Shareholdings are correct as of December 31 2022, and are updated every year.
Chairman of the board since 2020
Born: 1966
Education and experience: Bert has previous management and board level experiencefrom several European and US based companies in fields of electronics, biotech and IT. He is a co-founder of several life science companies including WntResearch AB, Galecto Biotech AB, Gabather AB, Aptahem AB and Cyxone AB. Bert Junno holds a Ph.D. in Semiconductor Physics and Technology and a M.Sc. in Physics from Lund University.
Current assignments: Chairman of the Board of Cyxone AB (publ), Aptahem AB (publ) and Melius Pharma AB (publ). Board member of Gabather AB (publ), Fornio AB and Accequa AB.
Previous assignments: Board member of Taurus Energy AB (publ), Cardiovax llc., Galecto Biotech AB, Aptahem AB (publ), CEO and Board member of WntResearch AB (publ) and Gabather AB (publ). Member of the advisory board of the Swedish patent office 2010-2019.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the company: Holds no shares or warrants.
Independent of the company and the management, independent of the major owners of the company.
Board member since 2021
Born:1963
Education and experience: Gunilla has broad experience in life science, from both operational operations as well as strategic positions and various board assignments. Gunilla is currently CEO of Uppsala University Invest AB and has previously been CEO of Pharmanest AB, a company where she has been part of developing a new product in women’s health, which has resulted in a successful out-licensing agreement. Gunilla has also held senior positions within Q-Med AB (publ) in Sweden and Australia, as well as within Pharmacia. Gunilla holds a B.Sc in Medical Science from Uppsala University and an Excecutive MBA degree in International Business Management from Uppsala University.
Current assignments: Holds board positions within Chordate Medical Holding AB (publ.), IPF AB. Lipidor AB (publ.), Uppsala Innovation Centre AB, Uppsala University Project AB and Uppsala University Research Intellectual Property AB and chairman of the board of Strike Pharma AB.
Previous assignments: Uppsala Akademistall AB Exscale, Biospecim Solutions AB and AddBio AB.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the company: Holds no shares or warrants.
Independent in relation to the company and company management and to the company’s major Shareholders.
Board member since 2014
Born: 1970
Education and experience: Peter has a long background in finance and is currently working as an advisor in strategy and business development. Previously, Peter was a partner and business area manager at Mazars SET Revisionsbyrå AB. As an auditor, Peter has worked with both owner-managed and public companies, and has conducted exchange audits prior to listing on the NGM stock exchange. He was also director of Corporate Finance at Mazars, focusing on acquisitions and due diligence. Peter received his M.Sc. in Business Administration and Economics from Lund University and was a certified public auditor.
Current assignments: Board member and owner of PN Finanskonsult AB.
Previous assignments: Board member of VA Automotive AB (publ) and Chairman of the Board of Åhus Åkeri AB and Flisby AB.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the company: 77 227 shares.
Independent of the company and the management, independent of the major owners of the company.
Board member since 2020
Born: 1965
Education and experience: Jonas Ekblom is an Associate Professor in Pharmacology at Uppsala University, has a B.Sci. in Chemistry from Stockholm University, a Ph.D. in Experimental Neurology from Uppsala University, and post-doctoral studies from University of Southern California, School of Pharmacy in Los Angeles. He has worked over 25 years in the life science sector. He is currently the CEO of Promore Pharma and has previously held senior and executive roles in biotech companies in Sweden, US and Switzerland including Pharmacia, Biovitrum, Sequenom, Invitrogen and BOWS Pharmaceuticals SA. He has also received professional training in strategic planning and business management. Jonas has published more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Current assignments: CEO of Promore Pharma AB (publ). Board director in World 5 Ventures, Pergamum AB and Pergasus AB. Chairman of the board in EffRx Pharmaceuticals SA.
Previous assignments: Board director in KLIFO A/S, Axelar AB and The Releef Initiative. CEO of Edge of the World Strategies Corporation (own consultancy company).
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the company: Holds no shares or warrants.
Independent of the company and the management, independent of the major owners of the company.
Board member since 2020
Born: 1983
Education and experience: Per Lundin earned his Ph.D. at the Karolinska Institute, holds an MSc in Biotechnology Engineering, and an MScBA from Stockholm University School of Business. He has over 10 years of experience in advising, founding and leading biotech companies, leveraging his deep expertise across corporate strategy, scientific leadership, legal & intellectual property and business development. Per is co-founder and Chief Business Officer of UK-based Evox Therapeutics. Prior to founding Evox, Per co-founded and served as CEO of IsletOne Therapeutics, a cell therapy company spun out of the Karolinska Institute. Previously, Per managed a European business development channel for Thomson Reuters IP & Science and before that qualified as a European Patent Attorney, starting out in the biotech practice of one of the largest European IP law firms. He started his career as a research scientist with the Australian biotech company Apollo Life Sciences, working on nanoparticle drug delivery.
