Our team

< Back

MANAGEMENT TEAM

MIKE GARRETT

Chief Executive Officer

MIKE GARRETT

Mike Garrett has more than 25 years’ experience in the biotech industry in positions of increasing responsibility. Prior to co-founding Flamingo Therapeutics, he was a Partner with TCG, a life science consulting group in RTP, North Carolina. He was Vice President of Corporate Development at Scynexis, Inc. and a member of the team that executed the company’s IPO. Mr. Garrett was Global Vice President, Ventures & Business Development for BTG plc, with responsibility for the company’s investment portfolio. Prior to this he worked in the corporate venture group of Aventis (Paris) and in their business development group. Earlier in his career he was a patent attorney in the Rhone-Poulenc Intellectual Property department, based in France and the UK.

Mr. Garrett is a British and European Patent Attorney, holds an Honors degree in Chemistry from Southampton University, UK, and an Executive Certificate in General Management from the Cedep INSEAD business school, France.

Read bio

VIKI BOCKSTAL

Chief Scientific Officer

VIKI BOCKSTAL

Ever since the early beginning of her career, the focus of her interests has been on infectious diseases. Prior to joining ExeVir in 2021, Viki led various teams at J&J’s Janssen Infectious Diseases and Vaccines for nearly a decade. In her last role as Biomarker Lead for the Ebola and Filovirus programs, she was responsible for determining the immunological strategy to advance the Ebola vaccine regimen through accelerated clinical development from Phase 1 up to Marketing Authorization Approval by the European Commission. In previous roles, she also worked on the development of a new poliovirus vaccine and HIV vaccine. Viki is a Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) alumnus.

In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family and three young children, mountain biking, hiking and being outdoors.

Read bio

caroline sagaert

Chief Operating Officer

caroline sagaert

Experienced Leader in Life Sciences with a proven track record in the Pharmaceutical (UCB, Innogenetics, GSK vaccines) business.
Bringing a broad expertise in transforming innovation into patient access.
Experience in managing a culturally diverse team.
Demonstrated agility in working with multidisciplinary cross-functional matrix teams.
Passionate about science and value creation for patients

Read bio

SCIENTIFIC FOUNDERS

XAVIER SAELENS

Professor Xavier Saelens, scientific founder of Exevir is a Group Leader at the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology at VIB and a full Professor Molecular Virology at Ghent University.

His research is primarily focused on influenza and respiratory syncytial virus. The aim of this research is to develop new vaccines and antibody-based intervention strategies to prevent and treat disease caused by these and other important human respiratory viruses. A second line of research in the Saelens group aims to increase our knowledge on the molecular interactions between influenza and respiratory syncytial virus and their human host.

Read bio

NICO CALLEWAERT

Professor Nico Callewaert, scientific founder of ExeVir, is Director at the VIB Center for Medical Biotechnology and Professor of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at Ghent University.

Based on strengths in glycobiology, microbial biotechnology, biological system’s engineering and bio-analytics, his research group is developing innovative molecular technology to enable novel approaches to the study, diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nico and his team have ample expertise in Protein production in mammalian cells, FEMTO Pulse Automated Pulsed-Field CE instrument, Sugar analysis – glycomics (DSA-FACE), Protein production in yeast, Recombinant DNA techniques for synthetic biology.

Read bio