Anna Sumeray

Chief Executive Officer
Anna Sumeray has over 25 years of experience in the life sciences sector with a combination of strategic consultancy, hands-on P&L leadership and deal transaction experience in big pharmaceutical and small biotechnology companies, globally, across Europe and within individual countries.
Anna’s diverse experiences include the building of a successful European biotech business for a US-based company from the ground up and the management of Novartis’s oncology businesses in Finland and Germany. She also has significant M&A and licensing experience and was the global head of business development and licensing at Novartis Ophthalmics. She has worked in 13 countries and in 4 languages.
Anna has a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham, UK and an MBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.

Dr. Marc Mansour

Chief Technical Officer
Dr. Marc Mansour brings over 20 years of scientific research and biotechnology business experience. He is an expert in vaccinology and cancer immunotherapy, with a Ph.D. in biology, and an MBA. Before joining Virometix as Chief Technical Officer, he was Chief Executive Officer at Immunovaccine, Inc., a company focused on developing cancer immunotherapies and infectious disease vaccines. At Immunovaccine he developed and established the company’s clinical programs and strategic clinical collaborations. He was responsible for the development of the company’s unique depot-based vaccine adjuvant platform, bringing it from concept to Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials in the US and Canada, in combination with other immunotherapies from established immune-oncology companies. He also led the development of infectious disease vaccine candidates using the same platform concept to Phase 1.

Dr. Lilli Stergiou

Chief Scientific Officer
Lilli Stergiou has 20 years of research and development experience in multiple fields including all areas of interest to Virometix – vaccines, infectious diseases, and oncology. She has a PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Zurich. Lilli joins Virometix from Redbiotec AG, where she was CSO, headed the HSV-2 Therapeutic Vaccine Program and built a pipeline based on Live Biotherapeutics for applications in oncology.

Dr. Markus Heck

Head of Technical Operations
Markus Heck has more than 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry and in regulated environments in various roles ranging from support specialist to project manager to team leader and consultant. He is an expert in the fields of CMC and technical operations with a strong focus on current trends in industry and evolving technologies. Markus has studied Chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe and holds a Doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Zurich.

Dr. Mark Sumeray

Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Mark Sumeray is a Pharma and Biotech executive with 26 years’ experience in drug development for small molecule and biological products. He has been responsible for non-clinical and clinical development, regulatory affairs, medical affairs, and drug safety, and has broad experience in interaction with health authorities. He has multiple therapeutic area experience (rare/orphan diseases, cardiovascular, endocrine, metabolism, anti-infectives, and vaccines). He is currently on the board of Tolremo Therapeutics.

Jan ter Meulen, MD, Dr. Habil., DTM&H

Chair of Research
Dr. Jan ter Meulen is a biotech executive with very broad experience in vaccines and recombinant antibody R&D, as well as immuno-oncology. As a veteran researcher in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic settings, Jan brings 30 years of operational and strategic research experience to Virometix, including having been the Head of Vaccine Basic Research at Merck & Co., where he was responsible for the entire vaccine discovery pipeline. He also was an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a consultant for scientific agencies in the US, UK, Germany, France, South Africa and for the European Commission. Jan holds a Medical Doctorate degree from Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg, a PhD in Virology from Philipps University of Marburg, and a Diploma in Tropical Medicine from the London School.

Christina Ackermann

Chairman 

Christina Ackermann brings over 27 years of legal and management experience across the pharmaceutical, device, and consumer products industries. Ms. Ackermann was instrumental in establishing various global legal functions, strategic initiatives, and transactions at Bausch + Lomb, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and DuPont. She currently serves as a non-executive member of the boards of Verona Pharma plc (NASDAQ: VRNA), Oculis Holding AG (NASDAQ: OCS), and private boards/NGOs. Ms. Ackermann holds a Post Graduate Diploma in EC Competition Law from King’s College at the University of London, UK, and an LLB from Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada.

Axel Polack, PD Dr. med.

Dr. Axel Polack is a General Partner at JPIF, a life-science-oriented early-stage venture capital fund. He is also a supervisory board member of HealthUp Sp.zo.o and Survivor Life Ltd and acts as a senior advisor to the Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung (EKFS), a non-profit foundation dedicated to advancing medical research and medical-humanitarian projects Axel has had an impressive three-phase career path with notable achievements in venture capital, business management and biomedical research.
Axel holds a Medical Doctorate from the University of Freiberg and a second doctorate (Privatdozent) in Virology from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) Munich.

