About Immodulon
Immodulon is a late-stage clinical biotechnology company developing a highly differentiated cancer immunotherapy approach that primes the patient’s own innate immune system with the aim to significantly enhance the efficacy of a broad range of anti-cancer therapies, including chemotherapy and checkpoint inhibitors. Immodulon is developing IMM-101, a heat-killed Mycobacterium obuense, as a broad-spectrum immunomodulatory agent with the potential to treat a range of difficult-to-treat tumours including those considered to be immunologically “cold,” such as pancreatic cancer.
Leadership Team
Immodulon is led by a team of highly experienced oncology drug development and commercialisation experts who have previously held senior roles at global biopharmaceutical companies including ADC Therapeutics, Amgen and Celgene.
Gertjan Bartlema
Chief Executive Officer
About Gertjan
Gertjan is a global biotech leader with over 25 years’ industry experience in finance, business development and operations. Most recently, Gertjan was CEO of VICO Therapeutics BV, a privately held Netherlands based company. Prior to VICO, Gertjan spent 12 years at Celgene where he started as part of their initial European management team Based in Switzerland. As a member of their New Jersey based corporate business development team, he played a key role in the acquisition of Abraxis BioScience, adding Abraxane to Celgene’s portfolio. He started his career at Amgen and over a 9 year period held various roles at their European (Switzerland) and corporate headquarters in the U.S.
Gertjan holds a MSc in Economics from Maastricht University, Netherlands.
Peter Greaney
Chief Business Officer
About Peter
Peter is a highly experienced business development executive, with over 20 years’ international industry expertise. Previously, Peter served as Head of Corporate Development at ADC Therapeutics where he played an integral role transforming the company from a private R&D biotech to a NYSE listed public biotech with a commercial therapeutic product. Prior to ADC Therapeutics, Peter spent 12 years at Celgene in a number of roles of increasing responsibility in Switzerland and the US across medical, commercial and business development and played a key role integrating Abraxane into the Celgene portfolio. Peter began his career as a Preclinical Senior Scientist at Apoxis.
Peter holds a BSc in Cell Biology from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Nottingham.
Josefine Roemmler-Zehrer
Chief Medical Officer
About Josefine
Josefine brings significant experience in drug development and medical affairs to Immodulon having held senior leadership roles at leading pharmaceutical companies including Celgene, Amgen and Ipsen. Josefine has a proven track record of success in several product development programmes including Celgene’s Abraxane (nab-paclitaxel) in pancreatic cancer and NSCLC and Ipsen’s Cabometyx in renal cell carcinoma and thyroid cancer. She has led multi-disciplinary teams in a range of therapeutic areas including Oncology, Inflammation, Rheumatology, Dermatology, Neurology and Rare diseases.
Josefine started her medical training at the Semmelweis Egyetem University in Budapest and at the University of Julius Maximilians University Wurzburg, Germany, were she received her board certification in Human Medicine. After this she began her career at the University of Munich where she acquired her specialisation in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Diabetes and her postdoctoral lecture qualification.
Richard Couch
Chief Technology Officer
About Richard
Richard brings over 30 years’ pharmaceutical experience across regulatory, drug development and commercialisation to Immodulon. He spent 15 years at Celgene, most recently as Vice President, Global Regulatory CMC before founding R3LS, a CMC consultancy. At Celgene, Richard built and led the Global Regulatory CMC group responsible for developing and implementing CMC strategies for small molecules, biologics and cell therapies. During his time, he oversaw the development of 20 clinical compounds from Phase 1 clinical development through to commercialisation.
Richard started his career at Merck & Co., Inc in Analytical & Quality Services before transitioning to a regulatory CMC position. He holds an MSc in Chemistry from Lehigh University and a BSc in Chemistry from Ohio University.
Owen Vaughan
Chief Regulatory Officer
About Owen
Owen is a highly experienced regulatory affairs leader with over 30 years’ global experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Owen has led regulatory teams across all phases of clinical development and has a proven track record in obtaining and expanding marketing authorisations for multiple new therapeutics. He joins Immodulon from 4D Pharma where he served as Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs & Quality Assurance. Owen has also held senior regulatory roles at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Taiho Oncology, Celgene and Johnson and Johnson.
Owen began his career as a Research Scientist. He holds a PhD and BSc in Chemistry from Imperial College London and holds a diploma in regulatory affairs from the University of Wales, Cardiff.
