Management
Jan-Åke Liljeqvist
MD, associate professor at Gothenburg University
Jan-Åke Liljeqvist is the inventor of Simplexia’s HSV-2 vaccine and leads Simplexia’s laboratory research at Gothenburg University. He is senior physician at the Virology Department at Sahlgrenska University Hospital and associate professor at Gothenburg University. He has been working with the vaccine antigen gG-2 since 1995, presenting his thesis 2000.
He has published several papers in the field together with the two other founders in Simplexia, Tomas Bergström and Staffan Görander.
Tim Wood
CEO Simplexia AB
Tim Wood joined Simplexia in 2023. He received an MA in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Medical Science from the Karolinska Institute. He has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and was previously vice president for technical operations at Intervacc AB, where he was responsible for managing transition of a recombinant subunit vaccine from late-stage clinical development to commercial launch in Europe.
Prior to that he held management positions at Valneva Sweden AB, Crucell Sweden AB and TFS AB. He has broad experience of development and manufacturing of vaccines and biologics, regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance and quality management.
Jacob Westman
Head of Preclinical Research and Development
Jacob Westman is an organic chemist by training and is both a PhD and Associate Professor in organic chemistry. Dr. Westman has worked with pharmaceutical development at various small and large pharmaceutical companies for more than 30 years and is the inventor behind more than 45 patent families. Dr. Westman is currently Head of Preclinical Res. & Dev. at Curovir AB and Head of CMC at iCoat Medical AB.
Board of directors
Lena Degling Wikingsson
Chairman Simplexia AB
Lena Degling Wikingsson is a pharmacist by training and holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Science. She has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and has previously been CEO of Independent Pharmaceutica AB and Avaris AB, a non-executive Director of Avaris AB, held positions at SBL Vaccines, Accuro Immunology, and worked as a biotechnology assessor at the Swedish Medical Products Agency. She has broad experience in regulatory affairs and the development of biologics and vaccines. Lena Degling Wikingsson is currently a non-executive Director of Simplexia and CEO of Dilafor AB.
Jan Pilebjer
Former CEO MBA, 40 years of managing experience in the life sciences industry
Jan Pilebjer, MBA, has more than 40 years of experience from leading positions within the Life Sciences industry, in global as well as smaller start-up enterprises (e.g. Upjohn, Kabi Vitrum, Baxter, Biopool, Medirox and Nycomed). His role has been global and he’s been located to Sweden, Switzerland, USA and Denmark. After returning to Sweden he worked as business coach, within GU Ventures, to start up and coach entrepreneurial life science ventures. Among those Simplexia AB. He’s been instrumental in introducing a number of companies to stock exchanges and also been taking up the CEO position in such. Jan Pilebjer also has been a member of number of Board of Directors to smaller companies. He also been serving as an interim CEO of Simplexia for a couple of years.
Ola Rönn
MD, associate professor, 25 years’ experience in senior positions at major Pharma Companies
Ola has obtained his MD and PhD from Gothenburg Universtity. He is a specialist in Internal Medicine and was appointed Associate Professor of Medicine 1984 at the same University. After 14 years in academic medicine Ola joined the pharmaceutical industry. He has worked at Hoechst Roussel and Kabi Pharmacia and Pharmacia Upjohn in different senior R&D positions. Thereafter he has worked at Astra Zeneca first as Site head of Clinical R&D and Global Director of Drug Safety. His last postitions at Astra Zeneca were Global Vice President and head of Gastrointestinal Therapy and Global Vice President Gastrointestinal Scientific Affairs. Since then Ola has been working as an independent consultant mainly for the pharma industry and has been a board member and chairman in pharmaceutical start up companies. He has been member of the board of Simplexia AB since its start .
Nina Lindblom
Extensive experience of drug development at biotech companies and clinical research organizations
Nina Lindblom has a background in neuropsychopharmacology and holds a PhD in medical science from the Karolinska Institutet. She has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry working with drug development at biotech companies and at clinical research organizations. Nina Lindblom represents Movenio Fastigheter AB in the Simplexia board of directors.
Jorma Hinkula
Professor of molecular virology, Linköping University
Jorma leads a research group working on the infection immunology and medical microbiology of experimental vaccines and antiviral drugs. He received his PhD from the Karolinska Institute in 1993.
Helena Lundquist
Member of the business development team at GU Venture
Helena has a degree in economics from the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. She has many years of experience from the pharmaceutical industry in various business-related roles and therapeutic areas for companies such as Pfizer and Janssen.
Founders
Jan-Åke Liljeqvist
MD, associate professor at Gothenburg University
Jan-Åke Liljeqvist is the inventor of Simplexia’s HSV-2 vaccine and leads Simplexia’s laboratory research at Gothenburg University. He is senior physician at the Virology Department at Sahlgrenska University Hospital and associate professor at Gothenburg University. He has been working with the vaccine antigen gG-2 since 1995, presenting his thesis 2000.
He has published several papers in the field together with the two other founders in Simplexia, Tomas Bergström and Staffan Görander.
Tomas Bergström
Senior professor, Gothenburg University, scientific and clinical advisor
Tomas Bergström is the co-founder of the vaccine project. By training, he is a Specialist Physician in Infectious Diseases, and in Clinical Virology. Since 2000, he is Professor in Clinical Microbiology at the University of Gothenburg, and a Senior Physician at Sahlgren´s University Hospital in Gothenburg. He heads a research group active in basic science and diagnostics of herpesviruses and respiratory viruses and has published >250 scientific papers. He is an advisor to the Swedish Center of Disease Control (Folkhälsomyndigheten) regarding these viruses.
Staffan Görander
Staffan Görander is a co-founder of the vaccine project. He is senior physician at the virology section at Sahlgrenska University Hospital and a member of the department of infectious diseases at Gothenburg University. He is the first author of the two key scientific publication describing Simplexia’s vaccine approach. He has published several additional papers in the field together with the two other founders of Simplexia, Tomas Bergström and Jan-Åke Liljeqvist.