DKBIO
speakers
key note speaker - DKBIO Reception, April 6th, 6-8 PM
Chris Coburn | Chief Innovation Officer, Mass General Brigham
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Chris Coburn is Chief Innovation Officer, Mass General Brigham, an integrated health care system that consists of Harvard University affiliates Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and McLean Hospital. Mass General Brigham is the nation’s largest academic research enterprise with over $16 billion in annual revenue, 1.5 million patient visits and more than $2 billion in research expenditures. It also has a managed care organization, out-patient facilities and community hospitals. Its 6,200 faculty are appointed at Harvard Medical School.
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Mr. Coburn leads a team of more than 140 tasked with the worldwide commercial application of the unique capabilities and discoveries of Mass General Brigham’s 85,000 employees. His unit’s business development responsibilities include investing, company creation, innovation management, industry collaborations, and licensing. Commercialization revenue exceeds $160 million annually and more than 300 companies have been spun-off from Mass General Brigham in the last decade. Large-scale industry collaborations have been established in areas such as AI and drug development. His group also manages a nearly $500 million venture fund.
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Prior to joining Mass General Brigham, Mr. Coburn was founding director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations and served for 13 years as its executive leader. During his tenure, Cleveland Clinic spun off 57 companies that raised more than $700 million in equity financing. There were none before Coburn’s arrival. His team also managed an innovation alliance network in which Cleveland Clinic directly supported technology commercialization for healthcare systems throughout the United States.
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Mr. Coburn has been a member of numerous corporate and community boards including Explorys (acquired by IBM), Autonomic Technologies, and the U.S. Enrichment Corporation (NYSE:USU).
Panel debate: Biotech, Medtech & Dealmaking
Camilla Petrycer Hansen | Principal, Novo Holdings
Camilla is a principal in Novo Holdings, where she is responsible for company creation and early investments as well as investments focused on anti-infectives under the REPAIR Impact Fund.
Prior to joining Novo Holdings, Camilla spent 10 years in business development across academia, start-ups and industry. Camilla currently serves on the board of directors of Centauri and Hoba Therapeutics, and is an observer in Muna Therapeutics, Hemab and Acesion.
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Camilla has a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry and a Master of Pharmacy degree from Copenhagen University.
Daniel J. Curran | M.D., Head of Rare Genetics and Hematology Therapeutic Area Unit, Takeda
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Dr. Daniel Curran is the Head of the Rare Genetics and Hematology Therapeutic Area Unit (TAU) at Takeda. In this role, he leads Takeda’s efforts to unlock innovation and deliver transformative medicines in the areas of rare immunology, rare hematology, lysosomal storage disorders, rare genetic and metabolic diseases.
Previously, Dr. Curran served as Head of Takeda’s Center for External Innovation (CEI). In this role, he and his team diversified Takeda’s pipeline, completed approximately 150 transactions and invested $1.5 billion in capital in external relationships and investments over a three-year period. In addition, Dr. Curran led the Takeda-CiRA collaboration, a joint research program with Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research Application.
Prior to his role as Head of CEI, Dr. Curran led the corporate development group at Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company and was a member of the executive management team. In that role, he oversaw the development and execution of corporate strategic business development initiatives, including licensing arrangements, acquisitions and a range of other transactions.
He has 20 years of pharmaceutical experience in business development, project leadership and development roles. Prior to Millennium, previous professional experiences include a business development role in the Product Planning and Acquisition group at DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Curran received an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in chemistry from King’s College.
Jens Bitsch-Norhave | Vice President, Transaction and Innovation Partnering, Johnson & Johnson Innovation
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Jens is the Vice President of Transactions for Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Boston.
He joins Johnson & Johnson Innovation from Johnson & Johnson Global Public Health, where he served as head of business development and licensing. Jens joined Johnson & Johnson in 2005 as part of the Janssen Business Development team and has successfully led and completed numerous transactions for both R&D, commercial and public health opportunities. He has significant expertise in creating innovative deal structures and re-thinking business models for sustainable value creation. Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Jens held various positions in R&D and business development in both biotech and pharma companies.
Jens holds a MSc in Biochemistry, a PhD in Neuropharmacology, and an MBA in Innovation Management.
Thomas Kuhlman | Senior Director, Business Development, Moderna Inc.
