Kajsa Kajander acts as Interim CEO and Operations Director at Helsinki Innovation Services, the technology transfer company of the University of Helsinki. Her main responsibility is to support and manage projects that aim for the commercialization of University of Helsinki owned intellectual property and knowhow.
Prior to joining HIS, Kajsa has worked almost 20 years in the industry. Her previous positions have familiarized her both with the health and wellbeing -area (pharmaceuticals, food supplements and medical devices) as well as with the food industry. Kajsa has been involved with the whole innovation process from idea generation to evaluation, development, funding and finally commercialization of product ideas. She has experience in international collaboration, networks and projects both in scientific research and in business relationships. Besides the innovation and development knowledge, she also has knowledge in quality and regulatory affairs particularly in the pharma, medical device and food sectors.
Kajsa’s educational background is in life sciences and she holds a PhD from the Institute of Biomedicine at the University of Helsinki.
kajsa.kajander@helsinki.fi
+358 45 129 5576
Mari Björkman serves as Business Development Director at HIS. She is raising awareness and enabling to identify and develop business opportunities in the field of life sciences, therapeutics and drug discovery. Mari oversees and supports the commercialisation process from invention disclosure to commercial activities. Her passion is to turn scientific findings into solutions.
Mari has over 15 years of experience in the commercial research and pharmaceutical industry in both established and start-up environments. Throughout the years, she has been leading both small molecule and biologics discovery and development projects. Mari is specialized in cancer biology and therapeutics but has also been involved in programs ranging from pain to hematology. She has experience from pharma early discovery, high-throughput screening and assay development, non-clinical efficacy and toxicology models all the way to clinical biomarker and method development and regulatory requirements.
Mari holds a PhD in drug discovery and drug development from the University of Turku. She has also studied business competence.
Sebastian Bisso Mifflin specialises in intellectual property strategy and management and will provide patent and market analysis support in the HIS commercialisation processes. Sebastian has an international and multidisciplinary background in legal studies, entrepreneurship, and technology management, and is experienced in consulting research commercialisation projects in Gothenburg and Helsinki innovation ecosystems, particularly in the fields of medical and IoT devices.
sebastian.bisso@helsinki.fi
+358 45 875 2805
Andrea Dichlberger is involved in the identification, evaluation and verification of life science inventions with commercial potential. She is supporting and guiding University of Helsinki scientists all the way from idea to translation.
Andrea is a passionate life science professional with over 10 years of international experience in academic and non-academic biomedical research. She has strong expertise in lipid cell biology and lipid-related diseases. During her post-doctoral training, Andrea worked on human stem cell-derived mast cells in atherosclerosis and lipid-mediated inflammation at the Wihuri Research Institute, Helsinki, Finland and the University of Graz, Austria. Thereafter, she was recruited to the Centre of Excellence ProLipids at the University of Helsinki, where she specialized in the function of lipid-protein interactions in cancer, exosome biology, and lysosomal disorders. In addition, she was appointed as the research coordinator of the CoE ProLipids.
Andrea obtained her PhD in Natural Sciences at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. She was awarded an Erwin-Schrödinger-PostDoc fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund. Moreover, she is trained in project management, interdisciplinary research coordination, strategic planning and development.
andrea.dichlberger@helsinki.fi
+358 45 179 0200
At HIS, Elena Inguglia is responsible for identifying innovation and supporting business development activities of commercially valuable food research ideas stemming from the University of Helsinki.
Professionally, Elena has been working as food technology associate and Head of Technical at Brinc, a venture capital and startup accelerator based in Hong Kong. She has over 8 years of experience in the food industry with a focus on product development and novel food categories. Prior to this, Elena worked on the use of novel food processing technologies as postdoctoral researcher at Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority and she holds a PhD in Food Technology and a MSc. in Microbiology.
Where Elena can help: evaluation of idea & business development, novel foods & regulations, commercial assessment, market landscaping, founding, patent search, value creation.
elena.inguglia@helsinki.fi
+358 50 346 4297
Sampsa Fabritius provides coaching and business development support for researchers to help commercialize science based IP and research results. At Helsinki Innovation Services Sampsa supports teams especially on deep technology, software, and digitalization on their endeavor of the concept validation and business modeling.
