Management Team

Laura Chirica, PhD

CEO

Laura Chirica has 20+ years of experience from executive roles in company strategy, commercialization, scaleup, growth and financing in both startups and multinationals from bioprocess, biotech and diagnostics industries. Her previous positions include Chief Commercial Officer at Immunovia AB, VP Sales and Marketing at Euro Diagnostica AB including Wieslab Service Laboratories (now SVAR Life Science), Director Purification Technologies Europe at Sartorius Stedim, Global Marketing Director at Dako A/S (now Agilent Technologies), and Global Marketing Program Manager at GE Healthcare (now Cytiva).

Education: PhD in Biochemistry, MSc in Biochemistry and BSc in Biotechnology.

Other significant appointments: Board director at Gradientech AB and Pre Diagnostics AS.

Maximilian Ottosson

COO and co-founder

Maximilian Ottosson is one of the founders of Cellevate and led the company between 2016-2022. He has been heavily involved in the development of the company’s technology from its start at Nanolund, a world-renowned nanotechnology center at Lund University, Sweden, to the first funding rounds and the first sales in life science research applications.

Education: MSc in Engineering Nanoscience

Albin Jakobsson

CTO and co-founder

Albin Jakobsson is one of the founders of Cellevate. He has been in charge of technical development since the company’s foundation in 2014. Albin has been instrumental in developing and managing Cellevates customized solution platform, resulting in several of the products in the company’s portfolio.

Education: MSc in Engineering Nanoscience

Alexander Dahlquist

CFO

Alexander brings over 30 years of international finance and business delivery experience. His extensive background spans from smaller, growing organizations to large, well-established companies, such as Mars, Goodyear Dunlop, and Saint Gobain. He has also been CFO of GDL Transport and BIMobject, the latter listed on NASDAQ First North. In the list of companies that Alexander has been in charge of the financial operations, there are also companies such as PharmNovo and Coegin Pharma from the biopharmaceutical industry space. Additionally, Alexander has a strong business-controlling, organization and company processes development acumen. 

Education: BSc in Statistics

Linda Dexlin Mellby, PhD

VP Research and Development

Linda has more than 10 years of experience from leading research and development organization in the diagnostic industry. Linda brings extensive experience in building and leading the organization through startup process into commercialization phase, driving development programs from early research phases through optimization and validation to product launch and sales. Her previous position includes Vice President Research and Development at Immunovia AB.

Education: PhD in Immunotechnology, MSc in Chemical Engineering

Nils Uhlin

Sales & Marketing Director

Nils Uhlin has 20+ years of experience in sales and marketing management in the life science sector, both from smaller and growing organizations, as well as established and large market leaders in bioprocessing and diagnostic industries. Throughout his career, Nils has been driving sales teams, strategic account management, global product marketing teams, as well as sales projects and product management groups. His previous positions include Sales Development Manager at Immunovia AB, Marketing and Product Manager at Menarini Nordics, Director Product Marketing Instruments and Software at Dako A/S (now Agilent Technologies) and Director Product Marketing at GE Healthcare (now Cytiva).

Education: BSc in Biochemistry.

Annika Andersson

VP QA/RA

Annika Andersson has more than 30 years’ experience within the life science and diagnostics industry, with the main focus on regulatory affairs and quality assurance of in vitro diagnostic medical devices. Annika contributes with extensive experience in establishing Quality Management Systems and global regulatory strategies. Her track record includes leading successful regulatory approval processes of medical devices for IVD CE marking as well as IVD approvals in Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia and 510(k) clearances in the USA. Her previous positions include: QA/RA Director Immunovia AB and Regulatory Affairs Manager EuroDiagnostica AB (now Svar Science).

Education: Biomedical Scientist

Board of Directors

Dr. Uwe Gottschalk

Chairman of the Board

Dr. Uwe Gottschalk is Operating Partner at Keensight Capital, a European Growth Buyout Investor with deep expertise in Technology and Healthcare. Before joining Keensight Capital in 2022 he was Chief Technology Officer (2014-2017) and Chief Scientific Officer (2017-2021) at Lonza where he established and led the global Research and Technology organisation.