Currently with Moderna, Thomas is working across areas from gene editing over vaccines to platform delivery and nucleic acid technologies in support of Moderna’s mission to deliver on the promise of mRNA science to create a new generation of transformative medicines for patients.
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Prior to Moderna, Thomas was an early driving force in the creation of Novozymes’ human health business unit ‘OneHealth’ where he headed strategy and business development. Before joining Novozymes, Thomas advised healthcare and biotech companies as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group.
Thomas holds a PhD in physical chemistry from the Technical University of Denmark.
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Panel debate: Experiences from scandinavia to u.s.
Anthony Pagano | Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Genmab
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Mr. Pagano joined Genmab in 2007, was appointed Senior Vice President in 2011 and became the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer effective March 1, 2020. Prior to joining Genmab, Mr. Pagano was Corporate Controller and Senior Director of Business Planning at NovaDel Pharma, a publicly traded specialty pharmaceutical company. He started his career at KPMG LLP, reaching the position of Manager, where he provided audit and M&A consulting services to clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500s in a broad range of industries.
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He is a Certified Public Accountant and received a B.S. in Accounting from The College of New Jersey, as well as an M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Jonathan Freve | CFO, Galecto
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Jon Freve brings more than 20 years of financial experience in the biotechnology sector. Prior to joining Galecto, Jon served as CFO and Treasurer of Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals, a publicly listed clinical stage biotechnology company, and before that, as Sr. Director of Finance at Santaris Pharma.
He began his career at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked in audit and transaction services. Jon has worked on several successful initial public offerings, secondary offerings, mergers and acquisitions and is a certified public accountant.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Michael Levitan | Managing Director, Solebury Trout
Michael Levitan is a Managing Director based in New York. Since joining the firm in 2007, Michael has worked on a wide variety of investor relations, financing and M&A advisory engagements. Michael has over 25 years of experience in healthcare investor relations, investment banking and corporate development. Prior to joining The Trout Group, Michael worked for over 10 years as a healthcare investment banker, including at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Michael worked for Eli Lilly & Company in the business development group. Michael holds an MBA degree in finance and marketing from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and a bachelor of engineering degree in electrical and computer engineering from McGill University.
Seth T. Goldsamt | Partner, McGuireWoods
Seth advises his U.S. and international clients on a broad range of private equity transactions, mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, equity co‑investments, joint ventures, mezzanine financings, venture capital, and restructuring transactions. Particularly experienced in representing clients in the technology, biotechnology and healthcare industries, Seth also advises clients on general corporate matters, various aspects of corporate governance and compliance with federal securities laws.
Seth regularly represents Nordic companies in connection with U.S. corporate, finance, structuring and other transactional matters. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of The Danish-American Chamber of Commerce of New York.
Seth holds a Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in history from Columbia College.
Panel debate: Investing in Scandinavia
Amanda Hayward | Partner, EIR Ventures
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Amanda is a Molecular Biologist and has spent nearly 20 years on the business side with a focus on company building, venture investment, executive leadership, finance and business development. Amanda has been a co-founder of and operator within several academic and pharma-sourced spin-outs, and for a number of the spin-outs has taken interim executive management roles.
Amanda’s venture experience comes from being a partner-level member of two US based venture funds, with an international investment scope, Baxalta Ventures and Connecticut Innovations. Amanda has board level and operational experience in the US and Europe, including in the Nordics.
James Lousararian | Managing Director, BioVentures
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Jim Lousararian, JD, joined BioVentures Investors as a Managing Director in 2017, after previously being involved with multiple BioVentures Investors portfolio companies. He brings over 20 years of entrepreneurship in the life sciences and healthcare sectors.
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Jim has cultivated a career as a serial entrepreneur, including having been a co-founder and/or CEO of four life sciences start-ups, including three BioVentures portfolio companies: Verax Biomedical, where he remains as CEO; AngioLink, which sold to Medtronic in 2004; and Spirus, which was sold to Olympus in 2011. In addition, Jim was also a Co-founder of ArthroSurface Incorporated, which was acquired by Anika Therapeutics in 2020, and co-founded Nursery Products, which was sold to Synagro, in the environmental services area.
