Team

KJETIL HESTDAL (MD, PhD)
CEO

Kjetil brings 25+ years of extensive experience from the pharma and biotech industry. He was one of the first employees at Photocure, a Norwegian listed company. During his 21 years tenure at Photocure he acted both as Vice President R&D and CEO. Photocure developed and commercialized several products both through own organization in partnership with global and regional companies as Galderma, GE Healthcare, Salix Pharmaceuticals and Ipsen Pharma.  Prior to his tenure at Photocure he was medical expert in oncology at Novartis/Sandoz. He is a medical doctor form University in Bergen with a PhD in immunology from University of Bergen/University of Oslo.

INGER FERNER HEGLUND (MSc)
COO

Inger brings 35+ years of experience from pharmaceutical industry.  She has had leading positions within R&D in GE Healthcare and previous VP R&D in Photocure. She has managed international teams from early preclinical development through clinical, filing and approvals. Inger holds an MSc in Physiology from University of Oslo.

TOVE FLEM JACOBSEN (MSc)
CBO

Tove has extensive experience in product development, clinical development, regulatory approvals, portfolio management and commercialization in Healthcare and the Pharmaceutical Industry sector. Tove has leadership and management experience from Big Pharma GE Healthcare/Nycomed Imaging/Amersham Health (Medical Imaging) and small Biotech, Clavis Pharma (cancer therapy, listed on Oslo stock exchange 2006-2013) and Aker BioMarine (supplements, krill oil). She has worked at Inven2, Tech Transfer Office and been board member of Norwegian Cancer Genomics Consortium, member of the SPARK management team and the Industry Political Committee of LMI, the Norwegian Pharmaceutical Association. Tove holds a Cand. Pharm. (M.Sc. Pharm) from the University of Oslo.

TORBJØRN ØYE (MBA)
CFO

Partner at Uniconsult AS. Torbjørn has 20+ years experience as consultant within finance as CFO and in other roles for several companies. Former CFO for Photocure and other smaller companies within the pharma and biotech industry. Torbjørn is siviløkonom from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).

Dan Atar (Professor, MD, PhD)
CMO

Professor and Head of Research, Div. of Medicine, Oslo University Hospital Ullevål. He holds a full Professorship in Cardiology at the University of Oslo, Norway, along with a Visiting Associate Professorship at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. Dan Atar studied in Switzerland and trained in Denmark, Switzerland, and the United States. His research focuses on myocardial function and cardiovascular pharmacology. He has written over 460 articles and book chapters (H-index 74) and holds the fellowship-titles FESC, FACC, and inaugural FAHA. Dan Atar is the past-Chairman of the ESC Working Group on Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy. He was chairing an EU-FP7 research consortium (“Mitocare”) to study STEMI patients. Dan Atar was co-authoring a number of ESC guidelines, amongst others the “2010, 2012 and 2016 ESC Guideline on Atrial Fibrillation” as well as the 2012 STEMI-guideline and the 2018 «Universal Definition of AMI». Dan Atar was elected to Councilor, Vice-President, and Treasurer of the ESC for the 2012 to 2020 Boards. For his scientific achievements, he earned a doctor honoris causa in 2015 and appears since 2016 on the Thomson-Reuters list of “the most cited scientists of the world”.

Kjetil Taskén (Professor, MD, PhD)
Scientific Advisor and founder

He is currently Head and Director, Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), Oslo Univ. Hospital (OUH), Group Leader ICR, Dept. of Cancer Immunology & Professor at Institute for Clinical Medicine, UiO. Kjetil was formerly Director of Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), Nordic EMBL Partnership, and Director of the Biotechnology Centre, UiO. He is a member of the Norwegian Research Council, National Reference Group for Health for EU-Horizon Europa, of the OUH Research Committee (member), the OUH Precision Medicine (member) & OUH Precision Cancer Medicine (chair) Committees, the IMPRESS-Norway Trial Management Committee, the Scientific Council (vice-chair), Norwegian Cancer Society and the European Commission / EFPIA Innovative Medicines Initiative Scientific Committee. He is a member or chair of several academic and company Scientific Advisory Boards and has been a Founder and/or Board Member of several small biotech companies. Kjetil has some 285 scientific publications, cited more then 12,000 times with an h-index of 60. He won the Anders Jahre Medical Award for Younger Scientists in 2002 and the Kong Olav Vs Prize for Cancer Research (life achievement award) in 2016 and was elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 2005.

ERLEND SKAGSETH (MBA)
Chairman of the board

Managing Partner at Sarsia Seed. Erlend brings 20 years of experience from R&D based IPR, project- and business development from Christian Michelsen Research, Forinnova and Sarsia Innovation. Has managed several turnaround processes and negotiated a large number of international contracts, licenses and trade exits. Broad board experience.

ERIK AMBLE (MSc, Dr. Scient)
Board member

Erik Amble is the Chairman and founder of NeoMed Management since 1997. NeoMed has raised and managed 6 funds that are specialised in investments in the healthcare industry. He is since 2016 an advisor of Boston based Omega Funds, which has a strategic collaboration with NeoMed Management.

Erik Amble has served on the board of a. o. Clavis Pharma AS, GenoVision AS (sold to Qiagen), Thommen Medical AG (investment sold in a secondary transaction), Vessix Vascular Inc. (sold to Boston Scientific Corporation) and Sonendo Inc. (USA), Axonics Modulation Technologies Inc. (USA, NASDAQ: AXNX) and currently serves on the board of JenaValve Technology Inc. (USA, Germany), CorFlow Therapeutics AG (Switzerland) and Sequana Medical NV (Belgium, Switzerland).

From 1985 to 1992, he was CEO of Origo Ventures AS, a Norwegian private equity investment company. Before that, he was an Associate with Glenwood Management, a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California.

Erik Amble is a founder and former Chairman of the Norwegian Venture Capital Association. He holds a Dr. Scient. degree in organic chemistry from the University of Oslo and a MSc degree in Management from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

KRISTIN SANDEREID (MSc)
Board member

CEO at RemovAid AS. Kristin Sandereid has approximately 20 years’ experience from working with technology transfer that includes experience within intellectual property strategy, international sales of advanced early-stage technology, business development, securing private and public funding for early-stage companies, negotiations and marketing. She is currently CEO in RemovAid AS, a startup that develops a medical device for removal of contraceptive implants.

FARZAD ABDI-DEZFULI (PhD)
Observer of the board

Partner, Life Science Investments at Sarsia Seed. Farzad’s background is in preclinical and clinical research with drug development experience from US based global pharma in the US and Norway. He has 19 years of experience in commercializing medical/biotech projects from the Sarsia investment system. Farzad received his doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, UK and postdoctoral training from Haukeland University Hospital Bergen, Norway.