Dr. Gottschalk served as Group Vice President at Sartorius Stedim Biotech between 2004 and 2014 with a global responsibility for all bioseparation-related process technology. He worked in different capacities for Bayer Health Care from 1991 to 2004, overseeing the process development and manufacturing of biopharmaceutical products such as monoclonal antibodies and other recombinant proteins.

Dr. Uwe Gottschalk earned his M.Sc and PhD in Chemistry at the University of Münster, Germany and Nottingham, UK, delivering his dissertation on drug targeting with monoclonal antibodies. He has written extensively in the areas of downstream processing, industrial biotechnology andsomatic gene therapy. In academia, Dr. Gottschalk was Head Lecturer at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and also lectured at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne (Switzerland). In 2021 he received the Bioprocessing Lifetime Achievement Award at the Asia Biologics Manufacturing Conference.

Dr. Uwe Gottschalk is a Board Member at Biovian – an end-to-end biopharmaceutical CDMO – and acts as a Board Observer at Axxam – an innovative CRO that identifies and validates bioactive molecules across all life sciences industries.

Mala Valroy

Board member

Mala Valroy is an Investment Manager at Industrifonden with a focus on Deep Tech, with a focus on tech bio, climate tech and advanced computing. Over the last decade, Mala has built a strong foundation in multiple technologies as a scientist and held senior leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies scaling innovations in emerging markets. As a founder, operator, and board member she has worked with and advised startups in multiple sectors. She was previously the Head of Ericsson ONE, a venture studio that invested, scaled, and commercialized deep tech innovations with ICT applications with regional responsibility for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. She has also served as the VP of Corporate Responsibility at Atlas Copco, working to integrate sustainability into the company’s operations and strategy.

Education: Mala holds a M.Sc. in General Management from the Stockholm School of Economics, and a M.Sc. in Biochemistry from Dartmouth College, an ivy league institution in the United States.

Mats Grahn

Board member

Mats Grahn has more than 30 years’ experience in top leading positions in multinationals as well as startups in bioprocessing, diagnostics and biotech industry. His previous positions include Head of Process Chromatoghrapy Systems Unit, Vice President Laboratory Separations Division and VP Product Marketing Protein Separations at GE Healthcare – now Cytiva, Corporate Vice President Marketing at Dako A/S, now part of Agilent Technologies and CEO, Immunovia AB.

Education: MSc in Engineering Physics

Bertil Lindmark

Board member

Bertil has more than 30 years’ experience in life science – with globally leading roles in AstraZeneca (Global Vice President for Respiratory and Immunology), Global Head of R&D at Almirall and since 2015 Chief Medical Officer in ASLAN Pharma, eTheRNA Immunotherapies and in Galecto, developing drugs in multiple therapy areas globally. Bertil is a non-executive Member of the Board at ALK-Abelló and professor at the Gothenburg University.

Education: MD PhD background and 10 years of academic medicine with specialist competence in Internal Medicine and in Gastroenterology.

Maximilian Ottosson

Board member

Maximilian Ottosson is one of the founders of Cellevate and led the company between 2016-2022. He has been heavily involved in the development of the company’s technology from its start at Nanolund, a world-renowned nanotechnology center at Lund University, Sweden, to the first funding rounds and the first sales in life science research applications.

Education: MSc in Engineering Nanoscience

Bettina Berendsen

Board observer

Bettina Berendsen is an executive leader with over 35 years of extensive experience in the global Biopharmaceutical and Life Science industry, encompassing both commercial and technical aspects. She has extensive experience in sales, strategy, and organizational development, negotiation, leading change and mergers and acquisitions. She spent over 34 years with Sartorius Stedim Biotech, where she held various positions including Head of Sales & Service, Head of Key Accounts and Vice
President Europe. Prior to joining Sartorius, she was Head of Analytics at LFP Munich. Bettina serves on the advisory boards of NanoTemper Technologies and the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology. Additionally, she is Strategic Advisor at Cellevate.