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Prior to the founding of AngioLink, Jim was a part of the management team of Thermo Electron that was instrumental in building their environmental services and remediation businesses and who took Thermo ReTec Corp. public on the American Stock Exchange in 1993. While at Thermo ReTec, Jim was President of two major environmental subsidiaries and responsible for sales and marketing and business development. In addition, he led three turnarounds of troubled divisions. Jim started at Thermo as Associate General Counsel. Jim currently serves as CEO of Verax Biomedical and on the Board of Directors for Verax, Triopsy Medical and Unified Information Devices. Jim previously served on the Board of CareSignal prior to its acquistion in Q4 2021.
Jamil Beg | Partner, 5AM Ventures
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Jamil M. Beg joined 5AM Ventures in 2017 as a Principal and was promoted to Partner in 2020. Since joining 5AM, Mr. Beg has been involved with investments in Akouos (NASDAQ:AKUS), Aprea (NASDAQ: APRE), Kinaset, PearTherapeutics, RallyBio (NASDAQ: RLYB), and 5AM’s 4:59 Initiative stepping into operating roles. Prior to 5AM, Mr. Beg was at SageTherapeutics (NASDAQ: SAGE) where he contributed to building the company through business development, corporate strategy, medical affairs, health economics & outcomes research and commercialization roles.
Previously, Mr. Beg was an investment professional at Quaker Partners and contributed to investments in the firm’s portfolio companies.
Jonathan P. Gertler | Co-Founder, Managing Partner & CEO, Back Bay Life Science Advisors
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Jonathan P. Gertler, MD has over 35 years of clinical and scientific experience, and extensive advisory work with biotechnology, medical device, diagnostic, and health care IT companies in both the private and public sectors.
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A former vascular surgeon, Dr. Gertler is a frequent speaker and writer on strategic issues facing life science companies at all stages.
He has founded a several life sciences companies, including Antyllus Therapeutics; a development-stage biotechnology company focused on aortic diseases, and Optivio, a commercial-stage enterprise software platform for stress management and performance optimization. Dr. Gertler also founded Cardiovascular Technologies, an endovascular company that successfully exited in 2001.
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Throughout his advisory career, Dr. Gertler has counseled companies on growth and liquidity strategies and has been responsible for significant aggregate consideration in M&A private and public equity for biotech, medtech, and HCIT companies. Before his advisory and consulting career and during the latter phases of his academic career, he was a venture partner at SV Life Sciences from 1997-2001.
Oliver Thiel | Executive Director, Process Development, Drug Substance Technologies, Amgen
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Oliver Thiel is the Executive Director for Drug Substance Technologies, Pivotal and Commercial Synthetics. He is located at the Amgen site in Cambridge, MA and his teams in Cambridge, MA and Thousand Oaks, CA support the commercial process development and commercialization of the Amgen small molecule portfolio. He is partnering with internal and external manufacturing sites to introduce processes for all synthetic drug substances. He is a member of the AMA site leadership team, and leads the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging council for AMA.
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Oliver joined Amgen in 2003 and has held various positions in Process Development at Amgen, Thousand Oaks and Cambridge. Prior to his current role he has held various Director roles in Process Development, Drug Substance Technologies. His teams have been accountable for commercial process development, technology transfers and commercial support across synthetic and biologic modalities, supporting multiple commercial products (Lumakras®, Blincyto®, Carfilzomib®, Corlanor®, Imlygic®, Kanjinti®, Neulasta®, Parsabiv®, Sensipar®) and > 40 clinical development candidates.
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Oliver has an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the Technische Universität München, and a Ph.D. from the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim. After postdoctoral studies at Stanford University he joined the Amgen Process Development organization. He also holds a business degree from the Fernuniversität Hagen. Oliver has over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has presented over 20 invited lectures. Oliver has been engaged in external consortia (IQ, PhRMA and EFPIA) and currently is a member of the ICH M7 expert working group.
Panel debate: U.S. healthcare trends and priorities
Paul Little | Operating Partner, Lundbeckfonden
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Paul Little joined the early stage biotech investment unit Lundbeckfonden Emerge in 2016 as an associate.
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Paul’s focus is on scientific evaluation and commercial assessment of early investment opportunities. He is CEO of Vesper Biotechnology and Board representative in Folium.
