Board of Directors
Christian Policard, Chairman
Christian Policard, Chairman, is a founding partner of BDC (Biotech Développement Conseils). BDC is specialized in strategy and business development support to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, or capital fund interested in investing in biotech. Christian Policard is a former Executive Vice-President of Sanofi in charge of diagnostic, agro-veterinary and capital development. He is also a former Executive Vice-President of Institut Pasteur in charge of technology transfer. He presently seats on several boards of biotech undertakings in France, United-Kingdom and Israel.
Martin Bitsch, MD, Independant Director
Martin Bitsch, former intern of hospitals in Denmark and Sweden.
After ten years of general practice, he joined the pharmaceutical industry by becoming Director of Clinical Investigations with Roche for Scandinavia and then for America and Europe and finally, the world. In 1996, he joined the IBAH group, firstly as director of the Scandinavian zone, then as supervisor in Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. Between 1998 and 2004, he was an independent investment advisor for Bankinvest Venture, a fund specialising in French biotech companies.
André Choulika, PhD, Chief executive Officer
André Choulika, Ph.D., founder of Cellectis SA, has served as Chief Executive Officer since the company's inception. Dr. Choulika is a pioneer in the analysis and use of Meganucleases to modify complex genomes. He has made many of the critical observations in the field and is an author of the most significant patents on the use of Meganucleases in vivo. Dr. Choulika received a Ph.D. in Molecular Virology form University of Paris VI / Institut Pasteur. Dr. Choulika has made post-doctoral studies at the Harvard Medical School within the department of Molecular Medicine of Boston's Children's Hospital.
Alain Godard, Independant Director
Alain GODARD is an agronomist graduated from the Ecole Nationale Agronomique de Toulouse. He started his career in Africa as researcher in Institut de Recherche pour les Huiles et Oleagineux. In 1975 he joined Rhône-Poulenc Agrochimie where he had various high management positions, till becoming CEO of the company in 1991. In 1997, he became member of the Rhône-Poulenc Group Executive Comitee ,supervising Rhône-Poulenc « Plant and animal health »and global activities of the Group in Asia. In 1999, he participated actively to the merger between Hoechst and Rhône-Poulenc to create Aventis.He took then the position of CEO of the newly created Aventis Cropscience, member of the Group Executive Comitee.
He left Aventis at the end of 2001 to become olive oil and wine grower in south of France.
During his career, Alain Godard has been member of the board of various international companies and research organizations, mainly INRA (Institut National de la Recherche agronomique) and CIRAD(Centre International pour la Recherche Agronomique et le Développement).He was one of the fondators of the french plant genetic programm Genoplante, an original concept of cooperation between private and public research.
In 1999, he published « Engagements, espoirs, rêves » a book relating his management experience and translated in english under the title of « Transformational Management ».</o:p>
Today, apart his position of ag/food advisor with Biovision, he is advisor and board member of Cellectis, a biotech company based in Paris.
Roger J. Hajjar, MD, Kaminvest Holding Reprensentative
Dr. Roger J. Hajjar has been Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center and Professor at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York since January 2007. Before joining Mount Sinai, he was Director of the Cardiology Laboratory for Integrative Physiology and Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also worked as a cardiologist at the Heart Failure and Transplant Center in Boston. Roger Hajjar is the scientific co-founder of NanoCor Therapeutics Inc. and co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board at Celladon Inc. in the United States. He graduated from Harvard Medical School and trained in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Raffy Kazandjian, Independant Director
Raffy Kazandjian, holds a chemical engineering degree from the ENSCP, an MIT (MS 1985) degree and an INSEAD business administration degree (MBA 1990). With 15 years of experience in venture capital management, Raffy Kazandjian started his professional career within the multinational company Procter & Gamble (1985). Between 1990 and 1994 he founded and managed two French biotechnology companies (Biovector and Medafor), then joined Synthélabo (1994) as director of over-the-counter drugs group strategy. Raffy Kazandjian became Chairman and Executive Committee member of CDC-Innovation (1998–2000), one of the most important French funds, which he joined in 1996. Finally, he founded Unicorn BioTutors, a consultancy company providing counselling and assistance for small and medium-sized companies in the biotech.
Richard C. Mulligan, PhD, Independant Director
Richard C. Mulligan is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Harvard Gene Therapy Initiative, After receiving postdoctoral training at the Center for Cancer Research at MIT Professor Mulligan joined the MIT faculty and subsequently was appointed Professor of Molecular biology and Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research before moving to Children's Hospital and Harvard in 1996. Over the years, Professor Mulligan has also been associated with a number of biotechnology companies,
including Dupont (consultant), Amgen (consultant), Somatix Therapy Corporation (founder, member of scientific advisory board (SAB), chief scientific officer, member of BoD), Cell Genesys (SAB), and Imclone (SAB, BOD and Executive Committee).
David J.D. Sourdive, PhD, EVP Corporate Development
David J.D. Sourdive, Ph.D., co-founded Cellectis SA with Dr Choulika, and has served as Director since 2000. Prior to inception of the company, Dr Sourdive was the head of Biotechnology Laboratory at the Centre d'Etudes du Bouchet (French Ministry of Defense). At the same time, Dr Sourdive was heading a research group in Immunology at the Pasteur Institute. Dr. Sourdive attended Ecole Polytechnique and received a Ph.D. in Molecular Virology form University of Paris VII/ Institut Pasteur. Dr Sourdive then applied recombination tracking technologies to anti-viral immune memory, at the Emory University Vaccine Center in Atlanta.
Pascale Altier, Observer, Institut Pasteur
Pascale Altier started her career as Marketing Director of INOTEB a small and medium company specialized in medical devices (bone graft). Then, she joined a Technology Transfer Office during 10 years, before joining Genopole. </o:p>
Since February 2001, she has been at the head of the Pasteur BioTop incubator
