Leadership
Team
Jean-Pierre Lehner, Chairman of the Board of Directors & CEO
Dr. Lehner (MD, INSEAD) served the Pharmaceutical Industry during more than 30 years, where he developed a broad expertise in international clinical development and Medical Affairs. He has an extensive knowledge of Regulatory Affairs, with more than 30 Marketing Authorizations granted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and/or European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Fabrice Guez, CFO
Fabrice is an accomplished executive with more than two decades of experience within biotech environment and pharmaceutical SMEs. He co-founded YSOPIA Bioscience where he supervised 4 successful fundraising for a total of €20M. As CFO, he overseed corporate strategy, strategy implementation, financing, and financial management.
Previously, as Supply chain Director at Oenobiol, he successfully headed up change management processes, thanks to his flexibility and excellent people skills. Fabrice holds a master’s degree in audit and finance from Institut Superieur de Gestion (France) and served as Senior Financial Auditor at KPMG.
Dr. Sandrine Claus, CSO (PhD, MRSB)
Sandrine joined YSOPIA Bioscience in 2017 as Chief Scientific Officer. She previously served as Associate Professor in Integrative Metabolism at the University of Reading’s department of Food and Nutritional Sciences.
Her research focused on host-gut microbial metabolic interactions in order to link gut microbial ecology to metabolic health. A scientist at heart, Sandrine founded her own laboratory at the age of 27, after obtaining her PhD in Biochemistry at Imperial College London, where she started to study host-gut microbiota metabolic interactions.
Frédéric Elustondo, Senior Director of Operations (PhD)
Experienced Manager, Frederic’s expertise focuses on project management and innovation in the different positions he held in the hospital & health care industry. He managed numerous projects primarily on Oncology from early proof of concept to clinical development at Cancer Research Technology (CRUK DL), RedX Pharma or Institut Bergonié.
Frederic is a trained organic chemist and hold a Ph.D. from the Nottingham University after initial training at the University of Bordeaux.
Wilfrid Mazier, Director of R&D (PhD)
Wilfrid is an experienced scientist and manager who led several R&D programs in health and nutrition. He has been part in many translational research programs in a wide diversity of specialized fields like obesity, metabolism, mood, or mental disabilities.
He holds a PhD in Neurosciences from an European Marie Curie Private/Academia training program. Then, he oriented is scientific career toward applied science aiming at bringing together fundamental science and product development. At YSOPIA, Wilfrid is directing R&D actions in order to push forward innovation and support drug development programs.
Our values
Board of
Directors
Jean-Pierre Lehner, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Dr. Lehner (MD, INSEAD) served the Pharmaceutical Industry during more than 30 years, where he developed a broad expertise in international clinical development and Medical Affairs. He has an extensive knowledge of Regulatory Affairs, with more than 30 Marketing Authorizations granted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and/or European Medicines Agency (EMA).
As a member of Sanofi’s General Management and Research and Development committees, Jean-Pierre set up innovative approaches for clinical development based on real world data to strategize the clinical development of new products.
Since he retired from Industry, Jean Pierre has acted as advisor to several startup companies, connecting them with investors. He is Board Member of several biotech companies in the EU and USA.
Isabelle de Crémoux, president & CEO Seventure Partners
Isabelle brings 25 years of international experience in life sciences business development and finance. She started her career in 91′ at Arthur Andersen Detroit, US then at Pfizer France and Pfizer Europe where she held several positions during 6 years in the field of management accounting, clinical research then Business Development.
Since 98′, she was Associate Director of Business Development at Fournier/Abbott and signed several deals in Europe and in the US. Isabelle graduated as an engineer from Ecole Centrale of Paris and holds DECF and ISEB degrees and joined Seventure in July 2001 to create the lifesciences department.
Isabelle leads the lifesciences team and makes direct investments, mainly in France and Scandinvia with a focus on biotech, nutrition, personalized medicine and especially microbiome. Isabelle’s trackrecord includes Santaris (solde to Roche for $450 millions in august 2014), Argenx (listed), OPI pharma (sold to Eusa for Euro 110 millions), Bioalliance (listed), Pixium Vision (listed), as well as Enterome Bioscience.
