Supervisory Board
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Chairman of the Board
Mr Verhaeghe earned his degree in law from the University of Leuven in 1981, where he graduated magna cum laude. From 1981 to 1983, he was an assistant professor of tax law at the University of Leuven. He earned his LL.M. at Harvard Law School in 1984. Mr Verhaeghe is a partner in charge of the corporate finance law and tax sections of Vermulst Verhaeghe & Graafsma.
He specializes in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions, with special emphasis on corporate tax, corporate finance, and banking law issues. Currently, Mr Verhaeghe is chairman of PharmaNeuroBoost NV and is a director of Innogenetics and Merisant Company 2. He was a director of Tibotec-Virco NV until 2002.
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Dr. Christina Takke is Principal with Forbion Capital Partners and she joined the group (previously ABN AMRO Capital Life Sciences) in 2000.
Prior to ABN AMRO, Christina worked at Bio-Gen-Tec-NRW, a regional development organization for biotechnology based in Cologne, Germany.
Christina holds a Master of Science degree in Biology from the Technical University of Darmstadt and a Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from University of Cologne where she studied the Delta-Notch signaling pathway and its role during zebra fish neurogenesis and early somite development.
Christina has been instrumental in the financing of several Forbion portfolio companies. She serves on the supervisory boards of Pieris AG (Germany), Bioceros BV (The Netherlands) and was closely involved with GlycArt (Switzerland) as an observer prior to its sale to Roche in 2005.
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Dr. John de Koning is Partner at LSP (Life Sciences Partners), a leading independent European investment firm, providing financing to private and public life-science companies. John currently also serves on the supervisory boards of Pronota and Skyline Diagnostics and has board observer positions at Prosensa and BMEYE.
John started his career at Semaia Pharmaceuticals that was acquired by Hybrigenics, where he became Director of Target Discovery and Managing Director of Semaia. In addition, he was a member of the management team responsible for technology transfer at a large oncology consortium of leading Dutch scientists funded by the Dutch government, called the Cancer Genomics Center. This is a center of excellence of the Netherlands Genomics Initiative.
John has a Masters degree in molecular biology from the University of Utrecht and a PhD in oncology from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. After his PhD, John received a prestigious fellowship from the Dutch Cancer Society to work at the UCSF Cancer Center in San Francisco. His results were published in numerous leading scientific journals, including Nature Genetics. In addition to these achievements, John is inventor on several patents.
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Dr. Guinot is Senior Partner with Crédit Agricole Private Equity, which he joined in July 2001 to create the firm's Biotechnology and Life Sciences investments portfolio.
Dr. Guinot is a Medical Doctor and an anesthetist. He also holds a Ph.D. in Life Sciences and is the author of numerous international scientific articles. From 1977 to 1994, he pursued his career in the pharmaceutical industry in business and drug development, working for several international laboratories in Switzerland, France, Germany and the U.K.
During this time, he was in charge of the development of new drugs, several of which are marketed today. He was also appointed Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, from 1992 to 1996. Dr. Guinot then managed three U.S. and French Biotechnology companies in France. He currently serves on the boards of eight companies and on the finance advisory board of AFMTéléthon (French Muscular Dystrophy Association).
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Dr. Harrold van Barlingen is the Managing Director and Founder of Thuja Capital. Prior to founding Thuja Capital, he headed the life science effort of AlpInvest Partners managing a portfolio of over 30 companies. Harrold joined AlpInvest Partners in 2001, from the Boston Consulting Group ('BCG'), where he worked as a consultant in management and strategy. Before BCG, Harrold was acting head of the continental activities of the Lewin Group (a Quintiles subsidiary), an international firm specialized in the field of health economy.
Harrold holds a Master of Science degree in Medical Biology and a Ph.D. in Medicine, both from the University of Utrecht. From 1991-1992 he was a visiting scientist at the University of Chicago, USA. Harrold is the author of a wide-variety of peer-reviewed scientific and pharmaco-economics papers.
Harrold is member of the supervisory board of arGEN-X, Avantium, BioXell (BXLN, SWX), Curacyte, Galapagos (GLPG, Euronext) and Okapi Sciences.
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Dr. Cardoen received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Leuven, Belgium (1987). Follwoing a post-doc at the University of Oregon (US) he joined Plant Genetic Systems (PGS) in 1988 as Technology Acquisition Manager and became Business Development Manager in 1994. After the acquisition of PGS by AgrEvo Hoechst Schering in 1996, Johan was appointed Head Technology Acquisition of AgrEvo Hoechst Schering (now Bayer CropScience), and in that position he was responsible for all biotechnology-related technology acquisitions and was closely involved in a number of corporate deals.
In July 1999, he joined CropDesign as Vice President Business Development in 2001 and became CEO of CropDesign as of January 1, 2005. In that role he developed a dual-track exit strategy (IPO-trade sale) resulting in a successful acquisition of CropDesign by BASF Plant Science and concluded a number of significant business deals.
Besides being CEO of CropDesign, Johan is currently chairman of Flandersbio, the organization representing the biotech industry in Flanders and is independent director of Applied Math N.V., a bioinformatics company.
Mr. Peter Verhaeghe