VectorY leadership
Management team
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Jim Scibetta
Chief Executive Officer
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Sander van Deventer, M.D., Ph.D.
President of R&D
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Olga Uspenskaya‑Cadoz, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
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Jessica Atkinson
Chief Business Officer
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Barbara Sanders, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer
Board of directors
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Adam is Chair of the Board of Directors at Seamless Therapeutics and Ambagon Therapeutics, and also serves as a Director on the boards of other venture-backed and public biotechnology companies. He was the founding CEO of Aliada Therapeutics, Athenen Therapeutics (merged with Eliem Therapeutics: ELYM) and Sionna Therapeutics. Prior to that, he was President, CEO and member of the Board of Directors of Rodin Therapeutics until its 2019 acquisition. Adam also served as CEO and Co-Founder of Link Medicine, a company focused on developing disease-modifying neurodegenerative therapies and as CEO and Co-Founder of Teleos Therapeutics, a neuroscience drug discovery platform company.
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Vanessa Carle is a Senior Associate at Forbion, where she is responsible for driving investments and company-building efforts across various therapeutic areas and modalities. In addition to serving on the Board of VectorY Therapeutics, Vanessa holds observer positions on the boards of AIRNA, Orbis Medicines, Sitala Bio, and a company currently in stealth mode. Previously, Vanessa played a key role in leading due diligence and was a board observer for Mariana Oncology, which was acquired by Novartis in 2024.
Before joining Forbion, Vanessa was at PharmaVentures, where she focused on transaction advisory and corporate strategy projects. Earlier in her career, she worked as a scientist and co-Principal Investigator at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL).
Vanessa holds a BSc in Biotechnology from the University of Pavia (Italy), an MSc in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), and a PhD in Chemical Biology from EPFL (Switzerland).
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Jean brings over 30 years of experience in biotech finance and operations, from pre-clinical to commercial global companies. Ms. Franchi is currently Chief Financial Officer of Disc Medicine, Inc., a clinical stage company focused on hematologic diseases, prior to which she served as Chief Financial Officer of Replimune Group, Inc. (Replimune) from 2019 to 2023, a biotechnology company developing oncolytic immuno-gene therapies. Prior to Replimune, Ms. Franchi was Chief Financial Officer at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 2017 to 2019, Dimension Therapeutics, Inc. from 2015 to 2017, and Good Start Genetics, Inc. from 2012 to 2015. From 1995 to 2011, Ms. Franchi held various positions at Genzyme Corporation, including Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance, Senior Vice President of Business Unit Finance, and Vice President of Finance and Controller, Product Line and International Group. Ms. Franchi currently serves on the board of directors of Biodesix. Ms. Franchi also served on the board of directors of Biophytis S.A. through July 2021 and Visioneering Technologies, Inc. through December 2022, and Flamingo Therapeutics through March 2024. Ms. Franchi received her B.A. in Accounting from Hofstra University.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Jim Scibetta brings more than 20 years of executive leadership experience, building earlier stage companies focused on developing novel therapeutics for high unmet medical needs into mature biotechnology companies.
In 2024, Jim was appointed CEO of VectorY, having served as a Senior Consultant at Rock Springs Capital, a leading healthcare investment fund. He has served on numerous private and public company boards at value generating biotech companies, including CEO of Maverick Therapeutics leading to its 2021 acquisition by Takeda, President of Pacira BioSciences (Nasdaq: PCRX) during its growth from a clinical stage private company to commercial stage > $2 billion public company, and CFO of BioEnvision (Nasdaq: BIVN), instrumental in its sale to Genzyme. He has also served on the Boards and in executive positions at Matinas BioPharma, ImmuneID and Aquestive Therapeutics.
Prior to his biotech company-building career Mr. Scibetta spent 13 years in healthcare investment banking at Shattuck Hammond Partners and Paine Webber. He has an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Advisors
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.