Why Attend
The Microbiome Invest Congress 2018 is dedicated to showcasing the most innovative emerging companies and academics with commercially viable research that manipulates the microbiome. Active investors, and multi-national nutrition and pharmaceutical companies will also share their knowledge and perspectives on commercialisation and discuss the most cutting-edge products and research in the microbiome space.
“The human microbiome market is expected to reach USD 658 Million by 2023 from USD 294 Million in 2019 growing at a CAGR of 22.3% during the forecast period (2019–2023)” Human Microbiome Market Industry Report – Markets and Markets
'Pitch Your Microbes' Finalists
Dominik Burziwoda
Prior to founding MillionFriends Dominik worked as Head of Operations at the German E-Commerce company Springlane. The company scaled from 8 to >100 people within 3 years. He started his career as an Investment Banker with Lincoln International and worked at Innogy on M&A and financing transactions of renewable energy plant across Europe. He graduated with an LL.M. from University of Munster, with a Master in Finance from IE Business School and holds a BSc in Business from Rotterdam School of Management. He is a passionate snowboarder and healthcare tech enthusiast.
Evelina Vågesjö, PhD MBA
Co-founder of and developed the concept during PhD 2011-2016, is now CEO and heading the drug and business development in Ilya Pharma. Also BSc in Management Accounting and finished an MBA 2018. Raised >4.3 M€ in grant funding to the project, lead the first private share issue in 2017 and designed stock option programs for key employees.
Kristofer Cook
Kristofer is a serial entrepreneur who, over the past 15 years, has co-founded six biotechnology companies in the areas of clean technology, food-technology and life science. In addition to holding multiple board positions in several private and public companies, Kristofer is currently CEO of Carbiotix, an award-winning biotechnology company pioneering microbiome healthcare through a portfolio of microbiome modulators covering prebiotic ingredients, medical foods and therapeutics, along-side a range of cost-effective gut health testing services. Kristofer holds a MSc. degree from Lund University, Sweden, and a M.B.A. degree from Solvay Business School, Belgium.
Grégory Lambert
Pharmacist and Ph.D. in pharmaceutical technology, Gregory’s carrier is split between Biotech and Pharma where he occupied the positions of Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Executive Officer. Gregory drove the development of a number of drugs, medical devices and food supplement from the laboratory to market. Since 2014, Gregory is the CEO of TargEDys.
Mats Wallstrom
Mats is an engineer by education with a special interest in what makes the body perform. He has dedicated years of development of the Qualvivo bacterial boxed-system technology.
Mats is motivated to grow a company and to introduce products on the international market. He identified a window of opportunity to develop the power of bacteria and combined partnering expertise in biotechnology with an engineering approach to develop Qualvivo.
Richard Andrews
Mr. Andrews has spent most of his career as a C level executive leading operations, finance, and commercial and clinical development for biotechnology firms focused on new products that address inflammatory disease. Mr. Andrews has been instrumental in translating research and academic discoveries into product development and advanced clinical programs, building alliances and partnerships and organizing operational teams. Financing processes led by Mr. Andrews have secured over $130M in equity funding for new ventures. His work has been primarily focused on skin disease, pneumonia, infant hypoxic ischemia and kidney failure. Early in his career, Mr. Andrews led the commercialization of several natural cell systems to prevent disease on fruits and vegetables and launched several DNA diagnostic tests for periodontal disease. Mr. Andrews received graduate degrees in physical biochemistry (MS), and technology management (SM) from Purdue University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. He also has an undergraduate degree in Chemistry (BS) from Hobart College.
Gregory McKenzie, Ph.D.
Gregory McKenzie, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, has over ten years of experience developing microbial-based products and leading discovery and development teams. Greg was formerly Senior Principal Scientist at Seres Therapeutics where he was a key senior member of the teams that brought the live biotherapeutics SER-109, SER-262, and SER-287 from discovery through proof-of-concept in animals to clinical stage programs.
Dr Soren Krogsgaard Thomsen
Dr Soren Krogsgaard Thomsen is co-founder and CEO of the UK-based start-up company BioMe Oxford. Trained in medical genetics at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Soren has a background in both academic and industrial life sciences research. His publication record spans work on the genetics of complex diseases and academic entrepreneurship. Since co-founding BioMe Oxford, he has successfully led the company to raising pre-seed investment, winning a number of international business competitions along the way (incl. Imagine IF and Idea Idol). Soren dreams of enabling a revolution in precision medicine through population-wide studies of our second genome within.
Dr Luis Gosalbez
Luis is the Director of Business Development at OptiBiotix Health in the UK. Previously, he held different positions in the biotechnology industry and in pharmaceutical consulting in Spain and Germany. His scientific career was developed between Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa-CSIC (both in Spain) and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST, South Korea). His research was always focused on microbiology, the human microbiome and on the development of antimicrobials and antivirals. He received his BSc and MSc in Biotechnology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, his PhD in Life Sciences from the Catholic University of San Antonio (Spain) and a Master’s in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge in the UK.
The Speakers
Adrian Ferrero
Andrew Morgan
Dr Andrew Morgan is Chair of the UK’s KTN Microbiome Special Interest Group and has close to 40 years’ experience in health & nutrition research & innovation related to microbe-host interactions including human, animal and plant. He held the role of Chief Scientist to DuPont’s Nutrition & Health and legacy Danisco business (2008-2019) and was a DuPont Fellow. Having joined the company as a member of the pioneering FFI animal nutrition enzyme team, he then went on to play a key role in helping build DuPont’s microbiome platform. Andrew retired from DuPont at the end of 2019.
Artem Khlebinkov
Isabelle De Cremoux
David Berry