Catherine Combot-Pletan (Pharm D), Entrepreneur in HealthTech and Expert in Global strategy & Fast Development Programs
Catherine has more than 20 years of experience in Start-up, Biotech, Pharma, CRO and Consulting mainly in strategy and project management for R&D programs of innovative biologic drugs.
Her career started by Clinical Research and she has been Head of the Clinical Department of Chiltern International for many years, with the responsibility of all clinical trials in several countries.
Then she moved to the full drug development and has acquired an expertise in Global Operations, CMC, Regulatory & Translational project management of NBE’s early development with a global vision from Research all the way to Market Launch.
She successfully led products up until phase II POC through several positions notably as Strategic Project Director on blood factors and Mabs Programs in LFB Biotechnologies then as Head of Projects Development in Gamamabs Pharma where she had the responsibility of the global operations and has contributed to funds raising.
Since 2016, she is the President and Founder of ULTRace Development Partner whereby she advises biotechs and start-ups by creating value through strategic support, operations development and project management. She is also member of the management team for some of them.
Jean-Gérard Galvez
Jean-Gérard brings 35 years of international experience in Operations, Management, M&A’s and IPO’s. He serves on several Boards of private and publically traded companies in the medical and software industries. .
Based in California from 1995 to 2008, Jean-Gerard was Chairman and CEO of ActivCard, a 2B$ market capitalization – Nasdaq listed company.
In his earlier professional experiences Jean-Gerard worked as Vice President of several large IT companies (Control Data Corporation, DuPont Corporation).
He graduated from the Stanford Executive Program, holds a Chemical Engineering degree and a Master’s degree in Business Administration.
Virginie Lleu, managing director L3S Partnership
Holding a Supplementary Specialised Studies Diploma (DESS) in Clinical Psychopathology, and bilingual in English, she started her professional career by gaining clinical experience in hospitals as a neuropsychologist.
In 1992, Virginie Lleu joined the pharmaceutical company Jouveinal to work in its Human Resources Directorate. She then moved as a consultant to a recruitment agency specialised in the healthcare field, GSA, subsequently joining Pact & Partners International as Senior Consultant responsible for the Health and Biotechnologies sector.
As from 2000, Virginie pursued her work as a recruitment consultant with Executive Search International entities such as Korn Ferry International and Spencer Stuart, where she contributed to developing the Health and Biotechnologies Department.
After accomplishing a large number of missions in a variety of functions (general management, R&D, marketing/sales, manufacturing, business development, HR, finance, etc.), in 2003 Virginie founded L2S (Life Science Search), a recruitment consultancy based on direct contact and dedicated specifically to healthcare. L2S soon became a market leader in the life sciences in France and Europe. Five years after it was set up, in 2008, L2S was sold to Whitehead Mann, and Virginie Lleu became Senior Client Partner Life Sciences for Europe, supervising a team of some fifteen people.Drawing on her wide-ranging and significant experience and expertise developed at L2S, in October 2010 Virginie Lleu created the L3S Partnership, the aim being to become one of the leading executive search companies for the life sciences in Europe.
Scientific Advisory Board
Jean-Pierre Lehner, SAB Chairman
Dr. Lehner (MD, INSEAD) served the Pharmaceutical Industry during more than 30 years, where he developed a broad expertise in international clinical development and Medical Affairs. He has an extensive knowledge of Regulatory Affairs, with more than 30 Marketing Authorizations granted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and/or European Medicines Agency (EMA).
As a member of Sanofi’s General Management and Research and Development committees, Jean-Pierre set up innovative approaches for clinical development based on real world data to strategize the clinical development of new products.
Since he retired from Industry, Jean Pierre has acted as advisor to several startup companies, connecting them with investors. He is Board Member of several biotech companies in the EU and USA.
Dr. Joël Doré (PhD)
Joël is the Director of Research at the Micalis Institute and is the National Institute of Agricultural Research and Environment (INRAE) Scientific Director of the MetaGenoPolis unit (Jouy-en-Josas, France) since 2012.
