About BII
About BII
About BII
Embracing start-ups
The BioInnovation Institute Foundation
The BioInnovation Institute Foundation (BII) is an international non-profit foundation supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. BII operates an incubator to accelerate world-class life science innovation that drives the development of new solutions by early-stage life science start-ups for the benefit of people and society.
With continued positive development, The Novo Nordisk Foundation can provide up to EUR 470 (3,5 mia. DKK) to BII over 10 years to support early-stage life science projects and start-ups for the benefit of people and society.
Since the inauguration of BII in November 2018, BII has awarded 48 million euros to 85 high-growth start-up companies.
Read more about the Novo Nordisk Foundation
Any questions? Check out our FAQ.
Our culture and values
BII Basics
BII’s entrepreneurial environment is shaped and nurtured every day by our employees, start-up teams and everyone who join us in bringing research to market.
We strive to work by three core values. We call them the BII Basics.
Impactful. Catalytic. Passionate.
Establishing the BII Foundation
Meet the BII team
Collaboration is key to us, so please get in touch
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Jens Nielsen
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Bobby Soni
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Markus J. Herrgård
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Thomas Hoffmann
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AY
Adam Yar
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Alberte Thude
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Birgitte Bosse Knudsen
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Bo Jiang
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Bo Heinemann
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BJ
Boyang Ji
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Casper Linnemann
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Cathrine Nygaard Christensen
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Christian Brix Tillegreen
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Giles Dudley
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Heike Ross
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Hervør Lykke Olsen
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KH
Kenneth Hanson
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Jeroen Bunck
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JR
Jonathan Robinson
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JR
Johanna Roostalu
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Laura Locher
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Louise Clemmensen (on maternity leave)
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Louise Faurby
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Maria Gøtz Konradsen
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Maria Henriques De Jesus
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Marie Vedel
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Matthias Wulf
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MG
Monique Carmella Guastella
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Nina Isaxon-Plougmann
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Paulina Mikkelsen
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Sofie Lorentzen
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Tony Cheng-fu Chang
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Trine Bartholdy
Career and job postings
We are continuously building the BII community and are continuously looking for people who share our vision and passion for bringing ideas to life and research to the market.
Click here to access BII’s career portal to see BII’s open positions and career opportunities.
You can also stay updated on job postings on Facebook and LinkedIn or through our newsletter. Click here to sign up.
Board of directors
Board of Directors
Meet the BII Board of Directors and read the interview with the idea makers behind BII.
Sten Scheibye, Ph.D., is the Chairman of the BioInnovation Institute Foundation. He was a member of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s as well as Novo Holdings A/S board of directors and Chairman of the board from 2013 to 2018. He holds a MSc in Chemistry and Physics from 1978 and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from 1981, both from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. In 1983, he obtained a BComm from Copenhagen Business School. From 1995 to 2008, Sten Scheibye was President and CEO of Coloplast A/S, Denmark. Before joining Coloplast in 1993, he served as Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing in Leo Pharma A/S, Denmark. He joined this company in 1981. Sten Scheibye is Chairman of Knud Højgaards Foundation, Højgaard Ejendomme A/S and the Danish Industry Foundation.
Chairman
Member of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Board of Directors from 2014 and Vice-Chair since 2018. Marianne Philip serves on several boards including as chair of The Committee on Foundation Governance and is among others experienced in company and foundation law, investments and corporate governance.
Vice-chair
Birgitte Nauntofte has served on several boards and science committees. She currently serves as Committee Member of Recommendations on Foundation Governance. Before joining the Novo Nordisk Foundation, she had the position of Vice Dean at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen.
Board member
Member of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Board of Directors from 2005 to 2017. Bo Ahrén has previously been Chief of Medicine at Region Skåne in Sweden, Head of the Research Clinic at Skåne University Hospital in Lund and Dean of Faculty of Medicine, Lund University. He conducts research on diabetes and has been involved in developing new drugs to treat type 2 diabetes
Board member
Serial entrepreneur with a background in drug discovery and development, corporate strategy, financing and management. Hans Schambye has an extensive experience in managing biotech companies, based on in depth biological understanding of diseases and pharmaceutical R&D.
Board member
With + 25 years of international experience from the biotech industry, Martin Bonde has held several leadership positions as CEO for e.g. Vaccibody, Epitherapeutics, Natimmune, Combio,Torsana Biosensor, and Ostemeter Biotech.
