VectorY leadership

Board of directors

Carlo Incerti – Chairman

A medical doctor by training, Dr. Carlo Incerti brings over three decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He most recently held the position of Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Global Medical Affairs at Sanofi Genzyme.

Prior to its acquisition by Sanofi in 2011, Carlo held a number of positions of increasing scope and responsibility at Genzyme Corporation, the company who pioneered the development of therapeutics for rare diseases and advanced therapies, including cell and gene therapies.

Prior to joining industry Carlo was an Associate Professor of Endocrinology at the University of Modena. In January 2019 he joined Forbion, Naarden, The Netherlands as an Operating Partner. Dr. Incerti is currently Chairman of the Board of Azafaros B.V. (The Netherlands) and Inversago Pharma (Canada), and most recently was the Chairman of the cell and gene therapy  public Italian company MolMed, which was acquired by AGC (Japan) in July 2020.

Marco Boorsma - General Partner Forbion

Dr. Marco Boorsma has a proven track record of building and operationally leading biotech companies. He is an experienced VC professional with a background in business development and science, and board member of several drug development companies. Marco is also General Partner at Forbion.

Sander van Deventer, MD, PhD – Chief Executive Officer

Sander is a co-founder of VectorY and has 25 years of experience in drug development. He had a critical role in the development of the first commercial monoclonal antibody (Remicade) and the first gene therapy to be granted market authorization in the Western world (Glybera). Sander is also co-founder of Forbion, a leading life science venture capital firm where he is currently an Operating Partner. In 1998 he co-founded Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT N.V.), currently uniQure N.V. (NASDAQ: QURE), an AAV-based gene therapy company, acting subsequently as CSO, CMO and CEO. He also served as CEO of Dezima.

In 2017, he re-joined uniQure as its part-time CSO where he brought the hemophilia B and Huntington’s disease programs to clinical development. Sander is a former professor of Experimental Medicine and Gastroenterology at the Amsterdam Academic Medical Center and of Translational Gastroenterology at the University of Leiden. He authored over 80 book chapters, 600 peer-reviewed papers, organized international scientific conferences, and supervised more than 40 PhD students. He served on the boards of Hookipa, Engene, Borean, Dezima, Argos, and the scientific advisory boards of Hookipa, Argos, Engene and Staten.

Arno de Wilde - Director EQT Life Sciences

Arno is a Director at EQT Life Sciences, one of Europe's largest and most experienced healthcare investors. He is a co-founding member of EQT’s Dementia Fund, and is responsible for deal origination, all stages of the investment process, and general portfolio management. Arno currently serves as a Director on the board of VectorY Therapeutics, and as an Observer on the boards of QurAlis, AstronauTx, and Nobi. At EQT Life Sciences, he additionally focused on investments across a broad range of life sciences companies, including Xilis, VarmX, Visus Therapeutics, NewAmsterdam Pharma, AviadoBio and Muna Therapeutics. Prior to his transition to venture capital, Arno was a medical doctor trained in Neurology at Amsterdam UMC, where he also obtained his PhD in clinical neuroscience from VU Amsterdam. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Wouter Joustra - General Partner Forbion

Mr. Joustra is a General Partner at Forbion, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm. At Forbion, Mr. Joustra is responsible for deal origination, general portfolio management and divestment strategies, and focuses on Forbion´s Growth Opportunities Funds, which concentrates on investing in late-stage life sciences companies. Previously, Mr. Joustra was a Senior Trader, as well as Executive Board member of the Life Sciences franchise at Kempen, a European boutique investment bank. In this role, Mr. Joustra managed Kempen’s trading portfolio, and he was involved in deal structuring and equity capital markets transactions, as well as larger block trades. Until Gyroscope Therapeutics’s acquisition by Novartis for up to $1.5 billion, Mr. Joustra served as a member of Gyroscope Therapeutics’s board of directors. Mr. Joustra has also served as a member of the board of directors of VectivBio from December of 2022 until its $1.2 billion acquisition by Ironwood, and the board of Forbion’s SPAC vehicle until it’s de-SPAC with Engene (NASDAQ: ENGN. Currently Mr. Joustra serves on the board of directors of Aiolos Bio, next to being a board observer at NewAmsterdam Pharma N.V. (NASDAQ: NAMS). Mr. Joustra holds an M.Sc. in Business Administration from the University of Groningen, and a B.Sc. in International Business and Management from this same university.