Board of Directors
Richard Davies
Chairman of the Board
About Richard
Anthony Bolton
Director
About Anthony
Joey Mason
Director
About Joey
Sir Simon Robertson
Director
About Simon
Dr Selwyn Ho
Director
About Dr Selwyn Ho
Gertjan Bartlema
Chief Executive Officer
About Gertjan
Gertjan is a global biotech leader with over 25 years’ industry experience in finance, business development and operations. Most recently, Gertjan was CEO of VICO Therapeutics BV, a privately held Netherlands based company. Prior to VICO, Gertjan spent 12 years at Celgene where he started as part of their initial European management team Based in Switzerland. As a member of their New Jersey based corporate business development team, he played a key role in the acquisition of Abraxis BioScience, adding Abraxane to Celgene’s portfolio. He started his career at Amgen and over a 9 year period held various roles at their European (Switzerland) and corporate headquarters in the U.S.
Gertjan holds a MSc in Economics from Maastricht University, Netherlands.
Industry Advisors
Dr Jean Pierre Bizzari
Between 2008 to 2015 he was the executive vice president at Celgene in charge of clinical development and was in charge of Revlimid, Pomalist and Abraxane. Dr. Bizzari is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of France’s National Cancer Institute and Netrix Pharma, and serves on the board of Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc., Pieris, Oxford Bio Therapeutics, and Transgene SA. Dr. Bizzari received his medical degree from the University of Nice (France).
He is a specialist in oncology, having trained at La Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, followed by training at the Ontario Cancer Institute and McGill Cancer Center. He was appointed in June 2015 to the Board of EORTC located in Brussels and elected Chairman of the New Drug Advisory Committee. He was appointed to the Immodulon Board in 2016.
Thorsten Sperber
Thorsten is a biopharma executive and industry veteran with a wealth of knowledge and almost 30 years of broad biotech expertise. “We before me” is the underlying principle that has become the guard rail of Thorsten’s career and business acumen. Thorsten has served as the Global Head Medical Affairs at Immunomedics Inc., Morris Plains, New Jersey, where he successfully built the global medical affairs structure of the company. Prior to Immunomedics, Thorsten served at Celgene Corporation for almost 13 years in various national and international roles, such as Executive Director US Medical Affairs and Disease Lead Multiple Myeloma and Director Oncology.
Before joining Celgene, Thorsten was the marketing lead for dasatinib (Sprycel®) at BMS in Germany, and served AMGEN for 10 years in multiple roles in Hematology, Oncology and HIV. Throughout his career, Thorsten was directly involved in the successful launches of multiple blockbuster drugs, including but not limited to Neupogen®, Aranesp®, MabCampath®, Zevalin®, Sprycel®, Revlimid®, Vidaza®, Abraxane®, and Trodelvy™, in multiple indications in both hematology and oncology, and in various markets.
Thorsten holds a Master of Science in Molecular Biology with honors, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology, studied histology, molecular biology and microbial genetics at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, USA, and is a certified organizational change manager of V.iT. GmbH, Germany.
He holds a certificate in Strategic Management for Executives of the St. Galler Business School, Switzerland.
Dr Kevin Lynch
Kevin is driven by developing transformative medicines for patients.
He has lived and worked in Australia, Asia, UK and Switzerland, operating in both small, start-up environments as well as large, multi-nationals.
Kevin was Chief Medical Expert during Antengene’s formative years and then through a period of extreme growth as Chief Medical Officer. He supervised their broad clinical program with Xpovio (Selinexor) in Asia-Pacific, as well as extensive program of early development compounds.
During his 11 years at Celgene Kevin was closely involved in the successful clinical development and registration of Revlimid (lenalidomide), Pomalyst (pomalidomide), Vidaza (azacitidine), Onureg (oral azacitidine) and Idhifa (enasidinib).
During his 10 years with Novartis, as one of the inaugural Oncology Medical Directors for the company, he played a key role in the development and approvals of multiple transformative drugs including Glivec (imatinib), Tasigna (nilotinib), Zometa (zoledronic acid), Femara (letrozole) and Exjade (deferasirox).
Kevin graduated with a MB, BS and B Med Sci from the University of Tasmania in Australia. Following his Dip Pharm Med and Membership by thesis on the development of cytostatic agents in cancer, he was elected a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the UK in 2004.