AlzeCure Pharma AB was founded by the five scientists – Johan Sandin, Gunnar Nordvall, Pontus Forsell, Johan Lundkvist and Magnus Halldin – that all previously worked within the CNS research area at AstraZeneca.
The group has more than 100 years’ collective experience from research and development at several different pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Merck Frosst and Orexo. They have published several studies in high ranking scientific journals and have contributed to that several drug candidates have been tested in clinical trials and also to the introduction of drugs to the market. The management team has a long experience in drug discovery and development within the Alzheimer field and a large network of collaborators.
Johan Sandin
CSO since January 8, 2020 (CEO 2017 - January 7, 2020)
Education/experience: Johan Sandin has a Ph.D. from Karolinska Institutet with a focus on neuropharmacology and with significant international academic and industrial experience (>20 years). He has worked at AstraZeneca since 2003, where he has held scientific, project and executive positions in charge of in vitro biology, in vivo pharmacology and biochemical biomarkers within the CNS field.
Current assignments: Member of the board and CEO at Sandin Pharma Consulting AB. Member of the boards of AC Intressenter AB. CEO of AlzeCure Discovery AB.
Completed assignments (past five years): Member of the board and deputy Managing Director at ArgusEye AB.
Holdings: 875,834 shares.
Gunnar Nordvall
Director Medicinal Chemistry
Gunnar Nordvall is an expert in medicinal and computational chemistry with 30 years of experience from the Alzheimer and CNS area. Previously, he held several different positions at AstraZeneca such as team leader, project leader for several symptomatic Alzheimer’s projects and Principal Scientist in medicinal chemistry with responsibility for drug design.
Education: Pharmacist, Ph.D. in Medicinal chemistry from the Faculty of Pharmacy at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Holdings: 857,00 shares
Pontus Forsell
Head of Discovery and Research since 2017
Education/experience: Pontus Forsell holds a Ph.D. in Medical Biochemistry & Biophysics from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Pontus Forsell has more than 20 years of experience from several biotech and pharmaceutical companies, such as Biolipox, Orexo, Merck and AstraZeneca in project and management positions. He is an expert in early phase drug development within the disease areas neurology, analgesia and inflammation, as well as respiratory diseases.
Current assignments: Member of the Board and CEO of Research, Education & Training AB (RETAB).
Completed assignments (past five years): None.
Holdings: 907,477 shares.
Johan Lundkvist
Scientific Advisor
Johan Lundkvist has an academic career in neurobiology and dementia with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease and gamma-secretase biology. Johan was appointed associate Professor at Karolinska Institutet in 2005. He has 14 years of experience of drug discovery, including from AstraZeneca: team leader, project leader, member of the strategy team for neurology and responsible for project in-licensing to the neurology portfolio from academia.
Education: Ph.D. Neurochemistry and Neurotoxicology at Stockholm University, Sweden.
Holdings: 651,473 shares
Magnus Halldin
Director DMPK
After post-doctoral studies in drug metabolism at School of Pharmacy UCSF, US. Magnus Halldin joined Astra in 1985 where he until 2013 contributed in many different management, project leader and scientific positions. He also contributed to bringing, amongst others, Ropivacaine and EMLA to the market. Magnus was also scientific DMPK representative for large number global scientific committees and groups within AstraZeneca, and also part of the evaluation of in licensing opportunities and in due-diligence within both discovery and development.
Education: Pharmacist, Ph.D. from Faculty of Pharmacy at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Holdings: 860,000 shares