Dr. Doré joined INRA in 1983 where he has been conducting research on intestinal microbiome for over 35 years. He was appointed as one of five deputy heads of the Micalis Institute (microbiology of food for health) between 2010 and 2014.
Dr. Doré serves as chairman of the European Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility’s online scientific information platform, Gut Microbiota For Health. Dr. Doré is the author of more than 200 scientific publications related to intestinal microbiome.
He received his doctorate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Prof. Karine Clément (MD), Tenured Professor of Nutrition (PU-PH)
Karine is Head of the NutriOmic unit (INSERM/University of the Sorbonne), nutrition department in the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, Paris. Her research interests include physiopathological mechanisms of obesity in humans in its various states of progression and co-morbidities.
Previously, she has held several leadership positions at prestigious scientific units, such as the ICAN university hospital unit (2011 – 2016) and Inserm’s “AVENIR” team, a program allowing researchers to set up and lead a team within an existing research structure once they have successfully defended their scientific thesis, at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital (2002 – 2006).
Prof. Clément currently serves as the Chief Scientific Advisor to the World Obesity Foundation and sits on the scientific advisory board of numerous well-known foundations and international organizations.
In addition to that, she provides the benefit of her expert scientific knowledge to academic institutions such as the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research in Copenhagen. She has published over 300 scientific papers in highly renowned peer-reviewed journals and submitted 8 patents.
Dr. Eric Ravussin (PhD)
Eric is a Boyd Professor at the University of Louisiana, the Director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center and the Douglas L. Gordon Chair in Diabetes and Metabolism, Associate Executive Director for Clinical Science at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton-Rouge.
Dr. Ravussin is a world expert in the conduct of translational research in obesity and type 2 diabetes.
He has served as the Chief Obesity Research Officer of Eli Lilly, in Indianapolis, and worked for 14 years at the Diabetes and Digestive and Renal Disease branch of the National Institue of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Phoenix, where he played a key role in landmark studies on the causes of obesity and type 2 diabetes in Pima Indians. Since 2012, Dr. Ravussin is Editor in Chief of the journal Obesity.
He has been an active member of The Obesity Society, serving on the Council, the program committee and as a former President of the Society from 2006-2008. He has published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers on obesity, type 2 diabetes and aging. Dr. Ravussin obtained a doctorate degree in Human Physiology from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Dr. James Kinross (MD)
James serves as a faculty of Medicine, Department of Surgery & Cancer and Clinical Senior Lecturer in Colorectal Surgery at the Imperial College of London. Dr. James Kinross is also consulting colorectal surgeon at St. Mary’s Hospital, London.
Dr. James Kinross is Clinical Senior Lecturer in Colorectal Surgery at Imperial College London’s Faculty of Medicine. He is also a consultant colorectal surgeon at St. Mary’s Hospital, London. His clinical interests include minimally invasive and laparoscopic surgery for the treatment of colorectal cancer. He is currently funded by the Bowel and Cancer Research charity and the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.
He also has an interest in surgical nutrition and modulation of the gut microbiota by pro and prebiotics for improved operative outcomes. Previously, he was an NIH Clinical Lecturer in Surgery and an Ethicon Laparoscopic Fellow in Colorectal Surgery. Currently, he is a visiting Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. He was trained in northwest London.
Prof. Nicola Segata (PhD)
Nicola is Associate Professor at the CIBIO Department at the University of Trento (Italy). His lab comprises more than 20 researchers and employs experimental metagenomic tools and novel computational approaches to study the diversity of the microbiome across conditions and populations and its role in human diseases and infections.
Nicola Segata, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at the CIBIO Department at the University of Trento (Italy). His lab (http://segatalab.cibio.unitn.it/) comprises more than 20 researchers and employs experimental metagenomic tools and novel computational approaches to study the diversity of the microbiome across conditions and populations and its role in human diseases and infections. The projects in the lab bring together computer scientists, microbiologists, statisticians, and clinicians and are generally focused on profiling microbiomes with strain-level resolution and on the meta-analysis of very large sets of metagenomes with novel computational tools. His work is supported by the European Research Council and by several other European agencies.
