Citryll’s team consists of seasoned scientists and pharmaceutical professionals experienced in the discovery and development of first in class medicines with a new mechanism of action like CIT-013
Eric Meldrum, Ph.D.
Interim CEO and CSO
Eric Meldrum, Ph.D.
CSO
Eric Meldrum has 12 years of drug discovery experience at GSK in Switzerland and the UK. Until 2005 he was head of the Asthma and Rhinitis Disease Biology Department responsible for drug development up to Phase 2 proof of concept. Since then, Eric has been active as CSO in several biotech companies and brings Citryll a depth of experience in translational approaches to prioritise therapeutic opportunities and the strategic considerations behind successfully enhancing asset value and progression to clinical proof of concept. He was most recently CSO at ENYO Pharma, a French biotech currently in Phase 2 in Chronic Hepatitis B and NASH. Eric is responsible for the overall preclinical and clinical scientific and therapeutic strategy and to develop partnerships with pharma.
Patrick Round graduated as a physician from Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in 1982. He has 30 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry starting at Novo Nordisk and Glaxo Wellcome; was Chief Medical Officer at Celltech, Cambridge Antibody Technology and Xention.
Over the past 12 years he has taken the role of Chief Medical Officer at a number of biotech start-up companies across a wide range of therapeutic areas including BVG portfolio companies Dezima and NorthSea Therapeutics. He is currently also consulting for Staten Biotechnology.
Renato Chirivi is co-founder of Citryll and previously CSO. He has been central, with CEO Helmuth van Es in bringing Citryll to its current clinical develpment status. He is the co-inventor of therapeutic anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (tACPA), antagonists of NET biology, and an expert on antibody discovery, engineering, production, and protein citrullination. He has numerous years of experience in cancer, neurobiology and molecular immunology which he gained at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Italy, The Scripps research institute in California, USA, the Nijmegen Center for Molecular Life Sciences, and ModiQuest BV, the Netherlands. Renato is responsible for technology development, MoA programme of Citryll's NET antagonist, intellectual property and specific therapeutic areas.
Sjoerd van Gorp has 12 years of experience in the life sciences and healthcare sector in various roles within translational academic research, investment banking and venture capital. Most recently Sjoerd was Senior Investment Manager at BOM Brabant Ventures where he was instrumental in fundraising and strategic support of numerous early-stage life sciences companies. Prior to joining BOM, Sjoerd gained experience as an equity analyst at Kempen & Co, a life sciences investment bank in the Netherlands, where he covered public European biotech and medtech companies and was involved in capital market transactions.
In addition, he has worked on translational academic research projects at the Image Sciences Institute at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands and Yale University, USA. Sjoerd will bring a complementary set of skills to the management team that will enable Citryll to assess additional strategic options to unlock the full potential of CIT-013 and enable treatment for a growing list of diseases that are associated with Neutrophil Extracellular Trap (NET) biology.
Marlon is founding partner of F.institute, a full service finance boutique dedicated to companies in the life sciences sector. Having more than 25 years of experience in financial management from large enterprises to venture funds and small technology companies, he acts as part time CFO for Citryll.
Next to Citryll, Marlon is also CFO of other leading life science ventures. He provides critical support in raising capital investments and delivering high quality information to all stakeholders.
Since 2013 Leonie is working as an independent Clinical Research Executive for (academic) hospitals (Amsterdam UMC, Dutch Cancer Institute, UMC Utrecht, Radboud University) and biopharmaceutical companies (Roche, Enceladus, Arthrogen, Audion). Before being self-employed she headed the Clinical Operations Department at Roche Pharmaceuticals. She has > 20 years experience in biopharmaceutical research covering phase I-IV trials (industry and academically driven), in a wide variety of disease categories.
Leonie was board member of the Dutch Association of Pharmaceutical Medicine from 2012-2018 and member of several task forces within the Dutch Clinical Research Foundation.
Peter has over twenty years’ experience in working in the R&D of the international pharmaceutical companies MSD/Organon, Khondrion and Aduro Biotech Europe, The Netherlands. At Aduro, a company advancing novel antibody therapies for immune-oncology Peter served as the Bioanalytical Lead and contributed extensively in the development of two clinical and one pre-clinical stage antibodies APRIL (BION-1301), CTLA-4 (ADU-1604) and SIRP (ADU-1805), respectively.
