CCRM Nordic Team
The team at CCRM Nordic is composed of individuals with a rich background in biotechnology and advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs). They bring a blend of strategic vision and operational expertise, instrumental in guiding and developing the organization through its evolution.
Management Team
Fredrik Wessberg
Chief Executive Officer
Fredrik Wessberg is the CEO of CCRM Nordic and has an extensive experience as a leader within the life science industry. With visionary leadership and commitment to excellence, the full focus is currently to establish an organization that will meet the goal of being a successful catalyst in the Nordic ATMP ecosystem. Fredrik has a background in stem cell science, including process development and GMP production, and has recent years established a service organization mainly supporting the pharma industry. Prior to joining CCRM Nordic, Fredrik has held leadership positions at Avantor Sciences, Takara Bio and Cellectis where he demonstrated his exceptional ability to grow efficient teams and successful service business.
Jim Lund
Chief Business Development Officer
Dr Jim Lund is the Chief Business Development Officer at CCRM Nordic. He has extensive experience from coordination of complex interdisciplinary projects involving stakeholders from healthcare, academia, authorities and industry. Jim was one of the authors behind the report “A national infrastructure for development, manufacturing and commercialization of advanced therapy medicinal products (2021)” that described the prerequisites for CCRM Nordic. Jim has been actively involved in both the coordination and execution of many of the collaborative national ATMP projects such as CAMP, ATMP 2030 and the ATMP Sweden association where he is also a member of the board.
Anna Falk
Chief Scientific Officer
Anna Falk is Professor at Lund University and leading a research team that are using cellular reprogramming and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to create and study models of human brain development and for developing cell therapies. Her work has been pivotal in advancing our understanding of regenerative medicine and with numerous publications and collaborations in the ATMP sector, she has been at the forefront of developing innovative therapies that promise to transform patient care. Furthermore, she has established and is directing core facilities at both Karolinska Institutet and Lund University offering services using cutting edge technologies in the area of Cell and Gene Therapy. Anna Falk is leading the IndiCell project, a Vinnova innovation milieu for iPSC derived cell therapy and is the director of Lund University ATMP center.
Sarah Callens
Chief Technology Officer
Sarah Callens is a process expert with over 2 decades of experience in ATMP development and manufacturing. She specializes in CMC and integrating process technology with product control strategies. Sarah’s passion lies in developing and utilising technologies to make clinical stage and commercial products easier to manufacture and scale. Known for her holistic and collaborative approach, and international experience, Sarah strives to continue to advance the ATMP field as a leader. Committed to the vision of CCRM Nordic, Sarah strives for excellence in facility design and technology strategy. Her philosophy is centred around developing safe, efficacious, and compliant products which can be manufactured and supplied beyond first-in-human studies. Prior to joining CCRM Nordic, Sarah has held positions at Novo Nordisk, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, eXmoor, cell therapy SME’s, and as an independent consultant.
Helena Choukair
Director Quality
Helena Choukair is a quality professional with 20 years of experience in the life science industry. Helena has a background as GMP QA and QC Manager at Takara Bio Europe contributing to the establishment of a GMP lab for industrial manufacture of sterile human embryonic stem cell products for ATMP. Helena previously worked with the establishment when setting up a new facility for large scale automated production of human embryonic stem cells at Cellartis AB, Dundee Scotland implementing the Quality Management System and QC. She has extensive experience of Quality Management Systems across biotech companies. Helena holds a MSc in Molecular Computational Biology from the University of Skövde, Sweden and Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain.
Emma Johansson
Senior Project Manager
Emma Johansson is a Sr Project Manager with 17 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare sector. She has successfully led and managed diverse teams and projects. Emma is a molecular biologist by training, and with experience ranging from service and support to quality assurance and document management, she always strives to learn new things and broaden her perspective. She is known for her team building skills and collaborative spirit and encourages others to be open to new ideas. Her experience in lab design is currently being used to leverage the build of our CCRM Nordic lab capabilities.
See all our team members
Board of Directors
The CCRM Nordic Board of Directors brings extensive knowledge and considerable expertise in the biotechnology and ATMP sectors. Their expertise will enable CCRM Nordic to achieve the next evolution of growth – to become the powerhouse that supports Sweden’s growing ATMP startup companies, research and investors who work tirelessly to translate and commercialize Swedish technologies.
Jan Nilsson
Chairman and Senior Executive Advisor CombiGene
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.
Lennart Johansson
Vice Chairman & Senior Advisor, Patricia Industries/Investor
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 Mattsson
Investment Director, GU Ventures
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.
Catarina Flyborg
Senior Advisor
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.
Jacqueline Barry
Chief Clinical Officer, Catapult
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.
Michael May
President and CEO CCRM
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.
Regina Fritsche-Danielson
SVP and Head of Early CVRM, Biopharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca
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.
Frank Waldron-Lynch
VP Immunology Cell Therapy, AstraZeneca
Dr Frank Waldron-Lynch is an expert in inflammation and immunology research and development, with over two decades of experience in leading research and clinical development in autoimmunity, transplant immunology and rare diseases, within academia, biotech, and pharmaceutical sectors. In his current role at AstraZeneca, Frank is Vice President, Immunology Cell Therapy based in Boston, US, and is responsible for the development of cell therapies for patients with immune mediated diseases. Over the of his career, Frank has held positions at Vertex Cell and Gene Therapies, and Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research. Prior to joining Industry, Frank was an Academic Physician at Cambridge University where he was Senior Clinical Trials Fellow in Experimental Medicine and Therapeutics, as well as an Honorary consultant in Endocrinology and Internal Medicine. He is a graduate of University College Galway, University College Cork and Cambridge University and has been awarded fellowships by Yale University, the Royal College of Physician London, and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
Scientific Advisory Board
The CCRM Nordic Scientific Advisory Board features distinguished scientists with expertise spanning many critical areas within ATMPs. The sound experience of the SAB aims to guide the operational CCRM Nordic team towards pressure-tested and trustworthy experts and support decision-making in scientific, technological, and medical fields.
Agnete Kirkeby
Group leader at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine
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.
Anna Pasetto
Director of the Center for Advanced Cell Therapy
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.
Heli Skottman
Professor at Tampere University
Prof. Heli Skottman, Professor at Tampere University, developing stem cell-based tools for ocular repair. Founder and CTO of StemSight.
Johan Rockberg
Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology
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.
Pontus Blomberg
Director of the Vecura GMP facility and Karolinska Center for Cell Therapy
Dr. Pontus Blomberg, Director of the Vecura GMP facility and Karolinska Center for Cell Therapy, specializes in clinical cell therapy processes.