Education: Bettina holds a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Aalen.

Maxime Pawlowski

Board observer

Maxime Pawlowski is Investment Officer at European Investment Bank advising EIC Fund about direct equity investments in deep tech start-ups across the EU and associated countries. He has 15 years’ experience with private investments, including venture debt at European Investment Bank and direct lending at leading Nordic fund manager Armada Credit Capital, as well as investment and corporate banking at KPMG and Crédit Agricole CIB.

Education: Maxime holds a M.Sc. in Finance and Economics from HEC Paris.

Scientific and Industrial Advisors

Bettina Berendsen

Bettina Berendsen is an executive leader with over 35 years of extensive experience in the global Biopharmaceutical and Life Science industry, encompassing both commercial and technical aspects. She has extensive experience in sales, strategy, and organizational development, negotiation, leading change and mergers and acquisitions. She spent over 34 years with Sartorius Stedim Biotech, where she held various positions including Head of Sales & Service, Head of Key Accounts and Vice
President Europe. Prior to joining Sartorius, she was Head of Analytics at LFP Munich. Bettina serves on the advisory boards of NanoTemper Technologies and the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology.

Education: Bettina holds a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Aalen.

Christel Fenge, PhD

Dr. Christel Fenge brings over 30 years of experience in various leadership roles across the bioprocessing and biopharmaceutical industry. Dr. Fenge previously served as Vice President, R&D Bioprocess at Cytiva with responsibility for upstream and downstream product development and Vice President, Marketing and Product Management Fermentation Technologies at Sartorius. Additionally, she has served as General Manager of Recipharm Biologics, a mid-sized CMO, and held senior management positions in biopharmaceutical development at AstraZeneca. Her industrial career began in cell culture process development at Pharmacia & Upjohn, where she contributed to the development of Refacto™.

Dr. Christel Fenge received her doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Hanover, Germany. Since September 2023, she has been working as an independent Counsel and Advisor to the bioprocess industry.

Mats Lundgren, PhD

Senior Consultant at Phase2Phase Biopharma AB

Mats is a senior professional with more than 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is currently Senior Consultant at Phase2Phase Biopharma AB. He has significant expertise in strategic development, cell culture production, purification and analytics of vaccines, cell and gene therapies and other ATMPs.

Prior to joining Phase2Phase he was the Applications Director at Cytiva/GE Healthcare and supported biopharma companies globally to produce new therapies more efficiently. He has held positions as scientist, team manager and VP at Pharmacia, AstraZeneca and smaller biotech companies.  He has also managed the teams for Cell line and Upstream Process Development for monoclonal antibodies at a major pharma company.

Education: PhD from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and post-doc training at Imperial College School of Medicine in London.

Véronique Chotteau, PhD

Associate Professor, Dr. Véronique Chotteau is the Principal Investigator of the Cell Technology group at KTH (The Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm and Director of VINNOVA Competence Centre for Advanced BioProduction by Continuous Processing, AdBIOPRO.

Dr. Véronique Chotteau has more than 30 years of experience in mammalian cell culture including more than 10 years in biopharmaceutical industry (at Pharmacia Upjohn/Biovitrum, Stockholm, nowadays Swedish Orphan Biovitrum). She joined KTH in 2008, when she was offered to lead the animal cell cultivation activities, due to her expertise in cell culture and her industrial background. Her group is world-leader in high cell density perfusion of mammalian cell-based processes for biopharmaceutical production and is highly active in mathematical modeling of culture process, as well as in human stem cell bioprocessing.

Thierry Ziegler, PhD

Dr. Thierry Ziegler has been working in the field of biopharmaceutical development for the last 25 years. During this period, he overviewed multiple biopharmaceutical development activities in several companies such as Merck-Serono, Igyxos and Sanofi. More recently, he led CAR-T and started materials production activities at Cellectis.

During his career, Dr. Thierry Ziegler had the opportunity to work on multiple monoclonal antibodies as well as many other types of Biologics modalities ranging from recombinant proteins to CAR-T cells. He is familiar with the CMC and regulatory aspects of Biologics from clinical development to Life Cycle Management.

