About Us

Jonas Hallén, MD PhD

Chief Medical & Development Officer

Before co-founding Arxx, Jonas had a 10-year career in drug development and medical roles in the pharmaceutical industry at Boehringer Ingelheim, Pronova BioPharma and Novartis. He was part of the team that launched Pradaxa – the first novel oral anticoagulant approved for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation. At Pronova, he was project lead for the drug development team that took icosabutate, a lipid lowering agent with powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic effects, through clinical proof-of-concept. Icosabutate is currently in late-stage development for NASH. At Novartis, he was the medical and development lead for a phase 3 trial of serelaxin in acute heart failure and also part of the team that spearheaded the application of real-world evidence to inform drug development programs and market strategies in the Nordics.

He is passionate about drug development and greatly enjoys the scientific exploration of novel therapeutic concepts to improve human life.

Jonas has an MD from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in cardiovascular disease from the University of Oslo.

Jörg Klingelhöfer, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Inventor of AX-202, Jörg has 20+ years of research experience in S100A4 biology and cancer at the Danish Cancer Society as well as 10+ years’ experience in antibody development. Jörg is an accomplished scientist with over 30+ peer review publications on S100A4 and has an exhaustive experience with hands-on molecular biology and methods.

After completing his PhD in Molecular Biology at the Institute for Molecular Biology and Tumour Research in Marburg Germany, Jörg has held two Post Doc positions; one at the University of Washington in St. Louis and the other at The Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen where he remained as a Senior Research Scientist for ten years working in Professor Lukanidin’s lab before co-founding Arxx.

Jörg spearheads Arxx’s wet lab in Copenhagen and overseas the basic scientific efforts.

Øystein Soug

Chief Executive Officer

Prior to joining Arxx in 2022, Øystein Soug served as CEO of Targovax since 2016. Under Øystein’s leadership, Targovax started and executed several clinical trials of multiple drug candidates, developed a preclinical pipeline, started an industrial scale production program and raised USD 90m in equity. Mr. Soug joined Targovax as CFO in 2015 and listed the company on the Oslo Stock exchange the following year. The seven years prior to Targovax, Mr. Soug was the CFO of Algeta. During Øystein’s tenure, Algeta’s lead product, Xofigo, was approved by the FDA and EMA for the treatment of bone metastases in castration-resistant prostate cancer patients, followed by a strong commercial launch. In 2014, Algeta was acquired by Bayer AG for $2.9 billion. Before that, Mr. Soug was the CFO of a business unit in the Norwegian industrial group Orkla and held other positions within banking and finance. Mr. Soug received an MSc in Economics and Financial Markets from Universität St. Gallen in Switzerland in 1997.

Susanne Stuffers, MD PhD

Chairman of the Board

Susanne holds an M.D. degree from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands, and a Ph.D. degree in cancer biomedicine from the Norwegian Radiumhospital. She gained broad experience in healthcare and life sciences, covering the sector from several angles. Susanne was a management consultant in health care (public and private) and life sciences at EY, served in medical and commercial roles in the pharmaceutical industry (Novartis), and has clinical practice as a resident in oncology. She worked with Arctic Securities as an equity analyst covering the healthcare sector, before joining forces with T.D. Veen to co-found and lead p53. Susanne has supported life science companies in different phases of development, from start-up to late clinical stage, and has experience from financial markets including private placements and IPOs.

Birgitte Gangmark Villmo

Non-executive Board Director

Birgitte has close to ten years of experience from investment management and research. She has been part of the investment team at Norwegian VC fund Investinor since 2017, focusing primarily on the healthcare sector. She previously worked as an Equities Analyst at Norges Bank Investment Management in Oslo/London. Birgitte holds an M.Sc. in Financial Economics from NTNU and a Master of Finance from MIT.

Farzad Abdi-Dezfuli, PhD

Non-executive Board Director

Farzad is a partner at Sarsia Management with close to 20 years of management and board level experience in commercializing medical/biotech projects from the Sarsia investment system and portfolio companies. His background is in preclinical and clinical research with drug development experience from US based global pharma in the US and Norway. Farzad received his doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, UK and postdoctoral training in oncology from Haukeland University Hospital Bergen, Norway.