Jean M Franchi – Former CFO, Replimune

Jean brings over 30 years of experience in biotech operations, from pre-commercial to global commercial companies. She is currently Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Replimune, a company developing tumor-directed oncolytic immunotherapies. Previously, Jean served as CFO of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Dimension Therapeutics at the time of its initial public offering, and Good Start Genetics. Prior to her CFO roles, Jean spent 16 years at Genzyme, where she held roles of increasing responsibility including Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance. Jean serves on the boards of directors of Biodesix and Flamingo Therapeutics. Jean received her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Hofstra University.

Karin Kleinhans - Partner MRLV

Karin has over 10 years of experience in the life science industry extending across research, IP law, venture capital and private equity. She is currently a Partner at MRLV and serves as a Director on the boards of Anavo Therapeutics and VectorY Therapeutics, and as an Observer on the board of Hotspot Therapeutics.

Prior to becoming part of the MRLV team, she was a Partner at EQT, a global purpose driven private equity firm, and part of its life sciences focused team. Prior to that, she was a Partner at LSP (now EQT Life Sciences), an Amsterdam, Munich and Boston based leading European healthcare focused investment firm with more than $3.2B under management where she focused on venture capital investments across a broad range of life science companies including: Cardior Pharmaceuticals, Arcieum Therapeutics, T-knife Therapeutics, Endotronix, Artios Pharma, Hotspot Therapeutics, Nkarta (NASDAQ: NKTX) and Amylyx (NASDAQ: AMLX). Before this, she worked in intellectual property law and was a scientist at the Max-Planck Department for Stem Cell Aging. She received her PhD from the International Graduate School in Molecular Medicine in Ulm funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and States Governments. She was awarded her Bachelor`s and Master`s Degree in Molecular Medicine where she combined medical studies with scientific research training.

Khurem Farooq – CEO Aiolos Bio

Khurem currently serves as the CEO at Aiolos Bio which recently announced an agreement to  be acquired by GSK. Previously Khurem served as the CEO of Gyroscope, which was acquired by Novartis in 2021. Prior to Gyroscope, Khurem was Senior Vice President of the Immunology and Ophthalmology business unit at Genentech, part of the Roche Group, where he led the commercialization and launch planning of a number of medicines and contributed to the development of several pipeline products. Khurem holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration as well as an Honours degree in Biological Sciences.

Advisors

Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MSc

Dr. Merit Cudkowicz is the Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital Neurology Service, Director, Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Julieanne Dorn Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Dr. Cudkowicz is one of the founders and former co-directors of the Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS), a group of over 140 clinical sites in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Middle East dedicated to performing collaborative academic-led clinical trials and research studies in ALS.   She is leading the first Platform Trial initiative in ALS and is also the Principal Investigator of the Clinical Coordination Center for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Neurology Network of Excellence in Clinical Trials (NeuroNEXT). Dr. Cudkowicz mentors neurologist in careers in experimental therapeutics.

Philip van Damme, MD, PhD

Dr. Van Damme is professor of neurology at the University Hospitals in Leuven Belgium, where he is director of the Neuromuscular Reference Center. He is leading the ALS program that involves the diagnosis, treatment and multidisciplinary care for patients with ALS. He is actively involved in clinical research, including genetic, biomarker and neuroimaging studies and clinical trials with new treatments for ALS. He is currently the chair of the EAN guideline panel on ALS. He is also a principal investigator in the laboratory for Neurobiology, part of the Neuroscience Department at the University of Leuven and the VIB Center for Brain & Disease Research. His current research focuses on genetic modifiers of ALS and on disease pathways in pluripotent stem cell models derived from ALS patients. He published more than 200 papers in international peer-reviewed journals on ALS and related neuromuscular disorders.

Philippe Corcia, MD

Philippe Corcia is professor of Neurology at the University of Tours and leads the Reference ALS Center of the University Hospital of Tours. This center treats more than 250 patients with ALS from the Loire Valley region and the surrounding departments. This center is involved in numerous clinical trials, the majority of which being developed by the TRICALS group in Europe. Dr. Corcia is also the President of the French Study Group of Motor Neuron diseases (GFEMM) and a member of team 2 of Inserm Unit U1253 iBrain Neuronal vulnerability, focused on two main fields of research in ALS, identification of susceptibility genetic factors and highlighting diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers from an omics approach in spinal fluid and blood.

