Hugues is the co-founder and serves as a member on our Board of Directors and heads our Executive Committee.

Hugues brings more than fifteen years’ expertise as a serial entrepreneur in the Life Sciences and Biotechnology industries to the global team of experts at Univercells Group. Prior to founding Univercells Group, he acted as CEO at MaSTherCell (a leading CMO for cell therapy acquired by Catalent in 2020), Artelis (an innovator and leader in cell culture process optimization), and Kitozyme (a world-leading manufacturer of vegetable chitosan).

Hugues Bultot holds a master’s degree in law from UCL, Belgium, an executive master’s degree in business administration from Solvay Business School, Belgium, in tax management from ICHEC in Belgium, and certification in innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management in the United States.

José is the co-founder and the architect of highly efficient production processes that break the barriers to biomanufacturing. A recognized technology leader in the biopharmaceutical industry, José brings a strong track record in innovative processes design and successful commercialization.

Previous accomplishments include the start-up of Artelis, where he designed and developed bioreactors that transformed industrial operations – the iCellis system being now considered as standard in the vaccines and gene therapy industry. The technology was industrialized at ATMI LifeSciences and Pall Lifesciences, where José held the position of Cell Culture Technologies Director. Prior to Artelis, José was Head of Viral Vaccine Industrialization at GSK Vaccines.

With a background in Chemical Engineering, Jose’s education includes a PhD in Applied Sciences from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and an entrepreneurship degree from the Solvay Business School.

Matt is Co-Founder and President of Gamma Biosciences LLC, an investment platform formed in partnership with KKR & Co. focused on next-generation bioprocessing technologies and manufacturing for advanced therapies. 

Matt oversees the Gamma portfolio and is responsible for identifying and executing investments as well as driving growth, strategic and operational initiatives across Gamma’s operating companies. Matt was most recently Global Head of Business Development for GE Healthcare, where he was responsible for M&A and strategic alliances across the $19B healthcare division of GE.  Matt joined GE in 2011 and held a variety of other leadership positions in strategy, business development, venture investing and new business creation. 

Matt began his career as a corporate attorney at Sidley Austin LLP.  He holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Economics from Georgetown University.

Kugan Sathiyanandarajah (Menlo Park) joined KKR in 2010 and is a member of the Health Care industry team and Head of KKR’s Health Care Strategic Growth business in Europe.

He was previously a member of KKR’s European Private Equity platform, where he held joint responsibility for the Health Care industry team and has played a significant role in KKR’s investments in LGC Group, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Gamma Biosciences, Alvogen and Galenica. He currently serves on the board of directors of Gamma Biosciences and EchoNous.

Prior to joining KKR, he was with Goldman Sachs, where he was a member of the U.K. mergers and acquisitions team. Mr. Sathiyanandarajah earned an M.A. (First Class Hons) in Physical Natural Sciences (Chemistry) from the University of Cambridge.

Anuv Ratan joined KKR in 2017 and is a member of the Health Care industry team. At KKR, he has been involved with investments in Gamma Biosciences, Impel Neuropharma, Headlands Research, BrightSpring Pharmerica, Global Medical Response, Ajax Health, and Aimmune Therapeutics.

He is currently a member of the board of directors of Gamma Biosciences, Blue Sprig Pediatrics, and Headlands Research. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Ratan was with FFL Partners, where he was involved in a number of health care transactions. Mr. Ratan began his career at The Blackstone Group. He holds an A.B., with honors, in Neurobiology from Harvard University.

Mathias joined Univercells in 2015 as Chief Financial Officer to conduct Univercells’ financial strategy and fundraising activities. Then he acted as a Chief Commercial Officer between May 2017 and 2019 and played a key role in the company’s development and commercialization efforts of its technology portfolio including the scale-X single-use bioreactors range and the NevoLine™ biomanufacturing platform.

Today Mathias serves as CEO at Univercells Technologies where he oversees the company’s operations and leads the company’s strategy development and implementation. It includes the commercialization of the company’s product portfolio as well as new technology developments to further expand the company’s market reach and success.

Mathias brings to the company over 10 years of experience and his dynamic savoir-faire in activities related to business strategy, operations, business planning and fundraising. 

Mathias holds a master in finance from Solvay Business School in Belgium.

