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MANAGEMENT TEAM

TORSTEN MUMMENBRAUER

Chief Executive Officer

TORSTEN MUMMENBRAUER

Torsten is CEO of ExeVir Bio. He brings nearly 25 years of experience in biotech and pharma to the role.

In prior roles, Torsten served as CEO of Velvio GmbH, Senior Vice President Business Development of Hookipa Pharma, Senior Director Business Development of Morphosys and Vice President Business Development of GSK, leading the transaction team of GSK vaccines. Torsten is reviewer of the German biotech seed fund program GoBio since almost 10 years and holds a PhD in Tumor Virology and Immunology from the University Hospital Hamburg.

Beyond his pharma and biotech engagement Torsten loves biking, skiing and windsurfing.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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SCIENTIFIC Advisors

Christophe Blanchetot

CHRISTOPHE BLANCHTOT

Christophe has more than 15 years of expertise in antibody and antibody fragment discovery & development. After his PhD in Molecular & cellular Biology from the Utrecht University in The Netherlands in 2000, he got a Post-Doctoral position in Montreal at the McGill cancer center until April 2005 before going back to the Netherlands as PI at Utrecht University. In 2009 he joined Argenx as one of the first employees and became Senior Director Discovery with multiple responsibilities such as supervising the antibody discovery and innovative engineering activities; Leading internal and external programs; Scouting, evaluating and building novel programs; Managing the lab capabilities, the lab organization and create interactive and competitive team of people. In 2022 he joined ExeVir as an external consultant on Antibody and Antibody Fragment discovery and development.

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GREGORY FANNING

Dr. Gregory Fanning received his Ph.D. in Genetics from University of Oxford. He is a pharmaceutical and Biotech executive with over 20 years of experience in discovery stage research, drug discovery, translational science and drug development. Within the Pharma setting he assumed roles of increasing responsibilities in the areas of cell and gene therapy and small molecule research, for HIV, HCV and HBV while leading research teams in Australia, Belgium and China.

Now he provides strategic and scientific support to biotech companies that are aiming to make a difference for patients in the areas of viral infection, cancer and metabolic diseases via a broad range of platforms that include small molecules, vaccines, live bacterial products and gene therapy. His mission is to contribute to the advancement of novel therapies through the R&D stage gates for patients by integrating scientific, growth, funding and commercial strategies to realize the goals of biotech founders and investors.

We welcome Dr Fanning’s breadth of experience for integrating scientific and business strategy to realize the value of the Exevir platform for patients and investors.

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