Prior to joining HIS, Sampsa has been a startup founder, advisor, and executive for several years, including operative roles at both B2C and B2B businesses. His background on leading research to product projects at Nokia Research Center brings an industry perspective to IP commercialization.
Sampsa is an Aalto MSc graduate with a toolbox on market and user research combined with lean and agile business development. He's also known as a community organizer for transformative entrepreneurs.
sampsa.fabritius@helsinki.fi
+358 50 340 6826
Alexandra Gylfe acts as the Business Development Director of the iCAN Digital Precision Cancer Medicine flagship. Her primary responsibility is to develop the iCAN flagship program into a competence cluster with strong partnerships and building of new business. She also supports University of Helsinki researchers in commercialisation activities, mainly in digital health and precision medicine.
Alexandra has ten years of experience in academic research, and she has built and led a high-talent team in a biotech company in the US. She has extensive experience in oncology, diagnostics, and product development. In her latest position at Human Longevity Inc., she supervised a genomics team responsible for developing and launching a novel oncology diagnostic offering on the market. Alexandra has also led teams in advanced genomic analytics, performed scientific and product due diligence for acquisitions, and served on Molecular Tumor Boards.
Alexandra holds a Ph.D. in biomedicine from the University of Helsinki and is currently completing her MBA studies at Aalto University Executive Education. She has also worked shorter stints at Stanford University and Institut Curie in France.
alexandra.gylfe@helsinki.fi
+358 40 509 8733
Petri Junttila identifies inventions stemming from University of Helsinki faculties of social and education sciences and arts. He assesses commercial potential of the inventions, and supports researcher teams in leveraging their innovations’ impact through funded commercialisation projects. To promote invention activity, Petri shares knowhow in methods, routes and opportunities of commercialisation within the faculties.
For over 10 years, Petri has been supporting numerous small and large, private and public organisations in business development and analysing their operational environment. He has worked e.g. as an M&A consultant at EY, and managed /co-founded the digital service development and brand design partner Nórr Design. Petri has experience in establishing and managing a business, as well as in sales and fund raising.
Petri holds an MSc Econ degree in Entrepreneurship and Management from Aalto University. Additionally, he completed IDBM-minor studies that promote multidisciplinary and customer-oriented business development. Petri also studied international business and management in the UK, USA and Germany.
petri.junttila@helsinki.fi
+358 40 775 7852
Juha Kirveskari acts as the IPR Director at HIS. His main responsibility is in managing and developing the knowhow related to existing and new intellectual property (IP) rights owned by the University of Helsinki. Juha also supports projects aiming towards commercialisation of IP.
Before joining HIS, Juha has worked almost 13 years in the industry, conducted biomedical research during 20 years and worked years as a specialist in clinical microbiology at HUSLAB. Juha’s previous positions have familiarised him with clinical medicine, clinical microbiology as well as cell biology, glycobiology and systems biology.
Juha has worked in all the stages of the innovation process all the way from idea generation and evaluation to idea maturation, fund raising for commercialisation and final commercialisation. He has tens of granted patents from nine different patent families. He has experience from international business activity from startup to listed company as well as from EU collaboration, networks and projects. He also has quality and regulatory (IVDR) knowhow particularly with regards to medical devices.
Juha has a basic education in medicine and additionally a PhD in medicine from the University of Turku as well as a specialist degree in clinical microbiology from the University of Helsinki.
juha.kirveskari@helsinki.fi
+358 50 307 8958
Maija Kontto is an English qualified solicitor with extensive experience in IP licensing and exploitation, having worked for 10 years at the technology commercialisation company of Imperial College London. More recently, Maija has worked in Finland as a General Counsel and currently, in addition to working at HIS, she currently holds another job as Legal & Compliance Lead at a Finnish technology start-up. Maija joined Helsinki Innovation Services in January 2023 and will be concentrating on improving the licensing process and ensuring that contractual terms address the needs of all parties concerned.
In addition to her legal degree from UCL, Maija has completed studies in theology, leadership, and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).
maija.kontto@helsinki.fi
+358 40 649 7173
Alexander Lagerman is responsible for managing and supporting business development activities in University of Helsinki’s commercialization projects, mainly within healthtech, but other life science related matters as well.