Tania D. Pereira Chilima is the Chief Technology Officer at Univercells Technologies where she focuses on driving innovation to execute our mission of delivering the next evolution of biomanufacturing. She also oversees the direction of the technology portfolio and is responsible for continuously identifying new technologies that could complement our portfolio as well as the application of our systems to new modalities.

Prior to this role, she was Product Manager for the NevoLine™ platform at Univercells, and previously worked as a post-doctorate researcher for the ULTRA grant sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, focused on designing manufacturing strategies for ultra-low-cost vaccine manufacture.

Tania holds an engineering doctorate from the University College London in partnership with Pall Life Sciences entitled, Decisional Tools for Enabling Successful Manufacture and Commercialization of Cell Therapy Products, and is a frequent contributor to industry publications and journals.

Bob joined Univercells Technologies as Chief Operations Officer at the time of its creation in early 2020.  In this role, Bob brings focus to the completion of development of the technology portfolio as well as evolving the organization towards a reliable equipment supplier to the vaccine and gene therapy markets.

Bob brings 30+ years of experience in manufacturing, development and supply chain in plastics and clean assembly for packaging, invasive medical devices, and single-use systems for biopharma.  His experience includes more than a decade with GE and two operating companies of Danaher Corporation. 

Bob has extensive experience in the use of Lean and Six Sigma methodologies to bring efficiency in manufacturing and business processes.

Bob holds his Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering with focus on polymer processing. 

Gaëlle joined Univercells Technologies in May 2021 as our Chief Financial Officer leading the finance operations and strategies to support the rapid commercial development of the company.

Prior to joining us, her past assignment include working with KKR Capstone – the operational arm of the private equity fund where she spent 5 years in London working with the management of various portfolio companies like Trainline, Telepizza, LGC and many others.

Before joining KKR, Gaëlle got her MBA from Columbia Business School, spent some time at Mckinsey & Company working as a generalist consultant and at BASF as supply chain strategy expert.

As Head of Equipment Development, Sarah oversees the company’s development efforts to translate the customers’ needs into innovative, reliable products.  Leading a team of experts in single-use, hardware, automation and mechanical engineering, Sarah is responsible for the development, design optimization and product enhancements of the scale-X bioreactors and the NevoLine Upstream platform.

Sarah joined the parent company, Univercells, in 2018 where she played a key role in the delivery of the proof-of-concept of the NevoLine platform – the NevoLine sIPV developed under the Grand Challenges grant by the BMGF.

Sarah brings 15+ years of experiences in project management of bacterial and viral products (GSK, Vesale Pharma). Sarah holds a master’s degree in Industrial Engineer in Chemistry (HEI of the Province of Liège).

Julie is the Head of Quality and Validation (Q&V) at Univercells Technologies. Together with her team, she ensures the successful delivery of high quality and reliable products whilst meeting quality demands and complying with regulations. As part of her role, Julie also fosters the company’s quality culture in which all collaborators are actively committed in guaranteeing quality in development operations, production and finished products.  

Julie originally joined Univercells, the parent company, in 2019 as Project Manager to oversee the company’s products development and delivery. She played a key role in leading the team to the successful delivery of the scale-X bioreactor for clinical trials. In 2020, she joined Univercells Technologies and took the lead of the Quality department freshly created and extended its scope to quality control and validation activities.

Prior to Univercells, she took diverse consulting positions in project, quality and change management at GSK and UCB. Julie holds a double master’s degree in Bioengineering (Université Catholique de Louvain) and in Management (Vrije Universiteit Brussels).

Gareth joined the company in November 2021 and he is the Head of Manufacturing and Supply at Univercells Technologies. Together with his team, he ensures the successful end-to-end operations at the Nivelles site, from raw material purchasing and reception, through assembly, to delivery of finished goods to customers. His team is also responsible for the development and maintenance of the infrastructure of the Nivelles site, whilst ensuring compliance with EHS and Quality requirements.

Prior to Univercells Technologies, he worked for 15 years at the Lessines site of Baxter/Baxalta/Shire/Takeda in a variety of Continuous Improvement, Quality, and technical leadership roles (including Automation, Process Engineering, Maintenance, and CAPEX). Before that, he worked for 10 years in the domains of Process Automation and Advanced Process Control (including process modelling and real-time dynamic optimization) for BP at various sites across Europe.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical and BioProcess Engineering (University of Bath) and Master’s degree in Process Automation (University of Sheffield).

