Team

	Els Vanheusden (CEO): Els holds a Medical Doctor degree from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and 2 Master's Degrees in Hospital Management and Aeronautical & Space Medicine. In 1992 she started a typical Marketing management career at P&G Pharmaceuticals. Early 1998 she became responsible for European marketing at Biosense Webster, a J&J company, manufacturing and selling cardiac catheters and computer systems for diagnosis & treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. December 2000, Els co-founded PharmaDM, a Belgian based spin-off company providing solutions for analysis of drug discovery data, which she joined as CEO. In September 2004, she took on the job of General Manager of FlandersBio, the cluster of life sciences actors performing R&D activities in Flanders. November 2008, Els joined Capricorn Venture Partners as a Senior Investment Manager to set up the new Capricorn Health-tech Fund (CHF). Anethon is an investment of CHF.
	Jaak Minten (Head (Pre-)Clinical Development and QA): Jaak has over 20 years of industry experience in medical device R&D and clinical trials, mainly at Medtronic, where he was exposed to the product development, and responsible for the pre-clinical and clinical trial research of implantable medical devices (pacemakers, defibrillators, standard mechanical and tissue heart valves but also percutaneous and transthoracic catheter deployed aortic and pulmonary heart valves). In this position, he was also responsible for the set up and maintenance of applicable worldwide standard clinical operating procedures and for the adherence to governing regulatory rules. He was also the clinical director of the Medtronic-Genzyme joint venture for restoration of cardiac functionality post-myocardial infarction by cultured myoblast injection in viable tissue during standard coronary artery bypass graft procedures. Jaak holds a Master of Sciences (Biology) and a PhD in cardiology from KULeuven. Prior to joining the industry, Jaak worked at KULeuven in the Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology (1979-1985) and at the Laboratory of Cardiac Surgery & Anaesthesiology (Prof. Dr. W. Flameng; 1985-1989).
	Annie Van Broeckhoven (Head of Protein Production): Annie graduated as a Master in Chemistry from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and obtained a PhD in 1981. After a postdoc at the Weizmann Institute (Rehovot, Israel) working in the group of Prof. Dr. U. Littauer on the cloning of tubulin and actin, she became involved in the expression, fermentation, purification and manufacturing of industrial enzymes for Petrofina (Total). She joined Innogenetics in 1992, first as responsible for the bioprocess department, later as Vice-President Biologicals responsible for the process and analytical method development as well as for the production of biologicals for diagnostic and therapeutic usage, including GMP manufacturing. Since May 2011 she is the director of CreaBioSupport, a consulting consortium providing services in the field of cGMP manufacturing of early stage clinical trial materials. Annie has been appointed Professor at the University of Antwerp, where she gives a course on Industrial Biotechnology and Microbiology.

Inventors

Willem Flameng (Inventor and Chief Medical Advisor): As a Cardiac Surgeon with over 30 years of experience Wim Flameng is a global academic opinion leader in cardiac surgery. He is a full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the KULeuven and is additionally responsible for the Facility for Experimental Surgery and Anaesthesiology and head of the Division of Experimental Cardiac Surgery and Division of Heart Research. Over the span of his career he has successfully supervised 33 PhD-’ students. Like no other, he understands the patients' needs for a next generation of cardiovascular prostheses. Prof Flameng has been a pioneer in many of the procedures in cardiovascular surgery that are considered today as routine procedures. The laboratory for Experimental Cardiac Surgery has several subdivisions and it is one of these subdivisions that lay at the basis of the protein coating and related IP to be developed further by Anethon. In addition to his role as board member, Wim Flameng will continue to provide animal testing and other services to Anethon and will also chair the Anethon Advisory board.

Geofrey De Visscher (Inventor): After having obtained a Master in Human biology from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (1997), he performed research in an industrial setting to obtain a PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences from the Universiteit Maastricht (2002). Joining the Laboratory for Experimental Cardiac Surgery at KULeuven in 2001, he became principal investigator for the subdivision performing research into cardiovascular tissue engineering. In cooperation with Prof Flameng he developed the key-IP and scientific evidence for the Anethon’s technology. From February 2009 to October 2011 he  held the position of Research and Innovation Manager for the EGAMI-consortium at the University of Antwerp. Currently he is employed by the KULeuven LRD department and assigned full-time to Anethon. Geofrey’s expertise centres around the application and modulation of naturally occurring cellular and molecular processes. His contribution to the research was mainly knowledge and experience in the field of stem cells, trigger peptides and proteins that form the basis of Anethon’s products and technology platform. Over the years he has obtained a wide scientific basis by working in several fields such as molecular biology, cellular biology, cardiovascular research, cerebrovascular research, neurosciences and cytogenetics. He has hands-on experience in cytogenetic techniques, in vivo spectroscopy, small and large animal preparation/surgery, cell culturing, microscopy and related methods. In the course of 4 PhD projects of which he was the co-promoter, he also supervised projects involving microarray gene expression and their statistical analysis.

Board of Directors

	Paul Van Dun (Chairman): As of December 2000 Paul is active within KULeuven Research & Development, the technology transfer unit of KULeuven, where he is general manager and coordinates the activities in contract research, patenting, licensing, spinoff creation and regional development. He is also managing director of the venture funds Gemma Frisius Fund I & II, board member of the Fondation Fournier-Majoie pour l’Innovation and Capricorn Venture Fund II, and board member or president of several spinoff companies. As of 2006, he has been elected vice-president of ASTP (Association of European Science & Technology Transfer Professionals).
	Frank Bulens (Non-Executive Director): Frank holds an Engineering Degree in Chemistry/Biochemistry and a PhD in Medical Sciences. He started his career in R&D, first at Diadal (Nutricia) and later academic research at the Faculty of Medicine of K.U. Leuven. In 1998 he joined GIMV as an executive investment manager. Frank currently is a senior investment manager of the Capricorn Health-tech Fund. He has 10+ years of active Board experience in Health-tech companies, both in Europe and the US. As such, he has acquired a broad knowledge of the key markets, the therapeutic domains and the technologies used in the life sciences sector. Frank has worked extensively with many of the dominant healthcare VC’s across Europe and the US, and as such has established a strong network in the sector.
	Els Vanheusden (CEO)
	Willem Flameng (Founder, Non-Executive Director)