Dr. Thierry Ziegler is a Bioprocess engineer and got his PhD at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA).

Yvonne Genzel, PD

Dr. Yvonne Genzel is senior scientist in the Bioprocess Engineering group at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems (Magdeburg, Germany) since 2001, and is leading the upstream processing team focusing on virus production with mammalian cells. In 2009 she received her habilitation (PD) in “Upstream processing issues in influenza vaccine production using animal cell technology” at the Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg. She has more than 90 peer-reviewed papers on vaccine production using cell culture-based processes.

In 2013 she was elected to become an Executive Committee member of the European Society of Animal Cell Technology (ESACT). Since 2016 she co-organizes the 3-day ESACT course on “Cell culture-based viral vaccines”. Intensified viral vaccine manufacturing using suspension cell lines in perfusion systems, in two-stage bioreactors or hollow fiber bioreactors are currently of main interest. Additionally, macrocarrier systems using packed bed reactors for adherent cells are tested. The first steps of downstream processing are evaluated to move towards process integration as early as possible.

Dr. Genzel and her team aim to create a knowledge platform for viral vaccines to support process development towards next generation biomanufacturing. 

Jean-Christophe Bourdon, PhD

Dr. Jean-Christophe Bourdon earned his PhD in cellular and molecular biology in 1997 at the Paris XI University, France. He is currently researcher and senior lecturer at the School of Medicine at Dundee University. He was co-director of the Inserm- European Associated Laboratory (Toulouse University, France) in 2006-2010 and was awarded the prestigious fellowship from Breast Cancer Campaign in 2012. He is internationally recognised to have pioneered the p53 isoform research field and is the holder of several patents for improving production of influenza viruses and vaccine seeds. His laboratory has developed diverse methods and scientific tools (antibodies, siRNA, small molecules) to detect and regulate expression of p53 isoforms in targeted cells.

Dr. Bourdon’s lab aims to decipher the molecular mechanisms of cell fate decision mediated by the p53 isoforms in response to cell signals and treatment. In translational research, Dr. Bourdon’s lab aims to establish the p53 isoforms as predictive biomarkers and to identify new therapeutic compounds targeting the p53 isoform pathways.

Education: PhD in molecular and cellular biology, Paris XI University, France

Hans J Johansson

Hans J Johansson is Global Applications Director at Purolite Life Sciences, Llantrisant, Wales. He has spent more than 30 years in the Biotech industry. Most of the time in research and development at Pharmacia/Amersham/GE Healthcare with a special focus on design and applications of resins for large-scale chromatography. He frequently publishes in scientific journals and is the holder of more than ten patents in the area of resin design, and large-scale protein purification applications, especially in the area of Protein A resins and multi-modal chromatography. He is currently working with development and applications of novel resins for purification of Fc-fusion proteins or mRNA. 

Education:  BSc MSc Biochemistry Uppsala University, IHR Marketing Communications Program

Lars Montelius, PhD

Lars Montelius is one of the Founders of Cellevate. He is Professor Emeritus at Lund University and he is presently the Director General of INL, the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, an intergovernmental research organization headquartered in Braga, Portugal. He has more than 30 years of experience in nanotechnology research and innovation. He was during 2003-2009 Dean of the Physics Department, Science and Engineering Faculties, Lund University, during 2009-2011 the Director for Øresund University & Øresund Science Region, being a cross-border cooperation between eleven universities, three regional authorities, two countries in the Øresund Region, and during 2007-2014 the Chair of the Swedish Technical Standardization Committee on Nanotechnology.  Lars Montelius is the Past President of IUVSTA (The International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications) and Work Group Chair of EuMat, the European Technology Platform for Materials.  

Education: PhD, Solid State Physics, MSc EE. 

Other significant appointments: Founder and Director of the Board of Compacta AB, European NanoInvest AB, Embedded Nano AB, SciMont AB and Founder of WaterSprint AB.

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