Current assignments: Board member of JDRF UK.
Previous assignments: Board member of Evox Therapeutics Ltd and IsletOne AB.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the company: 5 976 shares.
Independent of the company and the management, independent of the major owners of the company.
CombiGene’s senior executives are the Company’s CEO Jan Nilsson, the Company’s Chief Research and Development Officer Karin Agerman, the Company’s Chief Operating Officer Peter Ekolind and Louise Aspenberg, Chief Financial Officer. The senior executives are listed below with information about year of birth, when they took office, experience, current and previous assignments over the last five years, holdings in other companies in which they are active and holdings in the Company. “Holdings in the Company” refer to own and/or related parties’ holdings.
CEO since 2016. (Born 1949)
Education and experience: Jan Nilsson has an MA from the University of Gothenburg and an MBA from Uppsala University. Jan was appointed CEO of CombiGene on 1 October 2016. He has long-standing experience from large pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms. He has also been active in several different areas in the pharmaceutical industry such as pharmaceuticals development and the launch, sales and marketing of established international brands. He also has a solid management background, having served as CEO of both private and public-sector companies.
Current assignments: Board member of CarryGenes Therapeutics AB, Panion Animal Health AB, CombiGene Personal AB and Urbicum Ledningskonsult AB.
Previous assignments: Board member of CanImGuide Therapeutics AB and Immodulate Pharma AB.
Owner and active in the following companies: Urbicum Ledningskonsult AB.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the Company: 55 000 shares.
Chief Scientific Officer since 2018. (Born 1973)
Education and experience: Karin Agerman has a PhD in molecular neurobiology from Karolinska Institutet and more than fifteen years of experience in the international pharmaceutical industry and the start-up arena in Sweden. She has worked for companies such as AstraZeneca, Merck and Uppsala BIO, and has been active in a number of senior positions. Areas in which she has been active include preclinical development, marketing and financing. Her contact network is broad in both industry and academia, as well as in the sphere of Swedish government agencies.
No current assignments.
No previous assignments over the last five years.
She has been neither owner nor active in any companies over the last five years.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the Company: No holdings in shares or warrants.
COO since 2022. (Born 1964) Education and experience: Peter Ekolind is a registered nurse, a certified market economist and holds an Executive MBA from the School of Economics at Lund University. He has many years of broad experience in marketing, sales and leadership from several global pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology companies in various senior roles. Among other things, he has been managing director of Getinge Sweden and Avidicare. In recent years, the focus has been on work in smaller start-ups.
Current assignments: Interim CEO of Targinta AB.
Previous assignments during the last five years: COO Xintela AB, Board member Nordic Gamekeeper Holding AB and senior management consultant in NordiCare AB.
Owner and active in the following companies: Pekoli AB.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the Company: 6 445 shares.
Chief Financial Officer since 2020. (Born 1976)
Education and experience: Louise Aspenberg has completed the International Economics Programme at Örebro University. Louise is an experienced economist with broad experience from financial and economic tasks. Louise has worked at Relation & Brand, which during the years 2006-2013 was listed on Aktietorget (now Spotlight Stock Market). Louise has a solid knowledge in consolidated financial statements and financial reporting for public companies.
No current assignments.
No previous assignments over the last five years.
She has been neither owner nor active in any companies over the last five years.
Own and/or related parties’ holdings in the Company: No holdings in shares or warrants.
Director Preclinical Development since 2018. (Born 1974)
Education and experience: Annika Ericsson holds a PhD in medical biochemistry from Karolinska Institutet. Her thesis topic concerned enzyme and gene therapy for acute intermittent porphyria. She has postdoc experience from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and 17 years of experience in the biotech industry, having worked with Zymenex A/S and Chiesi. There she has worked laboratory with the development and upscaling of production processes for protein drugs and been project manager for preclinical studies in various lysosomal diseases. Annika has broad experience of planning, organizing and conducting large research projects.
Director Clinical Development since 2021. (Born 1970)
Education and experience: Pernilla Fagergren holds a PhD at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and has conducted research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, USA She has a broad experience from academia and industry. She. Pernilla comes most recently from Merck AB where she worked as a medical advisor and manager in neurology. Prior to that, she worked as a researcher with early pharmaceutical projects at Karo Bio AB. Her expertise covers key areas such as drug development, project management and neuropharmacology. Pernilla has throughout her carrier been collaborating with national and international physicians and leading medical opinion leaders.
