Michael Palfreyman (Chairman)

Michael G. Palfreyman is a seasoned leader in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries with over 35 years of experience. Dr. Palfreyman is currently Head, Translational R&D at ChemDiv, Inc. as well as Senior Scientific Advisor for Vitruvean, Inc. Previously, Michael was VP, Program Management & Product Development at EnVivo Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for the late stage discovery and preclinical development of two CNS drugs now demonstrating efficacy in clinical testing. As a co-founder NOVACE Corporation, Michael worked closely with investors and biotechnology companies to bring products from discovery through to the value point of clinical validation. Before joining NOVACE, Michael held a number of executive positions at Psychiatric Genomics, ScriptGen (Anadys) Pharmaceuticals as well as Marion Merrell Dow Research Institute (Sanofi-Aventis). He is also senior R&D Diligence Advisor for Torrey Pines Investment, Inc.

Christina Takke

Christina Takke is a Partner at Forbion Capital Partners. She joined the team of ABN AMRO Capital Life Sciences as an analyst in 2000.

Before that Christina worked with Bio-Gen-Tec-NRW in Cologne, Germany, a regional development organization for the biotechnology industry. Here she evaluated business proposals and assisted companies in the fundraising process.

At Forbion Christina is responsible for scouting and analysis of new investment opportunities as well as general deal execution.

Christina serves on the Supervisory Boards of arGEN-X and Pieris. Previously, she was on the board of Bioceros and was closely involved with GlycArt (sold to Roche in 2005) as Observer.

Christina began her scientific career with a master’s degree in biology from the Technical University of Darmstadt. She subsequently joined the group of Prof Dr, Campos-Ortega at the Institute of Development Biology of the University of Cologne, where she studied the Delta-Notch signaling pathway and its role during zebra fish neurogenesis and early somite development.

Emmanuelle Coutanceau

Emmanuelle Coutanceau joined Crédit Agricole Private Equity's Venture Capital team in April 2007. She holds a degree in agronomic engineering from the ENSAR in Rennes, a PhD in Microbiology from Paris VII University and a specialized postgraduate degree in pharmaceutical management from the Paris ESCP-EAP Business School. From 2003 to 2006, at Pasteur Institute, Emmanuelle managed a fundamental research project on the immunosuppressive properties of a bacterial toxin. Her work led to several international scientific publications. In Crédit Agricole Private Equity, she has been actively involved in several investments.

Gaston Matthyssens

Following a professorship at the Free University of Brussels, Dr. Matthyssens joined the management of biotech company Plant Genetic Systems in 1986. Upon its successful trade sale to Hoechst Agrevo for $750 million, he moved to the San Diego-based drug discovery company Corvas International as Vice President responsible for drug discovery and international operations.

In 1997 Dr. Matthyssens became VP Business Development for the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, Ghent, Belgium, where he identified mature intellectual property and conceptualized new businesses around it. He was responsible for spinning-out three companies raising a total of €20 million in seed financing: deVGen (successfully floated on Euronext in 2005), CropDesign (which was acquired by BASF) and Ablynx (which raised €85 million through its 2007 IPO on Euronext).

In 2001 he co-founded V4G, a venture coaching and consulting firm, followed in 2007 with the creation of Vesalius Biocapital, a venture capital fund focusing on the creation and growth of European life science companies.

Dr. Matthyssens holds an MSc and a PhD in biochemistry from the Free University of Brussels and received training in the labs of three Nobel prize winners: Dr. Susumu Tonegawa in Basel and Dr. Cesar Milstein and Fred Sanger in Cambridge.

Nico Vandervelpen

Mr. Nico Vandervelpen started his career with Ernst & Young Brussels in 1998 where he worked as a senior executive. Throughout his career, he has gained extensive international experience in finance, business consulting, project management and mergers and acquisitions serving a wide variety of multinational clients with, amongst others, a focus on the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. He joined LRM NV in 2007 were he founded the Life Sciences venture fund and forms part of the executive management team. As permanent representative of Immocom, Mr. Vandervelpen serves as a board member (or observer) on several boards within the LRM portfolio companies such as Apitope International, Complix, Amakem, SEPS, Vesalius Biocapital, Life Science Development Campus, 3DDD Pharma and Tigenix. Since 2007, the LRM Life Sciences fund invested in Apitope International, SEPS Pharma, TiGenix, Promethera, Amakem, Complix, Life Science Development Campus and Arcarios. Mr. Vandervelpen holds a Master degree in commercial and business engineering from Hasselt University as well as a Master in Accountancy. In addition to that, he followed several national and international management courses throughout his career.

Dirk Leysen

Dirk Leysen is the CSO and founder of Amakem. Prior to Amakem’s foundation, Dirk was head of R&D at Devgen Biopharma, where he initiated work on the novel ‘Localized Drug Action platform’ which was later in-licensed by Amakem. Previously to Devgen, Dirk held positions as Associate Director of medicinal chemistry and Managing Director of analytical chemistry at Organon. Many of the compounds he has worked on have reached the marketplace.  He has been a professor of chemical biology at Maastricht (the Netherlands).

Jack Elands

Jack Elands has been the Chief Executive Officer of Amakem since its inception in 2010. Previous to his role as CEO at Amakem, Jack served as the CBO of Silicos, an informatics platform-based biotechnology company. Prior to that, Jack served as the CEO of Vitec, a specialty biochemical company focused on antimicrobial surface chemistries and products and the VP of Business Development at Sidec AB, a Swedish company focused on the discovery and development of protein based drugs. Jack started his pharmaceutical career at Marion Merrell Dow (later HMR, now Sanofi-Aventis). He has published extensively in papers and posters on topics ranging from biomolecular screening to protein tomography to life science informatics and functional genomics and has contributed to several patents. He received his undergraduate in medical biology from University of Utrecht in 1985. Jack was awarded his doctorate in Neuropharmacology from the Rudolf Magnus Institute at University of Utrecht in 1989.