Management Team and Advisors
Operative management
The operative management of SBW has strong background both in CRO business as well as on drug discovery from the academic side. During a decede, SBW group has been working with over 100 companies in drug discovery projects, in addition our team has been in collaboration with many top academic groups in Europe on various scientific projects. We are also participating in many publicly funded R&D programs, including those funded by European Union, where we provide both our expertise as well as participate to develop novel methods for drug discovery and related life-science areas.
Dr. Juha Saharinen, CEO of SBW
Juha holds PhD in Biochemistry / Cancer Biology. He has over 15 years of experience as a researcher and group leader. Prior to joining SBW, Juha has worked with Academic research and Diagnostic firms like University of Helsinki, Mobidiag Ltd and Finnish National Institute of Health as well as being the founder and head of GIU (Genome Informatics Unit) at Biomedicum Helsinki. Juha has a long list of publications, book chapters, patents, developed software packages and invited conference presentations, including around 35 papers in high-impact journals like Nature, Cancer Cell, Nature Genetics, PNAS, EMBO Journal and Am J Hum Genet in areas of cancer research, CNS disorders, complex disease genetics, ‘omics technologies and bioinformatics/systems biology. Juha has been a member of various management and advisory boards of joint National and International research consortia as well as a member and chairman positions in the business boards of SBW Group subsidiaries. Before being appointed as Chief Executive Officer of SBW Ltd., Juha served over two years in SBW as the Chief Scientific and Technology Officer.
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Dr. Liina Nevalaita, COO, In vitro studies
Liina Nevalaita (Lonka) holds a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Helsinki, Finland. She has done her post-doc in the group of Prof. Mart Saarma, University of Helsinki, which is one of the top academic research groups in the field of neurotrophic factors and their use in the therapy of CNS disorders. She has also worked in an early drug discovery / commercialization projects. In SBW, Liina has been involved in planning, coordination and execution of numerous drug discovery projects. Liina has special expertise in the fields of molecular biology, cell biology and neurobiology.
Liina has numerous publications in high-impact journals (Nature Genetics, Journal of Neuroscience etc) as well as patents and invited conference presentations. In addition, she has supervised numerous masters and doctoral students in the lab and peer-reviewed several articles for scientific journals.
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Petri Reponen, COO, ADME analytics
Petri Reponen holds a M.Sc. in organic chemistry from University of Oulu. His PhD thesis titled “Identification and quantification of pesticide metabolites by LC-MS methods” is on preparation. Petri has special expertise in in vivo/ in vitro metabolism, ADME analytics and mass spectrometry.
Petri has a strong background in academic research. He has worked as a researcher and/ or lecturer at the University of Oulu in the departments of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Biomedicine, Chemistry, Medical Biochemistry and Molecular biology as well as Biochemistry. Petri has numerous publications in high-impact journals and he has presented his academic projects in several international scientific conferences. Petri is a member of the Association of Finnish Chemical Societies, Finnish Mass Spectrometry Society (FMSS) and Finnish Chromatographic Society.
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Mari Madetoja, COO, In vivo studies
Mari Madetoja brings to SBW Ltd. over 15 years of experience in Toxicology, Safety Pharmacology and in vivo efficacy studies. She is a Eurotox and European registered toxicologist and holds a MSc in Zoology from University of Kuopio. Prior to joining SBW she was a Research Manager at SafetyCity Ltd, followed by Founder of Toxis Ltd, which was later integrated in to SBW Ltd. Group.
Mari is a member of eminent Finnish bodies like Fincopa (Finnish Consensus Platform for Alternative to Animal Experiments), FST (Finnish society of Toxicology) and FinLAS (Finnish Lab Animal Society). Mari has done and lead vast number of toxicological estimations/statements, Kinetic and Efficacy Studies. Mari is also a member of management groups in many in vivo pharmacology research consortia.
Dr. Madan Naik
COO of SBIPL and Head-Discovery Biology
Dr. Madan Naik holds a PhD degree in molecular genetics from University of Adelaide, Australia. Madan heads the proteomics in SBW. His expertise is in the field of molecular genetics (including genotyping, genome mappings, DNA sequencing, genetic linkage and association analysis), proteomics, transcriptomics and biomarker research.
Madan was previously associated with Avesthagen Limited and Centre of Genetic Healthcare Ltd. He holds a patent with University of Adelaide, Australia and a few provisional patents in collaborations with Avesthagen Ltd. in the areas of genetics and biomarker discovery. He has received several International and Domestic fellowships and has many scientific publications in high impact journals.
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Scientific advisors
Professor Mart Saarma
Academy Professor Mart Saarma is the Director of Center of Excellence of Molecular and Integrative Neuroscience.
Professor Saarma received his Ph.D. in molecular biology in 1975. He was the Head of the Department of Molecular Genetics, Estonian Academy of Sciences in 1980. From 1990 to 2010, he was the Director of the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Helsinki.
Prof. Saarma is also chairman of the Board of Directors of the Finnish Genome Centre, member of the Estonian PMs Council for Science and Technology, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Heidelberg Neuroscience Center, Academician, Estonian Academy of Sciences (1990), Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Science (2000), Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) 2005 and member of several other boards.
Prof. Saarma is the author of more than 150 scientific papers and 15 patents. His research areas are in the neurodegenerative disease (Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease), especially GDNF family ligands GDNF and neurturin and their receptors, GFRa1-2 and RET. Prof. Saarma is also board member and member of scientific advisory boards of many biotechnology companies.
>>Find our more on professor Saarma’s research on this page
Professor Arto Urtti
Professor Arto Urtti is the Directory of Centre for Drug Research (previously DDTC – Drug Discovery and Development Technology Center) and professor of Biopharmaceutics at University of Helsinki.
Professor Urtti received his Ph.D. degree in 1986. He served as Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology and professor of Biopharmaceutics at University of Kuopio. Professor Urtti has obtained international research experience as a post-doctoral fellow (Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Kansas) and visiting professor (Dept. of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California San Francisco and Department of Pharmaceutics, University of Wisconsin).
Professor Urtti’s research programme is presented in over 200 peer-reviewed articles and 20 patents and patent applications. Professor Urtti’s main research fields are drug delivery (controlled release, computational and cell-based methods for ADME research) and nanotechnology (biomaterial structures for drug and gene targeting and for 3-d cell culture. Professor Urtti has been granted many awards for his research, also including Millenium Distinction Award 2009.
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Adjunct professor (Docent) Moshe Finel
Dr Finel is a Group leader at the Centre for Drug Research (CDR), Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Finland. Dr. Finel got his M.Sc. in Life Sciences in 1983 from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1989 from the University of Helsinki. He obtained postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK. Dr. Finel has published over 100 publications and he has supervised many Ph.D. theses. Dr. Finel’s current research interests are in Phase II drug metabolism, mainly the glucuronidation of drugs and related compounds, as well as the enzymes that catalyze these reactions, the UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs).
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