About Abera

Abera is dedicated to the development of novel vaccines to save lives and increase health globally.

the company

Abera Bioscience is a platform and vaccine development company based on over 30 years of research in the medical, molecular and microbiological field. Abera was founded in 2012 as a spin-out from the Stockholm University, Sweden and Vrije Universitet Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Our founder and CTO, Prof. Joen Luirink is a world-leading expert on bacterial protein trafficking and membrane transport systems and his vast knowledge in the area provided the basis for Abera’s innovative vaccine delivery platform.

Abera’s novel vaccine delivery platform was first developed for the production of difficult-to-express proteins by bacteria. But when we developed the possibility to display antigenic proteins on bacterial surfaces, the idea of exploiting it for vaccine delivery was born.

hexa-02 copy

our history

Since the start we have collaborated with academia and the biotech industry to develop and refine the platform. A number of experimental vaccines was designed to provide valuable proof of concept for our technology (e.g. against pneumococcal disease, chlamydia, ETEC and tuberculosis). Many collaborations have received significant financial support from EU (Horizon 2020, Eurostars and Eureka), governments and non-profit health organizations. This has enabled us to advance the technology and build our solid foundation of today.

We strongly believe that vaccines are one of the most powerful tools to save lives and increase health globally. Abera is dedicated to the development of novel vaccines and vaccine strategies to meet these ambitions.

Our mission is to develop vaccine candidates based on our novel vaccine delivery platform to late pre-clinical or early clinical phase and to find licensing partners for further development of the vaccines.

our history

Since the start we have collaborated with academia and the biotech industry to develop and refine the platform. A number of experimental vaccines was designed to provide valuable proof of concept for our technology (e.g. against pneumococcal disease, chlamydia, ETEC and tuberculosis). Many collaborations have received significant financial support from EU (Horizon 2020, Eurostars and Eureka), governments and non-profit health organizations. This has enabled us to advance the technology and build our solid foundation of today.

We strongly believe that vaccines are one of the most powerful tools to save lives and increase health globally. Abera is dedicated to the development of novel vaccines and vaccine strategies to meet these ambitions.

Our mission is to develop vaccine candidates based on our novel vaccine delivery platform to late pre-clinical or early clinical phase and to find licensing partners for further development of the vaccines.


Management TeaM

Maria Alriksson

CEO

Maria Alriksson started her career within the pharma industry and she has extensive experience in people and project management, business development, change management and marketing from different industries. Former CEO of Xbrane Bioscience.

Born: 1983
Shares in Abera: 259,214
Warrants: 115,000

Mats Lundgren

CSO

Mats has more than 25 years of experience in the field of vaccinology as well as research and development for new biopharmaceuticals. He holds a PhD in Immunology, Cell and Molecular Biology from the Karolinska Institute, and
extensive post-doc training at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College School of Medicine in London, UK. In his industrial career Mats has had positions as scientist, manager, consultant and VP at Pharmacia, AstraZeneca and smaller biotech/vaccine companies. Prior to joining Abera he was the Applications Director at Cytiva/GE Healthcare and supported biopharma companies globally to develop and produce new vaccines and therapies more efficiently. 

Born: 1965
Shares in Abera: 24,214
Warrants: 110,000

Joen Luirink

CtO, Co-Founder
Prof. Luirink has more than 35 years of experience in Biochemistry and Molecular Microbiology and authored over 150 original scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals. Prof. Luirink specializes in protein trafficking in bacteria. He is currently head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology at VU University Amsterdam, and serves as the CTO of Abera.

Born: 1960
Shares in Abera: 583,332
Warrants: 25,000

Joen Luirink

CTO, CO-Founder
Prof. Luirink has more than 35 years of experience in Biochemistry and Molecular Microbiology and authored over 140 original scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals. Prof. Luirink specializes in protein trafficking in bacteria. He is currently head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology at VU University Amsterdam, and serves as the CTO of Abera.

Born: 1960 Shares in Abera: 583,332
Warrants: 25,000

hexa-03

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Anders Ericsson

Executive Chairman of the Board

Anders Ericson has worked in several positions within the financial industry for more than 18 years. He is the owner and CEO of Smallcap.se, which is a financial communications firm specializing in life science companies.

Born: 1970
Shares in Abera: 624,027
Warrants: 65,000

Harry Råstedt

Member of the Board

Harry Råstedt has extensive experience in the vaccine industry with over 20 years of experience as Vice President & General Manager at GSK Vaccines in global roles, including Head of Vaccines GSK Europe, and as country manager in several countries. He also has a broad entrepreneurial experience as an investor, co-founder, and board member of several smaller companies.

Born: 1968
Shares in Abera: –
Warrants: 65,000

Cristina Glad

Member of the Board
Cristina Glad has an Executive MBA and PhD within Biochemistry. PhD Glad has over 30 years of experience in leading positions within biotech industry, eg. As Vice president at Bioinvent. PhD Glad has extensive experience of manufacturing operations, drug development, in and out licensing of projects, regulatory authorities and financing.

Born: 1952
Shares in Abera: 6,000
Warrants: 65,000

Fredrik Juserius

Member of the board

Fredrik Juserius is a civil engineer with over 30 years of experience within Big Pharma in roles such as Country manager and Commercial director from e.g. GSK, Allergan and Takeda. Today, he holds the position at Country Director Nordics at Alexion. Mr. Juserius has sucessfully performed in and out licensing, M&A and business development within both vaccines and cancer.

Born: 1967
Shares in Abera: 14,492
Warrants: 65,000

sohila to website

Sohila Zadran

Member of the board

Sohila Zadran, PhD is an experienced operator and former Associate Partner from McKinsey’s LEAP team.  She is currently a partner at Archangel-1, a California based venture capital firm. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California.

Born: 1986
Shares in Abera: –
Warrants: –

hexa-02 copy

ADVISORY BOARD

Marien de Jonge

Member of the Advisory board

Assoc. Prof. de Jonge is head of the Laboratory of Medical Immunology at Radboud UMC, the Netherlands. He is expert within mucosal immunization, respiratory disease and a long term collaborator with Abera around the pneumococcus vaccine development.

CAMILLE LOCHT

Member of the Advisory board

Dr Locht is currently Research Director at French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and Head of Center for Infection and Immunity of Lille, Institute Pasteur de Lille, France. Previously he held a scientific director role at GSK and has developed a nasal pertussis vaccine currently in clinical phase. 

Lucille van Beek

Member of the Advisory board

PhD. van Beek is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Laboratory of Medical Immunology Radboud UMC focusing on pneumococcal infections and pneumococcal vaccine development. PhD. van Beek has collaborated with Abera for many years in the vaccine development program.

Jan-Willem de Gier

Member of the Advisory board

Prof. de Gier is group leader at the Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysics of Stockholm University. His work focuses on the engineering of bacteria for recombinant protein production. Prof. de Gier co-founded the successful biotech company Xbrane Biopharma.

Samuel Wagner

Member of the Advisory board

Prof. dr. Wagner is Professor of Infection Biology and Head of the Section of Cellular and Molecular Microbiology of the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany. He specializes in protein export pathways in pathogenic bacteria. Prof. dr. Wagner is a co-founder of Xbrane Biopharma.

hexa-03

Career

We are continuously looking for talented people to join our journey. Do you have experience in our field, feel free to send us an open application to info@aberabio.com

We are looking for:

  • Process development expert
  • Vaccinologist
  • Immuno-oncology project manager