Eric Reits, PhD

Dr. Reits is professor of Cellular Imaging at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Amsterdam, his research focuses on visualizing the intracellular protein breakdown in neurodegenerative protein storage diseases. Reits obtained his doctorate cum laude as a researcher with the Netherlands Cancer Institute; he then established a research group, funded in part by Veni and Vidi grants from NWO. He received additional funding from the Hersenstichting, the Prinses Beatrix Spierfonds and the Cure Huntington’s Disease Initiative (CHDI), among others. Reits is among the initiators of the Electron Microscopy Centre Amsterdam and serves as secretary of the Dutch Society for Microscopy. Dr. Reits is also the chair of the Dutch Huntington Disease Research Network, and member of the advisory council of the Dutch Huntington Association. In addition, he is an initiator and board member of the Campagneteam Huntington, a foundation that raises funds for research.

Ralf Reilmann, MD

Dr. Reilmann is an experienced Huntington's disease clinician currently at the University of Tübingen. He is also the founding CEO of the George-Huntington-Institute and of QuantiMedis, a company that provides quantitative and objective motor assessment for use in clinical trials for HD and other movement disorders. He was chair of the Huntington Center of the European Huntington’s Disease Network (EHDN) as well as chair of the Huntington Unit at the Department of Neurology, University of Muenster. His work was funded by, e.g., the High-Q-Foundation/CHDI Foundation, the German Research Foundation, and the German National Scholarship Foundation. He received training at the University of Muenster and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University.

Ton Logtenberg, PhD

Dr Logtenberg is a highly respected, successful serial life sciences entrepreneur. He is the founder, former CEO and President of Merus N.V (NASDAQ: MRUS), a clinical-stage oncology company developing multi-specific antibodies. He was the founding CEO of U-BiSys, that merged with Introgene to become Crucell N.V., where he served as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr Logtenberg co-founded the HUB foundation for organoid technology and served on its Supervisory Board. Recently. Dr. Logtenberg co-founded Gyes B.V., a company pioneering therapeutic multispecific antibodies, and currently serves as the company’s CEO. As an antibody expert, he is currently the chairman of the board of Synox Therapeutics Ltd and Mestag Therapeutics Ltd, and board member of the Forbion European Acquisition Corporation. Dr Logtenberg received a PhD in immunology from Utrecht University and did his post-doctoral work at Columbia University, New York. He is currently Professor in Entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences at Utrecht University.

Emanuele Buratti, PhD

Dr Buratti is Group Leader of the Molecular Pathology lab at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) and contracted professor at the University of Trieste, Italy. He studied Biology at the University of Trieste from 1984 to 1989 to obtain a Biology M.sc. degree and in 1993 he obtained a PhD in Biochemistry. Since more than 20 years, his principal area of expertise has been to study the role played by alterations in RNA metabolism in human disease. In 2001, he identified nuclear protein TDP-43 as a potential pre-mRNA splicing regulator. Recent research has been primarily focused at investigating the role played by this protein in ALS/FTD, Niemann-Pick C (NPC), and Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM). He is a member of the Editorial Board at Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), President of the Scientific Committee of the Italian FTD Patient association (AIMFT) and Chairperson for Research Foundation Flanders (FWO).

Pietro Fratta, MD, PhD

Dr. Fratta is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience and Consultant Neurologist at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and the Francis Crick Institute. His clinical and research interests center on motor neuron diseases (MND) and RNA biology. He previously obtained his PhD in UCL, and his medical training in Neurology at the University of Milan and University of Southern California. His laboratory uses RNA sequencing and visualization tools to understand disease mechanisms in patient derived tissue, iPS cells, and mouse models and develop novel therapeutic approaches. Over the last five years, his laboratory has uncovered the link between TDP-43 pathology and the well-established ALS risk factor UNC13A; described novel disease mechanisms for FUS-ALS and FUS-FTD; and identified novel biomarkers for ALS. He practices at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, where he established the only Kennedy’s Disease-dedicated clinic in the UK and an MND Genetics clinic.