Peter’s contribution at Khondrion in the development of unique live-cell imaging patient derived bioassays led to the selection of clinical candidate KH176 (Sonlicromanol), which was granted an orphan drug designation by EMA/FDA and entered Phase IIb KHENERGYZE study to treat a range of mitochondrial diseases. At MSD/Organon, where he headed the cell-based bioanalytical group, he gained a lot of expertise in the performance of bioanalysis of samples from (pre)clinical trials up to Phase III with investigational biological pharmaceuticals in compliance to GLP, which resulted in the launch of Elonva®.
Prior to joining MSD/Organon, Peter worked at the Wageningen University Research Centre and at the Department of Human Genetics at the Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen, respectively. At Nijmegen he contributed substantially to the founding of the Nijmegen DNA diagnostic services.
Maarten performed his Ph.D. research at the University Medical Center Utrecht (The Netherlands), Laboratory of Translational Immunology under supervision of Professor Linde Meyaard, working on immune regulation in autoimmune diseases with the focus on inhibitory receptors and NETosis.
Maarten is responsible for further unravelling the mechanism of action (MoA) of Citryll’s antibody drug candidate, the incorporation of new MoA insight into the drug development plan and identifying new therapeutic applications for tACPA.
Sangeeta got her PhD from NCCS, Pune (India) where she studied host pathogen interactions. She moved to Finland for her postdoc where she joined Prof. Sirpa Jalkanen lab in Turku University and studied the role of Stabilin-1 molecule in Acute myeloid leukemia. Continuing her research in the Netherlands, she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Jeanette Leusen at the UMC Utrecht, where she developed expertise in antibody related work. She has a keen interest to pursue her career in the development of therapeutic antibodies and joined the Citryll team in October 2019. She is part of the mechanism of action team (MoA) which is focused on unravelling the working mechanism of Citryll’s lead antibody drug candidate CIT-013 and identifying its new therapeutic strategies applications.
Rezie has worked for >25 years in the pharmaceutical industry (Organon, MSD, Aspen) and has a wide experience in protein purifications and different analytical techniques, including 10 years in ELISA assay development & troubleshooting.
At Citryll she joined the bioanalytics team responsible for the development and qualification of CMC, PK and biomarker assays that will support the clinical trials.
Annemarie has obtained her MSc degree in Biology from Wageningen University, after which she started working in biomedical research. She has gained experience in molecular biology, viral vector mediated gene therapy and developing conjugated antibodies for nuclear medicine.
Her great interest in antibody biology made her join Citryll in June 2021. Annemarie participates in both the mechanism of action (MoA) team and the bioanalytics team, studying the working mechanism of CIT-013 is and developing assays required to support the clinical trials.
Stephanie obtained her Ph.D. degree at the department of Experimental Rheumatology, part of the Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences of the Radboud university medical center in Nijmegen. She studied the inhibition of synovitis, the driving force of osteoarthritis, either via neutralization of single inflammatory mediators or via application of versatile adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs) which broadly reduce synovial inflammation. She investigated the working mechanism of ASCs in experimental osteoarthritis, and clarified the close interaction of ASCs with neutrophils.
At Citryll, Stephanie focuses on elucidating the mechanism of action and the identification of new therapeutic applications for CIT-013.
Daphne graduated her Ph.D. at the University of Groningen under the supervision of prof. Anna Salvati. During her Ph.D project, she studied the endocytic mechanisms by which cell internalize nanoparticles using a genome-wide forward genetic screening method. She has a great interest in innate immunology and joined Citryll in January 2021. Here, she works within the Mechanism of Action team to provide insight on the working mechanism of CIT-013 and to investigate potential new therapeutic areas.
Tirza recently got her bachelor’s degree Biology and Medical Research at the Avans University. During a previously completed education clinical chemistry and hematology and various internships she has gained experience in molecular biology, protein chemistry, cell biology and assay development. Here at Citryll she is participating in both the mechanism of action (MoA) team where the working mechanism of CIT-013 is studied, and the bioanalytics team where assays are developed to support the clinical trials.
