Meet the Board of Directors
Rolf Classon
Chairman
Rolf has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Social Science (MBA-equivalent) from the University of Gothenburg. 

Before taking up board work for a number of medium and small healthcare businesses, he was Chairman of the Executive Committee at Bayer Healthcare, a $10 billion subsidiary of Bayer AG. He remains on the company's Supervisory Board, and became a director of Millipore in 2005.

Before this, he served in positions of increasing responsibility at Bayer Diagnostics, including President. After moving from Pharmacia Biosystems AB where he was President and Chief Operating Officer. He joined Pharmacia in 1969 where he worked as a management consultant, before becoming President of its Hospital Products division in 1981. He later moved to the same position in Pharmacia Development Company, an in-house mergers/acquisitions and venture capital group.

Werner Schaefer
Director
Dr Schaefer has over 40 years experience in the diagnostics sector, having joined Behringwerke AG in 1975 as a research assistant developing enzyme-based assays. He was promoted to eventually become President and Chief Operating Officer of Behring Diagnostics.  From March 1988 to March 1995 he served as Director Area Operations & Scientific Development for Abbott Diagnostics GMBH, which acted as the area headquarters and technical hub for the diagnostics division in Europe. During this time, his responsibilities included R & D, operations, quality, logistics and engineering.

Werner then became President of the Lab Systems Business Unit at Roche, with sales of
$1.5 billion and a headcount of over 2,000, making it one of the largest global diagnostics businesses.

Since 2002, Werner has divided his time between consulting for biotech and diagnostics multinationals, start-ups and venture capital funds, supervisory roles and advisory board memberships.

Gerry Moeller
Director
Gerry has more than 25 years of management experience in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries. He joined HBM BioCapital Management, a Germany-based VC firm, as Managing Director in 2002. He is also Chairman of healthcare service company 4sigma Ltd, BRAHMS, Pelikan Technologies and FIND, and also chairs boards of biotechnology companies in Germany, the UK and US.

He was previously Chief Executive of the Boehringer Mannheim group and, after its acquisition, joined the management board of Roche. He left Roche in 1998.

Gerry has a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Kiel in Germany.

Gerard Vaillant
Director
Gerard has held prestigious roles in the healthcare sector, including Group Chairman of Johnson & Johnson Diagnostics, Chairman of Ortho Clinical Diagnostics and Therakos, and President of Lifescan.

Since leaving J&J, he has served on the board of directors of Sensors for Medicine and Science, Luminex and Tecan.

He has a masters and superior certificate in Biochemistry and Industrial Chemistry from the Paris University of Sciences, and a degree in Marketing from Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris.

Jonathan Gee
Director
Jonathan is responsible for SPARK Ventures’ healthcare and life sciences 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. He has made investments in drug discovery, diagnostics, medical imaging and analytical instrumentation, and manages a portfolio in these areas. He is responsible for SPARK’s investment in Oxford Immunotec, an IVD company focused on T cell measurement technology. He led the investment by SPARK in GlycArt Biotechnology, acquired by Roche for over £100m in July 2005.

Prior to joining SPARK, as Chief Executive of Imperial College Innovations, he was responsible for spinning out University start up companies, and served on the board of eight of these, including Microscience Ltd, acquired by NYSE quoted Emergent Technologies.

He has an operational background in marketing in the diagnostics industry where he was International Product Group Manager for Unilever’s successful OTC testing company, Unipath. He gained his management training in Unilever, which he joined following a PhD in cancer research at Oxford University.

Paddy Greenwood
Director
As Group Managing Director of Integrated Technologies Ltd (ITL), a diagnostic instrument designer and manufacturer, Paddy was instrumental in incubating Vivacta prior to its successful first-round financing in 2005.

He also runs his own consulting practice and currently advises Rock Capital Group Plc, a property and financial services group managing a £350m portfolio. He was also on the board of its predecessor, Rock Investment Trust Plc.

Before founding his consulting practice in 1994, he spent 20 years at Coopers and Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) as a manager, senior manager and partner, and served on several of the firm's national committees. He qualified as a chartered accountant in 1974.

Tim Carter
Director
For more information view meet the management team