Stephanie A. Kennan | Sr. VP, Federal Public Affairs, McGuireWoods Consulting LLC
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Stephanie Kennan helps clients navigate the legislative and executive branches of federal government to solve problems involving a variety of healthcare policy issues. Her work focuses on providers, medical device manufacturers, drug manufacturers and associations concerned about Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.
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Stephanie has been part of virtually every major piece of Medicare and Medicaid legislation passed in the last 25 years, either as a congressional staffer or while representing clients before Congress and the administration. She also regularly represents clients on matters before the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as well as other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services. In addition, Stephanie works with private equity investors and portfolio companies to help them understand the implications of healthcare market trends for their investment and business decisions. She was recognized by The Hill as a top lobbyist in 2021.
Susan C. Winckler | CEO, the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA
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Susan C. Winckler, RPh, Esq., is CEO of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA. The Foundation is the non-profit organization created by Congress to advance the mission of the FDA.
Prior to accepting the Foundation post in May of 2020, Ms. Winckler servedas President of Leavitt Partners Solutions. As President and Chief Risk Management Officer for the Leavitt Partners family of businesses, Ms. Winckler advised corporate executives on policy and business matters. As CEO of the Food & Drug Law Institute, she provided attorneys, regulators, industry leaders, and consumers with a neutral forum to address domestic and global issues.
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As FDA Chief of Staff from 2007-2009, Ms. Winckler managed the Commissioner’s office; served as his/her senior staff adviser; analyzed policies; and represented FDA before myriad government and external stakeholders. She simultaneously led FDA’s Offices of Legislation, External Relations, Public Affairs, and Executive Secretariat.
As APhA Vice President Policy/Communications and Staff Counsel, she served as the association’s lead spokesperson and senior liaison to Congress, the executive branch, state associations, and allied groups. Ms. Winckler earned a BS from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy and her JD magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center. She is an APhA Fellow, an elected member and Chair of the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) Board of Trustees (2015-2020, 2020-2025), a member of the Purgo Scientific, LLC board, and a member of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy National Advisory Council.
Peter Bak | Managing Director, Back Bay Life Science Advisors
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Peter Bak, PhD has more than twelve years of experience with a broad range of research approaches—cellular, molecular and biochemical—and fields—from immunology and infection through oncology.
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At Back Bay Life Science Advisors, Dr. Bak leads a diverse portfolio of projects with a focus on liquidity planning and positioning, strategic franchise building, M&A and licensing strategy, and buy-side diligence. He regularly works with companies of all scales, from startup to global life science brands.
Dr. Bak’s research career in immuno-oncology began at Dartmouth Medical School (PhD, Microbiology and Immunology), where his research uncovered novel pathways of immunosuppression in ovarian cancer. His research continued at MIT, as an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow at the Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research.
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At MIT, Dr. Bak focused on the development of immunotherapies for prostate cancer and led interdisciplinary projects with researchers from the departments of Biological and Chemical Engineering.
Panel debate: accessing the u.s. market
Megan Dow | Senior Director of Portfolio and Development Strategy, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals
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Throughout Megan’s career, she has focused on the nexus between science and business. As a sell-side analyst on Wall Street, Megan covered innovative biotech companies, most of whom were developing assets focused on immune regulation, and novel genetic and nucleic acid technologies.
She left banking however to take on a unique opportunity as Senior Life Science Advisor for Denmark based in NYC, where she led the U.S. investment, partnering, and engagement strategies for Danish biotech and pharma companies, and guided public engagement for key political and Royal figures pertaining to the healthcare agendas.
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Megan joined Biohaven from Pfizer, where she worked in the Chief Business Office on R&D Strategy across the portfolio. An engaged member of the scientific business community, Megan is on the Steering Committee for the New York Academy of Sciences, and is a board member of the Danish American Chamber of Commerce, and she volunteers as a business and scientific strategy mentor for entrepreneurship groups. She holds her Ph.D. in Pathobiology and Immunology from New York University School of Medicine.