Alexander has a professional background in management consulting, sales, and entrepreneurship where he has worked with many different companies and innovation projects ranging from dental care and food innovation to lab consumables and drug candidates. He has also participated in different kinds of fundraising activities; contributing with financial planning, commercial development, and communication.
As educational background, Alexander holds a M.Sc. Business Creation and Entrepreneurship in Biomedicine from Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship and a B.Sc. Molecular Biology from the University of Gothenburg. Furthermore, he has studied independent courses in business administration, leadership, and marketing.
Contacts can be made in either English or Swedish.
alexander.lagerman@helsinki.fi
+358 50 563 0238
Jami Mandelin serves as Director, Business Development at HIS. His responsibility is to oversee the commercialisation process from invention disclosure to commercial activities in the field of therapeutics.
Jami has over 20 years of experience in academic research and over ten years of experience in pharmaceutical industry. He has been working with both targeted therapy and immuno-oncology products. In his latest work at Faron Pharmaceuticals, he supervised scientific collaboration in early drug discovery, led drug development and preclinical research as well as oversaw biologics manufacturing including analytics and formulation studies. Jami has also developed biomarker programs for clinical trials and oversaw the method development and validation for these activities. He has also hands-on experience in developing and launching companion diagnostics. He has wide experience in clinical research from early (phase I) clinical trials to pivotal studies. His regulatory knowledge covers all the activities he has been involved in.
Jami holds a PhD in biomedicine and title of docent in cell biology both from the University of Helsinki. He completed his postdoctoral training at Baylor college of Medicine and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
jami.mandelin@helsinki.fi
+358 40 514 7480
Eino Markelin’s main responsibility at HIS is to provide business development support to commercialisation projects in the field of life-sciences. His academic roots are in biology, but he also holds a master’s degree in bioentrepreneurship and research commercialisation from Karolinska Institutet. He has experience from pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, from large corporations as well as start-ups. Most recently prior to HIS Eino was working in sales for optics company Zeiss.
eino.markelin@helsinki.fi
+358 50 583 5357
Gen Tamjar manages out-licensing of IP owned by the University of Helsinki. In addition to this, she evaluates, promotes and commercialises new research-related inventions at the University of Helsinki, with a particular focus on drug discovery and therapeutic development projects.
Gen has worked as a post-doctoral scientist at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation & Ubiquitylation Unit at the University of Dundee in the structural biology of neurodegenerative disease. Subsequently she was appointed Scientific Liaison Manager for the Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee, a flagship UK endeavour with leading experts from the pharmaceutical industry. In 2018, she was recruited to the University of Helsinki, Finland as a Senior Advisor in Business Collaboration.
Gen has an extensive multidisciplinary background in biomedical research, ranging from chemistry to life sciences with particular focus in structural biology and neurodegenerative diseases. In 2017, she was named one of 5 UK Scientists to be awarded LifeArc-AUTM Technology Transfer Fellowship.
Harriet Haras works as the Marketing and Communications Manager of Helsingin Innovation Services Ltd. Her areas of responsibility include stakeholder communications and marketing of the innovation commercialisation at the university, as well as brand development and internal and external communications of the university. HIS implements the University of Helsinki's innovation strategy.
Harriet has 10+ years of marketing and communication experience in several industries, from healthcare services to industry and telecommunications research to information technology consulting. She has worked in international organisations and B2B and B2C companies in Finland, Great Britain and Israel. Harriet has a Master’s degree in social sciences from the University of Helsinki and doctoral studies in political anthropology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Helsinki.
harriet.haras@helsinki.fi
+358 40 482 4324
As the HIS Office Manager, Jenni Hurme manages various responsibilities in human resources, day-to-day IPR administration and general administration with the goal of organisational development. Jenni has over 20 years of experience in HRD/HRM, project management and general administration. She has worked in similar roles in companies small and large, in fields ranging from biotech to health care. Jenni is very familiar with working in a start-up environment of constant activity and movement.
jenni.p.hurme@helsinki.fi
+358 40 180 7015
Helsinki Innovation Services Ltd
P.O. Box 53
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
Helsinki Innovation Services Ltd
Invoicing
P.O. Box 176
FI-00101 Helsinki
E-invoicing address: 003723985084
Operator: BASWARE
VAT number: FI23985084