Board Of Directors

Richard Sandberg, Chairman
Mr. Sandberg has significant experience in senior management positions in both publicly quoted and private US companies. He has played a principal role in starting and building a number of medical diagnostic companies including that of Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of DIANON Systems Inc, a publicly traded oncology marketing and database company; Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of Lifecodes Corporation, a pioneer in DNA testing technology; and Chief Financial Officer and Member of the Board of Directors of Matritech Inc (AMEX;MZT), a biotechnology company specializing in proteomic diagnostic products for the early detection of a variety of cancers and is currently Chief Financial Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Critical Diagnostics Inc., a cardiac diagnostic company commercializing new technology licensed from the Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston.  Dick also serves on the Board of two public companies; North American Scientific Inc. (NASDAQ:NASI), a leading innovator of radiation therapy products and systems for treating breast and prostate cancer and Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. (NYSE:ETH) an international manufacturer and retailer of fine home furnishings.

Peter Wrighton-Smith, PhD, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Wrighton-Smith started Oxford Immunotec after having spent 5 years at PowderJect Pharmaceuticals PLC, now part of Chiron Corporation. During his time there, he saw PowderJect grow to a global vaccines business with over 1,000 employees and immediately prior to founding Oxford Immunotec, he was Special Projects Director at PowderJect. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of PowderJect Diagnostics Ltd, a subsidiary of PowderJect, developing cellular immune based diagnostics. Peter has a Masters in Engineering, Economics & Management and a DPhil in Medical Engineering both from Oxford University.

Michael Steinmetz, PhD, Non-Executive Director
Dr. Steinmetz, has been Managing Director of Clarus Ventures since the firm's inception in 2005. He has over 24 years of direct industry and investment experience within the healthcare sector, including being a General Partner in a healthcare venture capital firm since 1997. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Steinmetz was an executive at Hoffmann-LaRoche where he held various positions including Vice President of Preclinical Research and Development, and Global Head of Biotechnology. Dr. Steinmetz obtained his Ph.D. summa cum laude from the University of Munich and held positions at the California Institute of Technology and the Basel Institute for Immunology.

Michael represents Clarus Ventures on the Board of Directors of ESBATech, Oxford Immunotec and Virdante.  In addition, he is a member of the Board of Directors of Allozyne, Biovitrum (STO:BVT), CGI Pharmaceuticals, Macrogenics, TaiGen and VLST Corp.

Previous directorships include Acorda (NASDAQ:ACOR), Amphora, Arena (NASDAQ:ARNA), Atugen/SR Pharma (AIM:SPA), BioXell (SWX:BXLN), Caliper (NASDAQ:CALP), Coelecanth (acquired by Lexicon), Epigenomics (FRK:ECX), GPC Biotech (FRK:GPC), IDEA AG, Intracel Corp., and ISB Accelerator.

Rainer Strohmenger, PhD, Non-Executive Director
Dr. Strohmenger joined Wellington Partners in 1997 and became a Partner in December 2000.  His ten years of investment activity involved financing of some of the most successful European biotech companies.  In the late 1990s he co-managed Wellington's investment in Swiss biotech player Actelion, today a listed company with a market cap of more than four billion euros.  He was responsible for the investments in Grandis (acquired by Novartis), Noema Life (Borsa Italian:NOE), Wavelight (Deutsche Boerse:WLT), as well as Immatics.  Prior to joining Wellington Partners, Rainer was involved in medical research with a primary focus on cardiovascular physiology and in research on health economics at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.  Rainer studied Medicine and Economics and holds a Doctorate in Medicine as well as a Master's Degree in Economics.

Rob James, PhD, Non-Executive Director
Dr. James manages DFJEspirit's portfolio of healthcare and medical technology investments.  Since joining Prelude Ventures in 1998, he has been involved in a number of successful transactions including the exits from Oxford Biomedica and DNA Research Innovations.

Prior to his time in venture capital, Rob worked for seven years commercializing cancer therapeutics and diagnostics arising from the research conducted by Cancer Research UK.  He was responsible for licensing Temodal to Schering Plough (generating annual sales in excess of $600M) and Torvax to Oxford Biomedica.  Rob graduated with a genetics degree from Sheffiled University and a biochemistry PhD from the University of London. 

Rob manages DFJEspirit's investments in Sciona, Oxford Immunotec, KiadisPharma and DeNovo Pharmaceuticals. 

Vijay Lathi, Non-executive director
Vijay Lathi is a Managing Director at NLV Partners, concentrating primarily on the firm’s diagnostics and pharmaceuticals investments. He was one of the founders of NLV Partners in 2005, having moved with the healthcare team from the Sprout Group, which he had joined in 1998. Prior to joining Sprout, Vijay was an analyst in the Healthcare Venture Capital Group at Robertson Stephens & Co. and at Cornerstone Research, a consulting firm focused on financial and economic analysis for business litigation. Vijay holds a Master’s Degree from Stanford University in Chemical Engineering, with an emphasis on the application of engineering to life science technology.

Vijay represents NLV Partners on the Board of Directors of Aviir, Expression Diagnostics, Kalypsys, Oxford Immunotec, Proteogenix and Relypsa.

Jonathan Gee, Non-Executive Director
Jonathan is Director at SPARK Ventures and is responsible for healthcare, life sciences and university funds investment activities. He has over twenty years experience working with IP driven high growth technology companies as an investor and board member and as Chief Executive of technology exploitation companies. His investment focus ranges from drug discovery to devices and diagnostics and he has over ten years experience in the identification and development of intellectual property as the basis for innovative new products, arising from University research. As Chief Executive of Imperial College Innovations, he was responsible for spinning out over 30 new University start up companies, and served on the board of eight of these. He has a background in marketing in the diagnostics industry and has a D Phil in cancer research from Oxford University.