Stephan Gauldie | Managing Director, Head of Back Bay Life Science Canada
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Stephan Gauldie is a founding member of Back Bay Life Science Advisors and head of Back Bay’s Canadian Operations. Dr. Gauldie helped build Back Bay’s integrated strategic advisory and investment banking offering for life science companies at every stage. Dr. Gauldie’s role emphasizes commercial assessment and forecasting, strategic franchise-building, M&A and licensing strategy, buy-side diligence, and exit planning with defensible, analysis-driven positioning for venture-backed companies.
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Dr. Gauldie is also a member of Back Bay’s investment banking team, providing forecasting, valuation, market, and scientific analytics in sell-side transactions, buy-side engagements, and financing support.
He has more than 20 years of experience across drug development research, market analysis, and strategy consulting. Before joining Back Bay, Dr. Gauldie led the Commercial Research Group at Decision Resources. He was a Principal Analyst at Wood Mackenzie, leading teams that covered US and EU-based pharmaceutical companies, as well as CNS/Pain and Immunology therapeutic areas.
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Dr. Gauldie obtained his doctorate in Neuropharmacology from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline’s Neurology and Gastrointestinal Center for Early Drug Discovery (CEDD) and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Pharmacology at the same institution. He holds undergraduate degrees in Medicinal Chemistry and Psychology from Queen’s University, Canada.
Claus Jepsen | Head of Global Product and Launch Strategy, Rare Genetics and Hematology, Takeda
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Claus joined Takeda in 2018 as Head of the global GI Franchise and since late 2020 has been Head of Rare, Genetics and Hematology Product & Launch Strategy Unit.
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Prior to Takeda, Claus worked for GlaxoSmithKline for 15 years, first in Denmark as Business Unit Head, then in Paris heading up the European Center of Excellence in a number of therapeutic areas. He then became General Manager for Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos), based in Vietnam. Since 2010, Claus has been based in the U.S., first as Head of Marketing for Neuroscience and then Head of Marketing for Respiratory, where he launched five new respiratory medicines.
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Prior to GSK Claus spent 8 years in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry in different commercial roles covering geographies from Sales Rep in Copenhagen to Area Manager for Northern Europe.
Claus is a graduate of Copenhagen Business School.
Kate W. Hardey | Partner, McGuireWoods
Kate advises healthcare provider, pharmaceutical, medical device, dietary supplement and life sciences clients on regulatory and compliance matters and in all types of transactions including sales and acquisitions, as well as advising lenders and investors evaluating regulatory risks in cash flow and asset based debt financing transactions.
She has a combined 25 years of law firm, in-house and healthcare industry experience.
She represents various healthcare providers including physician practices, hospitals, academic medical centers, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers among others. Kate also advises businesses and lenders involved in the cannabis supply chain. At the forefront of the industry, Kate currently serves on the Law360editorial advisory board for life sciences where she advises the legal newswire on industry trends and issues facing companies, organizations, and law firms.
Morten Sogaard | Vice President and Head of Target Sciences, Pfizer
Morten has been at Pfizer since 2009 and currently leads Pfizer's Target Sciences (TS) organization delivering novel targets from emerging science areas w/ human genetics, functional genomics, computational biology and academic networks and oversees Pfizer’s companion diagnostics efforts. Previously he oversaw scouting and licensing of platform technologies and oncology assets to phase 2 as well as R&D technology and science investment strategy and was a member of Pfizer’s R&D leadership team.
From 2004 - 2009 Morten was positioned at Boehringer Ingelheim in CT as VP and global head of enabling technology and a member of BI’s global research leadership team, and before that worked in Sweden at AstraZeneca and Pharmacia.
Morten received his Ph.D. degree from Univ. of Copenhagen and subsequently did postdoctoral studies at Sloan Kettering Institute in New York focusing on protein transport and folding with Nobel Laureate James Rothman funded by NIH Fogarty and EMBO fellowships. 30+ publications including first author publications in PNAS, JBC, Cell, Gene, and Bio/Technology.
Company Presentations
Alexandra Roy | Vice President, Solebury Trout
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Alexandra Roy joined Solebury Trout in 2020, bringing over 10 years of experience in business development, asset management, and investor relations. Alexandra works closely with clients to help them achieve their investor relations goals, and provide them with access to Boston’s investment community.