Kari Grønås

Non-executive Board Director

Kari has extensive experience in drug development and biotechnology. This has spanned multiple companies including Algeta (where she was VP of operations, sold to Bayer for $1.5bn in 2011), Nycomed Imaging, GE Healthcare, Amersham Healthcare, PhotoCure. She was also chair of the board of Norwegian Pharmaceutical Society and is now on the board of directors of several biotech businesses.

Christian Schweiger, MD PhD

Non-executive Board Director

Christian is an entrepreneurial senior medical affair, and clinical development executive with vast experience in both large and small pharmaceutical companies. Christian is one of the founders and member of the board of Shield Therapeutics where he was responsible for the discovery and initial clinical development programs until 2012. He is Managing Director of his own boutique consultancy business TACHRIS AG in Switzerland providing clinical, medical, medical marketing and strategic management consultancy services including pharmaceutical asset evaluation. 

He is also Lecturing Professor in Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of Essen and actively working with different international patient and professional associations.

Yuri Khodjamirian, CFA

Yuri Khodjamirian is a fund manager and analyst. He spent a decade at Majedie Asset Management in London where he co-managed the UK Income Fund and currently runs his own investment boutique. Throughout, he invested widely in biotech and pharma equities, specialising in the sector. He also has experience acting as a special advisor to numerous startups. He holds an Mphil in Bioscience Enterprise from University of Cambridge as well as degrees in Economics from University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics (LSE).

Professor Oliver Distler, MD

Department of Rheumatology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

Professor Distler is the Chair of the Center of Experimental Rheumatology of the University of Zurich, which has been awarded a EULAR Center of Excellence due to its scientific achievements. His research activities span from a preclinical program focusing on the characterization of key molecules and intracellular signaling cascades driving the fibrotic process to a translational and clinical program with emphasis on precision medicine and phase 2/3 clinical trial design. With over 260 primary research papers, over 18`000 citations and an H-Factor of 67, he is among the top 3 cited researchers worldwide in the field of systemic sclerosis.

Dr. Anna-Maria Hoffmann-Vold, MD PhD

Department of Rheumatology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

Dr. Hoffmann-Vold is the Head of systemic sclerosis research and the systemic sclerosis outpatient clinic at the Oslo University Hospital. She is a member of several academic initiatives and the general secretary of EUSTAR. Dr Hoffmann-Vold’s main research interest is on clinical and translational research related to SSc. Recent projects include interstitial lung disease, development of expert consensus on the management of SSc-ILD, prediction of disease worsening of SSc, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and mechanistic studies on the potential role of gut microbiota in SSc.

Professor John Varga, MD

Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of Rheumatology and Chief of the Division of Rheumatology, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US

Professor Varga’s research is focused on understanding of how self-limited injury leads to intractable scar formation in genetically susceptible individuals; and identification of novel strategies to treat fibrosis. Professor Varga has been at the forefront of defining the role of endogenous toll-like receptor ligands in switching physiological tissue repair responses into non-resolving pathological fibrosis. He has authored over 350 journal articles and book chapters, and three textbooks. In addition to his research and clinical activities, Professor Varga's passion is mentoring and education. He is listed in Best Doctors in America (2020), and is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and a Master of the American College of Rheumatology. He was the recipient of the Scleroderma Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Global Fibrosis Foundation and the American College of Rheumatology.

Professor Toby Maher, MD PhD

Professor of Medicine and Director of Interstitial Lung Disease at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Dr Maher has spent the last 18 years specialising in the management of all forms of pulmonary fibrosis and orphan interstitial lung diseases. He previously ran the ILD unit at Royal Brompton Hospital. Since June 2020 he has been Director of ILD at Keck Medicine of USC. He remains Professor of Interstitial Lung Disease at Imperial College London and is British Lung Foundation Professor of Respiratory Medicine. His research interests include; biomarker discovery, the lung microbiome and host immune response in the pathogenesis of IPF and clinical trials in interstitial lung disease. He has been involved in >50 trials in fibrotic lung disease from phase 1b through to phase 4 and including those assessing IPF, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory myositis. He is an associate editor for American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and is on the Editorial Board of Lancet Respiratory Medicine. He has authored over 270 papers and book chapters on pulmonary fibrosis.

