Board of Directors

Gerard Soula, Ph.D., MBA

President of Board

Gerard Soula has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, graduated from IAE, Aix Marseille.

He founded Flamel Technologies (in 1990), a biotech company specialized in Drug Delivery and listed on Nasdaq. He was the CEO and Director of Research until June 2005. When he left, Flamel had 250 employees, $100M cash in bank and a market capitalization of $500M. Flamel Technologies’ success is based on the performances of its platforms, Micropump and Medusa.

Furthermore, Gérard Soula has a strong track record in negotiating license agreements in innovating technologies with big pharma groups (Novo Nordisk, Bristol Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline etc).

Olivier Soula, Ph.D., MBA

Director

Olivier Soula has a PhD in polymer science, graduated from ENSIC Mulhouse, and has an MBA from IAE, Lyon.

He worked for 8 years at Flamel Technologies as Director of the Nanotechnologies department. He led the development of Medusa, a prolonged release platform of therapeutic proteins and successfully conducted clinical trials for three of those projects.

Olivier is co-author of nearly 40 patents relating to protein delivery.

Mads Dall

Director

Mads Dall is CEO and owner of Dall & Company, a strategic business development boutique, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, working with clients world-wide mainly within life sciences.

Mads has significant international diabetes industry experience and has operated in US, Europe and Asia with pharma, biotech and med-tech companies in executive, advisory and board positions.

Previous positions include Chief Commercial Officer, Beta Bionics; Executive Vice President, CeQur; Senior Partner, Asia Base; Vice President, Novo Nordisk..

Ekaterina Smirnyagina, Ph.D.

Director

Katya Smirnyagina is as Senior Partner for Life Sciences at Oxford Sciences Entreprises.  She has two decades of experience in by the biotech industry. Katya started her VC career in 2002 with Alta Partners, a healthcare focused USA fund, followed by Capricorn Partners in Belgium. She has been a director of a number of public and private companies in Europe and is the past Vice-Chair of InvestEurope. Katya completed her scientific training with a PhD in Cellular & Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, followed by a postdoc in Microbiology at the Stanford School of Medicine.

Stéphane Boissel, MBA

Director

Stéphane Boissel is currently Chairman and CEO of SparingVision, a genomic medicine company in ophthalmology.

He was previously Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Sangamo Therapeutics, based in San Francisco (USA). He joined Sangamo Therapeutics on the back of the acquisition by the latter of TxCell SA, a CAR-Treg company he was the CEO of.

Stéphane is a seasoned biotech professional with over 25 years of leadership experience across corporate finance, strategy and business development.

Mr. Boissel completed his undergraduate work in management and finance at the University of Lyon and Paris-Dauphine in France and received his MBA from the University of Chicago (IL, USA).

Katherine Bowdish, Ph.D.

Director

Katherine Bowdish is the President & CEO of PIC Therapeutics, a venture-backed precision-medicine company focused in oncology.

From 2013 to 2020, Kathy worked for Sanofi to establish and lead Sanofi Sunrise, a venture investment/company co-creation and partnering vehicle focused on advancing pioneering science of strategic interest to Sanofi.  Following a 5-year span leading Sunrise, Kathy accepted the role of Vice President and Head of R&D Strategy.

Prior to Sanofi, Kathy co-founded or led several early-stage life science companies focused on biological therapies.  Past positions include Co-founder, President & CEO, Anaphore; President, Alexion Antibody Technologies and Senior Vice President, Alexion Pharmaceuticals; Founder, CEO & CSO, Prolifaron, prior to its acquisition by Alexion.

Kathy holds a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York, and a B.S. degree in biology from the College of William and Mary.

Claudia Mitchell, Ph.D., MBA

Director

Claudia Mitchell, holds a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Paris and an MBA in international management from the École des Ponts, Paris, France.

Claudia Mitchell is currently CEO of Savantia AG, a consulting company for cell and gene therapies. Prior to that, she was for three years Senior Vice President, Portfolio Strategy at Astellas Pharma.

Claudia was CEO and co-founder of Universal Cells, a Seattle-based biotechnology company, until the company was acquired by Astellas. Claudia Mitchell previously co-founded Halo-Bio RNAi Therapeutics and served as its Chief Scientific Officer. She was awarded the EY Life Sciences Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Pacific Northwest region in 2018.

In addition to being a biotech entrepreneur, Claudia Mitchell has also held positions in the nonprofit sector and academia. She has worked as a program director for the LGMD2I Research Fund, a non-profit family foundation. Claudia has held a statutory research position at the French National Institute for Medical Research (INSERM).