Board member
Regina is a Managing Partner at Wellington Partners Life Sciences (WPLS) and represents the WPLS funds on the Boards of Ayoxxa, Carisma Therapeutics, Endostim, GTX Medical, SNIPR Biome, STipe Therapeutics, Themis and TRiCares. She was a founding investor in Rigontec (acquired by MSD), Sapiens (acquired by Medtronic), Middle Peak Medical (acquired by Symetis / Boston Scientific), and an external director at GlaxoSmithKline’s Respiratory TA Board. Since joining the industry in 2000, she has become an influential investor in the European VC industry, focusing on early-stage and growth deals in Life Sciences. She currently serves as the Spokesperson for the Board of the German PE and VC Association (BVK).
Before joining WPLS, Regina led the European life sciences efforts of Boston-based Atlas Venture. She was the founding investor in Bicycle Therapeutics, F-star, and Jenavalve, and served on several Boards, including U3 Pharma (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), Nitec Pharma (now part of Horizon Pharma NASDAQ HZPN), Egalet (NASDAQ: EGLT), and Novamed (acquired by SciClone NASDAQ SCLN). Before, Regina worked for Apax Partners, and built her extensive network in the global healthcare industry during her tenure at McKinsey. In the 90s, Regina gained initial insights into the fast-growing biotech sector as post-doctoral researcher at the MRC Cambridge UK. Regina studied chemical engineering in Vienna and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
Board member
Robert G. Urban has over 25 years of international experience in the healthcare industry. In 2018, Robert retired from Johnson and Johnson as the Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, LLC. Prior to joining J&J, Robert was the founding Executive Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was previously the CEO of Acretia Inc, he has also held founding and executive positions at ZYCOS Inc and Pangaea Pharmaceuticals. Robert has served on the Board of diverse companies and not-for-profit organizations.
Board member
Senior management professional with +25 years of R&D and business development experience from the bacteria and enzymes industry. He is a co-inventor on a number of patents as well as publisher of several scientific papers and publications with WWF, WEF, and the German Bioeconomy council.
Board member
Scientific Advisory Board
Scientific Advisory Board
Meet the BII Scientific Advisory Board and read more about our continued search for a diverse board.
Dr. Robert Langer is one of 12 Institute Professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a widely recognized researcher in biotechnology, especially in the fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering.
He has been cited more than 325,000 times, and his h-index of 280 is the highest of any engineer in history.
He has more than 1,360 issued and pending patents worldwide, which have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies.
Chair
Christina Smolke is a leader in the fields of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering.
Dr. Smolke’s early work pioneered the design and application of functional RNAs as tools for programming biological systems. Her recent work has pioneered the development of yeast biosynthesis platforms for complex plant-based alkaloids, leading to efficient, sustainable fermentation processes for essential medicines.
Dr. Smolke is a Professor (Research) of Bioengineering at Stanford University and CEO of Antheia, Inc, and has received numerous honors including Nature’s 10 and NIH Director’s Pioneer Award.
Member
Eran Segal is heading the Segal Lab with a team of computational biologists and experimental scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
His research focuses on the relationship between nutrition, health, and gut microbes in human individuals and his research group has extensive experience in machine learning, computational biology, probabilistic models, and analysis of heterogeneous high-throughput genomic data from various technologies such as next-generation sequencing.
Eran Segal has published over 150 publications and received several awards and honors for his work, including the Overton prize, awarded annually by the International Society for Bioinformatics (ICSB) to one scientist for outstanding accomplishments in computational biology.
Member
Feng Zhang is one of the pioneers in the development of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing and a leader in the field of optogenetics.
He has a BA from Harvard and a Ph.D. degree from Stanford. He holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship of Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and professorship in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering at MIT.
In 2018, Feng Zhang was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Member
Mathias Uhlén leads a research group at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Biotechnology.
He is a part-time professor at the Technical University of Denmark and a guest professor at Karolinska Institutet. His research has led to more than 650 publications, and 25 start-ups have come out of his group at KTH–four of which have IPO’ed–two in Sweden, one in Norway and one in Korea.
In 2010, he founded the national center for molecular bioscience, SciLifeLab, in both Stockholm and Uppsala, which bring more than 1000 scientists together
Member
Sang Yup Lee is a biochemical engineer and is well known for the development of microbial strains and the bioprocess for the fermentative production of many chemicals including polylactic acid, succinic acid, and gasoline.
He is Distinguished Professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and is Co-Chair of Global Future Council on Biotechnology at the World Economic Forum.
Lee has ties to Denmark through his position as Scientific Director at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability.
Member
Governance
Governance
The BioInnovation Institute Foundation is a Danish commercial foundation that operates independently of any other interests than those described in the Foundation’s objects.
The Foundation is governed by the Danish Foundation Act, and the Danish Business Authority therefore supervises the Foundation.
In addition, the BioInnovation Institute Foundation is covered by the Recommendations on Foundation Governance of the Committee on Foundation Governance.
