CCRM Nordic Team

Jan has many years of experience from large pharmaceutical companies and from smaller biotech companies. He has been active in several different areas of the pharmaceutical industry, ranging from the development of new drugs to the launch, sales, and marketing of established international brands. He also has a solid experience as a leader and has served as CEO of both private and public companies.

Catarina Flyborg is a seasoned executive with more than three decades of experience in the life sciences industry. She is driven by the potential of novel therapeutics to transform global healthcare.
Over the course of her career, she has held various management positions in sales, marketing, communications and product development at Cytiva. These experiences have given her a 360 degree view of the infrastructure required to develop, manufacture, and commercialize therapies.
In her current role as Strategic Advisor Catarina provides insights into industry trends and high-level advice to the company’s leadership team.
Prior to that Catarina held the position as Vice President of the Cell & Gene Therapy franchise at Cytiva. In this role, she oversaw a team of more than 400 associates across R&D, manufacturing, commercial and marketing around the world. Teams that are developing the wing-to-wing solutions that are enabling research organizations, academic medical centers and biotechnology companies of all sizes to develop and manufacture life changing cell & gene therapies.
Since joining GE Healthcare in 2004, Catarina has led various teams including the Enterprise Solutions Group, Bioprocess Downstream Products and Cell & Gene Therapy Commercial and Marketing teams before being appointed to Vice President of Cell & Gene Therapy in 2018. Cell & Gene Therapy is one of three Business Units within Cytiva, which has 9000 employees globally, and an annual revenue of approx. $6B; Catarina is a member of the Cytiva’s management team.
Catarina was instrumental in building out the bioprocess product portfolio and oversaw the successful acquisition and integration of Xcellerex in the US (2012) and she has played pivotal roles in setting up manufacturing facilities in emerging markets. She earned her MSc in Biochemical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and then began her career in the biotech industry working at Pharmacia Biotech in the product marketing group. She credits this experience with igniting her passion to further the convergence of science and technology and its impact on healthcare.

Michael May is President and CEO of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM), a Canadian, not-for-profit that develops technologies, launches new companies and catalyzes investment in the field of regenerative medicine, including cell and gene therapy. Prior to CCRM, Michael was the President, and co-founder, of Rimon Therapeutics Ltd., a Toronto-based tissue engineering company developing novel medical polymers that possess drug-like activity.
Michael sits on a number of boards and advisory committees including: the Ontario Life Sciences Council; the Board of Biologics Manufacturing Centre (BMC) Inc.; OmniaBio; ARM Foundation for Cell & Gene Medicine; and AgeX Corporation. He is the Chairman of ExCellThera Ltd.
Dr. May completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1998 as an NSERC Scholar and was awarded the Martin Walmsley Fellowship for Technological Entrepreneurship.

Jacqueline Barry is Chief Clinical Officer, responsible for Clinical Adoption activities, at Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. In this role she leads the Access Strategy group (a multi-disciplinary team of Nonclinical, Regulatory, Health Economic); the CGT Catapult Edinburgh Centre and the coordination of the UK Advanced Therapy Treatment Centre Network.
She feels passionately about making advanced therapies available for patients and works closely industry partners and policy makers on the development of the ecosystems to support the adoption of these therapies.

Born 1955. Senior Advisor for Patricia Industries AB since 2015 and was previously Managing Director (Business Development, Operational and Financial Investments) at Investor AB (2006-2015). Prior to this, he was a partner and Chief Executive Officer of Emerging Technologies ET AB. He is currently Chairman of Bonesupport AB and Board member in Intervacc AB, Chalmers Ventures AB and GoCo Development AB.

Lennart Johansson holds an MBA from Handelshögskolan, Stockholm (1980).

Carl-Peter combines an international outlook with a strong Venture Capital network and Life Science expertise. He has extensive experience of international business projects across many industries, project partners, and financing strategies, and over 25 years of Venture Capital experience, including both direct and fund investments at national and international levels. He was previously the Head of Investor Relations and External Capital at Sahlgrenska Science Park, a central hub in the Life Science innovation system in West Sweden.

Lars-Johan is CFO of AstraZeneca AB / Sweden Hub since August 2022. He is also a member of AstraZeneca’s global Finance Senior Management Team and its Sweden Leadership Team. Prior to that role, he was CFO of AstraZeneca Global R&D Oncology, based in Maryland, USA. Lars-Johan joined AstraZeneca in Gothenburg in 2011 and has held several global finance roles in R&D and global/regional marketing – from research and early product development in cardiovascular, diabetes and chronic kidney disease to research/product development and global/regional marketing in oncology and asthma/COPD/immunology. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, he worked as CFO of a company listed at NASDAQ Stockholm, vice CFO and management consultant. Lars-Johan has studied the International Business and Economics Programme at Lund University/Leopold Franzens Universität.

Klementina Österberg is the CEO of GU Ventures, a top ranked university-based incubator and seed investor that is a holding company wholly owned by the Swedish state and managed by the University of Gothenburg. She has participated in the development of many startups, of which 15 have been listed on a stock exchange, and built new investment vehicles. She is chairperson of Vasa Angels, GOKAP Invest, Destination Invest, and member of the boards of several startups within pharma, medtech etc. She is also chairperson of the association for the Swedish university based holding companies, FUHS. Thanks to these achievements, she has been acknowledged as the “Annual Financial Profile” and “Growth adviser” to the Volvo Group Connected Solutions. She has also been actively establishing the West-Swedish incubator community collaboration and GoWest, the Nordic Venture Capital Forum together with her colleagues. Previously, she worked for Venture Cup, Volvo Cars, DaimlerChrysler and Geveko Industries.

Michael Israels is the Chief Financial Officer of CCRM. Prior to joining CCRM, Michael was a Management Consultant at Ernst & Young LLP, President of BEST Funds, a venture capital company, and CEO of Convexus Managed Services Inc., a start-up fund administration company.

As CFO, Michael is responsible for overseeing operational effectiveness and efficiency at CCRM, the creation and development of start-up regenerative medicine companies, and the sourcing of risk capital.

Associate Professor, Dr Regina Fritsche-Danielson is accountable for research and early clinical development up to Ph3 in cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases. Regina received her PhD in Cardiovascular Physiology/Pharmacology at the University of Göteborg in 1993. After her postdoc, Regina was awarded a prestigious grant from the Swedish Natural Research Foundation (NFR). During her academic years Regina lead a research group and worked at the University of Göteborg, University of Ottawa, University of Queensland and University of Nevada. Regina joined AstraZeneca in 2001 and has held various leadership positions and led drug projects in discovery and development phases.
Regina is a steering committee member of several strategic research collaborations including Silence Therapeutics, Ionis Therapeutics, Procella therapeutics as well as the British Heart Foundation Centre for Research Excellence (CRE) Cambridge. She is also a board member of FluiCell AB, OligoNova and CCRM Nordic and she is an advisor for MRC Institute of Metabolic Science strategy University of Cambridge.

Ass. Prof. Agnete Kirkeby, Group leader at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine (reNEW) at University of Copenhagen, focused on stem cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. Co-leader of the STEM-PD clinical trial.

Ass. Prof. Anna Pasetto, Director of the Center for Advanced Cell Therapy at Oslo University Hospital and Associate Professor at the University of Oslo. Specializes in cell therapy techniques.

Prof. Heli Skottman, Professor at Tampere University, developing stem cell-based tools for ocular repair. Founder and CTO of StemSight.

Prof. Johan Rockberg, Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, expert in gene therapy vehicles and bi-specific protein therapeutics. Co-founder of Strike Pharma.