Senior Program Director since 2022. (Born 1955)
Education and experience: Alvar Grönberg holds a PhD at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
Many years of experience from academia and the international pharmaceutical industry.
Previous experience includes senior positions at Lipopeptide AB/Pergamum AB and NeuroVive Pharmaceutical AB/Abliva AB.
Director CMC since 2020. (Born 1972)
Education and experience: Martin Linhult holds a PhD in molecular biology at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm (1998-2003) and holds a Master of Chemical Engineering from the same university. In addition, Martin has extensive experience from a number of senior positions in the Swedish pharmaceutical industry and is used to interacting with regulatory authorities at an international level, including the FDA and EMA. Martin has worked in all parts of the production process of biological drugs and was responsible for building up the production unit at Octapharma.
Senior Director In-licensing since 2022. (Born 1971)
Education and experience: Birgitta Ståhl holds an MSc in Pharmacy from Uppsala University and an MBA from the University of Westminster in London. She has a long and broad experience from the life science industry, both from a corporate perspective and project leadership in all stages of drug development.
Birgitta most recently comes from Oncopeptides AB where she was Global Project Director and led cross-functional teams. Prior to that, she worked for several years in smaller biotech companies within Karolinska Development’s portfolio with project management and handled the day-to-day operations of the companies. She has also held various clinical development positions at Novartis and Pfizer.
Industrial post doc since 2021. (Born 1987)
Education and experience: Esbjörn Melin holds a PhD in the field of neuroscience from Lund University (2014-2020) and a Master’s degree in engineering nanoscience from Lunds Tekniska Högskola (LTH). As a PhD student, Esbjörn worked closely with Professor Merab Kokaia, one of CombiGene’s scientific founders and has co-authored several scientific papers on gene therapeutical approaches in the treatment of epilepsy.
Corporate Administration since 2018. (Born 1980)
Education and experience: Daniela Morath has completed a natural sciences programme and has a higher vocational education diploma in 3D printing. She has several years of experience of administrative duties in various industries and has also worked for a couple of years with business administration and salary administration. Daniela has worked both in larger companies in the industry sector and in smaller service-oriented companies, which has given her experience of different administrative processes.
Merab Kokaia, born 1956, is Professor of Neurophysiology and heads the Epilepsy Centre, Lund University Faculty of Medicine. In addition to his research collaboration with David Woldbye, concerning NPY and epilepsy, Merab Kokaia has also led breakthrough studies concerning optogenetics and neurotrophins in the context of epilepsy. He also contributed to the scientific discoveries and patented inventions upon which the companies NeuroVive Pharmaceutical AB (publ) and MaasBiolab in the USA were established.
David Woldbye, born 1963, currently holds a Director of Research position in the Biotechnology Industry in California, USA. As an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, he was the first to demonstrate that NPY has an anti-epileptic effect in vivo and has published a large number of scientific papers on this subject and related research areas.
Annamaria Vezzani is Head of Laboratory of Experimental Neurology at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan. She received her PhD in Neuropharmacology from the Mario Negri Institute, and has spent post-doctoral periods at University of Maryland in the US and Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
Annamaria Vezzani’s main interests are the biochemical and molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of seizures and epileptogenesis, in particular the role of neuroactive peptides and inflammatory mediators. She has published over 160 original papers and reviews in peer-reviewed high impact scientific journals, and was the first to apply gene therapy approaches using the NPY transgene in animal models.
She was Chair of the Commission on Neurobiology of International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) during 2005-2009 and is an active member of the CEA of the ILAE and various AES committees. In 2009 she received the Research Recognition Award for translational research from the American Epilepsy Society.
Margitta Seeck is professor of Neurology at the University of Geneva, and Director of the presurgical epilepsy program Geneva-Lausanne. She is past president of the Swiss Neurophysiological Society where she is still actively involved in teaching of EEG and epileptology.
Margitta Seeck received her medical and doctoral degrees at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-University of Munich, and later moved to the US where she was trained in EEG and epileptology at the Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard University. Her main interests are epilepsy surgery, immunologically related epilepsies, neurophysiology of intracranial EEG recordings and EEG-based imaging in epilepsy. She is author of more than 170 papers on epilepsy in national and international journals, serves on several editorial boards of epilepsy journals, and is expert for the Swiss national science foundation and research agencies of other European and non-European countries.