Anna Sumeray

Anna Sumeray has over 25 years of experience in the life sciences sector with a combination of strategic consultancy, hands-on P&L leadership and deal transaction experience in big pharmaceutical and small biotechnology companies, globally, across Europe and within individual countries.
Anna’s diverse experiences include the building of a successful European biotech business for a US-based company from the ground up and the management of Novartis’s oncology businesses in Finland and Germany. She also has significant M&A and licensing experience and was the global head of business development and licensing at Novartis Ophthalmics. She has worked in 13 countries and 4 languages.
Anna has a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham, UK and an MBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.

Bob van Gemen, PhD

Bob has over 30 years’ experience in the healthcare space being CEO of biotech companies or running business units in large multinational companies. Most recently was CEO of Viroclinics where he grew the company from 40 to 400 people and revenues from €5M to €75M. Under his guidance, Viroclinics Inc. was established in the USA and the company acquired DDL Diagnostics to accelerate growth. Viroclinics partnered with 3 private equity funds of increasing size to enable organic and accelerated growth of the company, recently Viroclinics was acquired by Cerba Healthcare.
Bob’s scientific experience includes molecular biology, virology and (pre)clinical study programs for the development of antivirals and vaccines for numerous respiratory infections.
Bob van Gemen has a Master’s in Biology from the Free University of Amsterdam and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Leiden.

Susanne Schultz-Hector, PD Dr. med.

Dr Susanne Schultz-Hector is an independent university lecturer with extensive knowledge in the field of experimental research. Her professional experience includes experimental research in radiation biology at Helmholtz-Zentrum München, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston and LMU Munich; research management at Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft and TU-München; and a member of the management board of Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung as well as member of the supervisory board of GLS Treuhand. She holds a Medical Doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) Munich.

Andrew Oakley

Andrew Oakley is an accomplished international finance executive with over 40 years of leadership experience across pharmaceuticals, biotech, financial services, and industrial sectors. He has held CFO roles at several high-profile life science companies including Autolus Therapeutics, Sosei Group, Vectura, and Actelion, where he played a pivotal role in scaling operations and delivering transformative financing transactions. Notably, he guided Actelion through a decade of growth from a CHF 100 million start-up to a CHF 7.5 billion global biopharmaceutical leader.
He currently serves as Audit Committee Chair at Union Therapeutics and Novaremed, and part-time CFO at Theolytics, a preclinical Oxford University spin-out. Andrew holds a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University, an MBA from London Business School, and is a qualified Chartered Accountant. His global perspective is shaped by leadership roles across Europe, the US, Japan, and Australia​

Jan ter Meulen, MD, Dr. Habil., DTM&H

Executive Director R&D

Dr. Jan ter Meulen is a biotech executive with very broad experience in vaccines and recombinant antibody R&D, as well as immuno-oncology. As a veteran researcher in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic settings, Jan brings 30 years of operational and strategic research experience to Virometix, including having been the Head of Vaccine Basic Research at Merck & Co., where he was responsible for the entire vaccine discovery pipeline. He also was an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a consultant for scientific agencies in the US, UK, Germany, France, South Africa and for the European Commission. Jan holds a Medical Doctorate degree from Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg, a PhD in Virology from Philipps University of Marburg, and a Diploma in Tropical Medicine from the London School.

Prof. Paul-Henri Lambert, MD

Prof. Paul-Henri Lambert, MD, is now associated with the Centre of Vaccinology in the Department of Pathology and Immunology at University of Geneva. He is directing the International Advanced Course of Vaccinology (ADVAC) organized under the auspices of the Fondation Mérieux and University of Geneva. He is a member of the Governing Board of the Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (TBVI), past-chairman of the Human Vaccine Committee of the International Association for Biologicals (IABS) and of the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety of the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1987, he was appointed as chief of Microbiology and Immunology at the World Health Organization and in 1994, chief of the Vaccine Research and Development, WHO Global Program for Vaccines and Immunization. During this time he was deeply involved in co-ordination of research aiming at the development of vaccines against diseases of major importance in developing countries.

Prof. John A. Robinson

Prof. Robinson is a co-founder of Virometix, professor of organic chemistry and former chairman of the Organic Chemistry Institute and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Zurich. Prof. Robinson is a leading expert in the development of epitope mimetics for drug and vaccine applications. He has published more than 150 papers in major scientific journals and is named as co-inventor on 12 patents. He obtained his Doctorate in Chemistry from Cambridge University, UK.

Dr. Dimitris Stellas

Dr. Dimitris Stellas is an expert in cancer immunology and mouse models of cancers. He will supervise the in vitro and in vivo vaccine experiments, design the vaccination strategy and coordinate the subsequent experimental procedure in order to validate the efficacy of the vaccination. Having hands-on experience on cancer neo-antigens as novel vaccine targets and DNA vaccines on HIV, he will be instrumental to the team of experts, assisting them to identify strategic targets for vaccine development.