. Initially focused on neuroscience applications, the company has recently been selected as a platform technology provider for the Horizon 2020 Human Cell Atlas series of initiatives and is now planning a move into oncology and other areas. Winge has a strong track record in commercializing platform technologies. A molecular biologist by training, he headed marketing for Pyrosequencing before holding senior positions in companies raising a total of approx. 1.5 billion SEK, including IPO, seed and various stages of follow on financing rounds. “Commercialization of novel technology in life science is what really inspires me, and what I have worked with for the most part of the past 20 years. Every case is unique – and yet they are all similar at the same time. I know Malte and his coworkers behind the technology here at Cartana, are absolute world class in this discipline. It is a privilege to be part of such a team,” says Winge. FRANCOIS MARTELET has extensive international experience of leading pharmaceutical companies. He replaces Sven Rohmann, who has been acting CEO of Oasmia during a transition period. Rohmann remains a member of the board and will continue to play an active role in the company. Martelet has held three CEO positions in the last 12 years. He has spent most of his career in the oncology field, as CEO of Avax and Topotarget, as well as in executive roles at senior level at Roche, Eli Lilly, Novartis and MSD. He has been based in six countries in Europe and in the US. Martelet is a French Medical Doctor, with a Master’s Degree in Business. He speaks four languages, among them Swedish. “The Board has sorted out some of the question marks of the past and has laid out a solid strategy to commercialize and also successfully concluded the rights issue in December. Now it is time to execute on the business plan, transforming the company, which is exactly the kind of work that really thrills me,” says Martelet. CECILIA AHLIN joins the AroCell management team as Chief Medical Officer. She will lead and develop the clinical strategy with focus on getting more clinical evidence for the use of TK1 as a biomarker in cancer treatment. Ahlin has over 20 years of experience treating cancer patients and has a PhD in prognostic factors in breast cancer. She became a specialist in general oncology in 2003 and in gynecological oncology in 2011. She has experience from the Swedish MPA as clinical assessor and most recently from Novartis where she was Medical Head Oncology Sweden. Cecilia holds an associate professorship in Oncology at Örebro University. “Together with the management team, I will continue to strengthen AroCell’s clinical research program and our collaborations with external stakeholders. The target is to generate additional data on Thymidine Kinase 1 (TK1) both as a prognostic/predictive biomarker as well as a response biomarker for personalized oncology,” says Ahlin. OLLI PIETILÄINEN received his PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of Helsinki, while also spending several years at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK. For his postdoc, Pietiläinen moved to the Broad Institute and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA to analyze the functional impact of genetic risk variants in schizophrenia using human neuronal models. “Olli Pietiläinen is an outstanding researcher and brings top-level expertise in complex disease genetics and functional genomics to the Neuroscience Center,” says Jari Koistinaho, Director of Neuroscience Center. “My goal is to understand the genetic basis and biological mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders and to enable development of effective medicine and novel therapies for these disorders,” says Pietiläinen. “The extraordinary scientific community at the Neuroscience Center and HiLiFE provides an outstanding opportunity for translational research in neuroscience,” adds Pietiläinen.