Professor Christopher Denton, MD PhD FRCP

Professor of Experimental Rheumatology at UCL Medical School and Consultant Rheumatologist and Joint Director of the Centre for Rheumatology, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK

Professor Denton studied medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London and obtained a PhD from University College London with post-doctoral training in UK and USA. He has published extensively on laboratory and clinical aspects of connective tissue disease and he has been on the executive committee of multiple large clinical trials in systemic sclerosis. His large clinical and translational research program in scleroderma at the Royal Free Hospital co-ordinates multidisciplinary care for more than 1500 patients. He currently chairs the UK Scleroderma Study Group (UKSSG) and previously served as President of the Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium (SCTC) and as a Counsellor and Treasurer of the EULAR Scleroderma Trials and Research Group (EUSTAR).

Professor Jörg Distler, MD PhD

Professor of Rheumatology at the Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf and Director, Department of Rheumatology at the University Clinic Düsseldorf

Professor Distler is Professor of Rheumatology at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and Director, Department of Rheumatology at the University Clinic Düsseldorf. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying the aberrant tissue responses in fibrotic diseases and the development of novel strategies for therapeutic intervention. He is on the editorial board of several leading journals in rheumathology and fibrosis and was previously the head of the EULAR Scleroderma Trials and Research Group (EUSTAR) Basic Science Committee.

Dr. Steven O’Reilly, PhD

Fellow in Immunology, Durham University, Durham, UK

Dr. O’Reilly is an expert in the inflammatory end epigenetic changes that drive disease biology in systemic sclerosis and his research is focused on the discovery of therapeutic targets through molecular pathway analysis. He holds a degree in Biomedical Sciences and a Master in Immunology from the University of Liverpool, UK. He subsequently completed his PhD in Cell Biology in the Ophthalmology department in the Institute of Ageing and Chronic Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, University of Liverpool, UK under the supervision of the head of department Prof. Ian Grierson. He undertook post-doctoral research under the guidance of world leader in systemic sclerosis Prof Jacob M van Laar where they demonstrated the role of IL-6 trans signalling in systemic sclerosis. Dr. O’Reilly then undertook further post-doctoral training in 3D skin models and fibrosis at Durham University before joining Northumbria University as Senior Lecturer. He has published over 60 manuscripts in this area and has a H factor of 26. Dr. O’Reilly is currently a fellow at Durham University.

Professor Eugene Lukanidin, MD PhD

Inventor of AX-202

In a breakthrough research paper published in 1989, Eugene described the cloning of the S100A4 gene and first established S100A4 as a pro-metastatic factor. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, Eugene has devoted his professional life to study how cancers are able to spread and form metastases in distant organs. He has worked at several world-leading research institutes such as the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow, James Watson’s Cold Spring Harbor Lab and Robert Weinberg’s Lab at MIT. The bulk of the work on S100A4 was done under his leadership as Department Head at the Danish Cancer Society. Eugene holds an MD PhD from the Pirogov’s Medical Institute, Moscow and Institute of Molecular Biology of AS USSR, Moscow, respectively. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

Associate Professor Mariam Grigorian, MD PhD

Inventor of AX-202

Mariam is recognized as a world-leading expert on S100A4 and co-authored the 1989 paper describing S100A4 as a pro-metastatic factor. She spearheaded the exploration of S100A4’s role in inflammatory and fibrotic processes that are key mechanisms in tumor dissemination and other diseases including autoimmune diseases and atherosclerosis. She worked as a senior scientist in Professor Lukanidin’s lab at the Danish Cancer Society and later as an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. Mariam has made major scientific discoveries uncovering the rich biology of S100A4 and established it as a fundamental mechanism driving disease pathobiology. Mariam holds an MD PhD from the State Medical Institute in Yerevan and the Moscow Institute of Molecular Biology, respectively.

Associate Professor Noona Ambartsumian, PhD

Inventor of AX-202

Over a 30+ year career in cancer research, Noona has established herself as a world-leading expert on S100A4. She was responsible for building the groundbreaking in vivo models that established the role of S100A4 in tumor metastasis. She has held positions as Associate Professor at Copenhagen University, Senior Scientist at the Danish Cancer Society and Chair of Genetics at Yerevan State University. Noona holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Institute of Molecular Biology USSR Academy of Sciences and is visiting professor at the Yerevan Medical University.