Board of directors

Previous to BliNK Biomedical, Jack Elands was CEO of Amakem Therapeutics, a company that he cofounded in 2010. Jack was CEO of Vitec, a specialty biochemical company focused on antimicrobial surface chemistries and products, CBO of Silicos, an informatics platform-based biotechnology company and the VP of Business Development at Sidec AB, a Swedish company focused on the discovery and development of protein based drugs. Jack started his pharmaceutical career at Marion Merrell Dow (later HMR and Aventis, now Sanofi) where he was involved with the development of drugs such as terfenadine, fexofenadine and dolasetron. He has published extensively and has contributed to several patents. He received his undergraduate in medical biology from University of Utrecht in 1985. Jack was awarded his doctorate in Neuropharmacology from the Rudolf Magnus Institute at University of Utrecht in 1989.

Pharmacist, doctor in pharmacology, Insead MBA. After his dissertation, Thierry was a scientific representative for Laboratoires Fournier in Japan for four years at a time when Lipanthyl was released in Japan and research programmes were being rolled out with Grelan, a Takeda Group company. Having then studied at Insead, he joined Flamel Technologies as project director for Pharmaceutical R&D, after its IPO on the Nasdaq. In 1998, Thierry then moved to the investment world, first at Caisse des Dépôts (CDC Innovation, then within the PharmaVent project), before moving to AGF Private Equity, where he supervised the healthcare investment team.

Following the Intercell-Vivalis merger, Franck Grimaud was appointed Deputy CEO of Valneva. He co-founded Vivalis in 1999 serving as its CEO and “President du Directoire”. He has a long management track record, with more than 20 years of experience in various industries, including 14 years in the biopharmaceutical sector. Before building up Vivalis, he was responsible for the creation of the Chinese, Malaysian and Thailand subsidiaries of Groupe Grimaud, a worldwide leader in animal genetic selection and currently Valneva’s largest shareholder. Franck Grimaud holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa (Canada).