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Previously, Alexandra worked at Wellington Management in Boston on their institutional business development team within the Global Relationship Group, communicating the firm’s “best in class” strategies to large pension funds and foundations. Prior to Wellington, she spent time running the Investor Relations agenda at renewable energy solution firm, Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG), where she led the investor communication re-brand, and planned and coordinated several investor roadshows. She has also worked as a multi-asset investment strategist on BlackRock’s defined contribution team in New York.
Alexandra has a B.A. in Quantitative Economics from Tufts University and is proficient in Spanish. In her spare time, she enjoys Latin dancing, reading a good mystery novel, golfing, hiking, and tennis.
Devan Patel | Senior Vice President, DNB
Devan Patel joined DNB in 2018. With +10 years of Healthcare Corporate & Investment Banking Coverage experience (MUFG, Credit Agricole). Sub-industry specialty spans broad Healthcare and includes Healthcare Services and Healthcare REITs. Prior experience includes Equity Fund Derivatives (BNP Paribas), Equity and Debt Capital Markets research (Thomson Financial), and management consulting (A.T. Kearney, OTC Conseil).
Devan received a MPA in International Economic Policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a B.A. in Finance with Honors from Wofford College. Devan also holds the FINRA Series 79, 7, & 63 licenses.
Matthias Wulf | Business Developer, BioInnovation Institute
Matthias is a business developer at the BioInnovation Institute (BII), a non-profit foundation, where he is involved in scouting for early-stage projects for BII’s funding programs and supports start-ups to raise Seed and series A investments.
Prior to his role at BII, Matthias worked as investment analyst at M-Ventures with focus on life science technologies. Moreover, he has experience as pharmacist.
Matthias holds a PhD from the University of Copenhagen in ion channel pharmacology, a M.Sc. in neuroscience from the University of Regensburg and a license as pharmacist from Kiel University.
Your hosts at DKBIO 2022
Joan Hentze | Consul of Denmark, CEO of Innovation Centre Denmark in Boston
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Consul of Denmark & CEO of Innovation Centre Denmark in Boston & Head of Life Science & Health Innovation in North America. Prior to her current position, Joan Hentze was Deputy Consul General at the Royal Danish Consulate in New York. In her current position, Joan bridges innovation between academia, business and government across the Danish and the US life science ecosystems.
Joan Hentze has been posted with the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, Copenhagen, New York and Boston.
Kristina Pilgaard Jacobsen | Life sciences & healthcare innovation advisor, Innovation Centre Denmark in Boston
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Kristina is an Innovation Advisor at ICDK Boston. Prior to joining ICDK Boston, she worked several years in the management consulting company Bain & Company, focusing on select M&A opportunities in the healthcare & life science space in US and Europe among other things. She has experience in several different types of projects, ranging from developing growth strategies, analyzing markets and conducting organizational changes.
Kristina holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark with several educational and research stays abroad incl. at Johns Hopkins University, MA, and Stanford University, CA.
Jannik Schmidt | Senior Advisor & Head of US Life Science, Innovation Norway in New York.
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Jannik is a seasoned management consultant bridging commercial and governmental interests, building networks and relationships with key accounts and investors in the US pharmaceutical and health tech market. He has spearheaded oncology initiatives around clinical R&D, consulted on medical market access and co-developed successful investor-platforms while at Invest in Denmark in New York, where he acted as Senior Investment Manager for +8 years.
Prior to taking up the Investment Manager job, he spent 4 years in Technology Transfer at Aarhus University managing a portfolio of inventions and patented innovations, securing external financing, spinning out technology and managing industry partnerships. Jannik also has entrepreneurial experience from spinning out a company from the academic setting. He co-founded an epigenetic cancer diagnostic company and secured seed funding starting the journey of bringing research use products to market.
Ines Benabida | Innovation Advisor, ICDK Boston
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Ines Benabida works as an Innovation Advisor at ICDK Boston. Before joining ICDK Boston, she worked several years at Alira Health, a management consulting company specialized in healthcare, focusing on growth strategy projects for US and European pharma/medtech companies. She has experience in conducting market research as well as regulatory, scientific and market-access analyses of technologies. Prior to her advisory positions, she worked as an intern for MSD, Ipsen and Novo Nordisk.
Ines holds a Pharm.D degree from University Paris-Saclay, France and an M.Sc in Medical Sciences with a major in Bioentrepreneurship from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.