Marie Jourdan is the VP Marketing & Product Management at Univercells Technologies. She oversees the company’s product portfolio vision and development as well as the marketing strategy and efforts to strengthen the company’s market position and achieve desired business goals.

Marie originally joined Univercells, the parent company, in 2016 where she played a pivotal role in launching the marketing & communication activities, including the successful commercial launch of the NevoLine™ sIPV platform and scale-X™ hydro and carbo bioreactors. In 2020, she was a key driver in the creation of the spin off company Univercells Technologies.

Prior to Univercells, her past assignments include project management at Baxter and research at MedImmune (now AstraZeneca). Marie holds a double master’s degree in Biotechnology Engineering (Polytech, France) and in Business Management (Kedge Business School).

Felix Kasper is the Head of Bioprocess & Field Services at Univercells Technologies. Felix leads the company’s technical and top-notch bioprocess support ensuring our customers a seamless adoption to our best-in-class technologies and maximizing their bioprocess efficiency and performance. From equipment installation, IQ/OQ support, tailored trainings, process transfer and bioprocess optimization, Felix and his team aim at satisfying the customers’ high expectations by leading them towards their manufacturing success.

Felix joined the parent company, Univercells, in 2018 as Application Specialist & Technical Sales Manager and played a key role in the successful on-site installations and adoption of our scale-X hydro and scale-X carbo systems by customers worldwide. Felix brings 7+ years’ experience in support customers in technology adoption, process optimization and GMP implementation (Pall Biotech) with various upstream platforms and scales, predominantly in Europe and APAC area. Felix holds a Diplom Engineer in Bioprocess Engineering from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany.

As General Counsel, David leads all activities related to IP rights and patents, risk management and compliance, and in-house general corporate counsel responsibilities, assuring future company success while navigating the constantly changing tide of regulation and legislation in our industry.

His expertise from more than twenty years in the IP, legal and life science sectors plays an integral role in his contributions at Univercells Technologies by enhancing the security of our innovations and IP technologies in development along with our overall legal capabilities. As a veteran in these sectors, David has held such titles as Vice President of IP Strategy Solutions (CPA Global, most recently), Chief IP Counsel (CPA Global and ATMI Inc.) and IP Counsel (IBM). It was during his eight years at ATMI Inc. (later acquired by Pall Life Sciences, Entegris) that he became acquainted with the life sciences industry and met the founders of Univercells.

In addition to his above endeavors, David has, since 2014, maintained his own law firm, Shofi Law in Ridgefield, Connecticut, specializing in IP law (patent, trademark, copyright, trade secrets, and other related matters).  He is licensed to practice law in New York and Connecticut and is a registered patent attorney practicing before the U.S. Patent Office. He has also been listed in IAM Strategy 300’s annual listing as a world-leading IP strategist. David’s academic achievements include a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in New York, NY and a Juris Doctor degree from Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law in White Plains, NY.

As HR Business Partner, Lena works directly with senior leadership to develop and direct an HR agenda that closely supports organizational goals by liaising HR team efforts on the ground and the management ambitions to deliver on the company’s mission.

She ensures that the HR policy, procedures, and governance align with the big picture, while creating an engaging & high-performing culture that drives the business forward.

Prior joining Univercells back in 2020, Lena formerly worked 10 years in HR in the management consulting sector. She brings expertise in HR Talent strategies for companies with a high standard talent approach. Experienced in several HR domains such as Talent & Performance Management, Recruiting Strategy and Operations, Organizational Design.

Her strong people development skills are a great asset to the company and she has a particular affinity with DE&I, STEM and HR digital transformation matters.

Lena is fluent in French, Dutch, English, and Spanish and has a degree in applied mathematics and communications.

Jakub Wielgomas is the Head of Sales at Univercells Technologies. He leads the global sales team and drives the strategy of territory expansion and sales channel evolution with customer centricity in mind.

Jakub joined the Univercells group in 2018, where he quickly took the lead on sales activities and successfully increased adoption of the scale-X platform through various territories and customer applications.

Prior to joining Univercells, he held various sales roles representing life sciences solution suppliers such as Cytiva (formerly GE Life Sciences) and Bio-Rad Laboratories. Jakub holds a Master of Engineering degree in Biotechnology (Gdansk University of Technology).