Board of Directors

Ajit Shetty
Chairman, Independent Director

Ajit Shetty has a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (UK) and a MBA from Carnegie-Mellon University (USA).

He started his career in 1976 at Janssen Pharmaceutica (Belgium) in the business development area. He was instrumental in developing Janssen into a worldwide multinational within Johnson & Johnson, the largest healthcare company in the world. He served as President of Janssen USA from 1986 to 1990. After various roles in general management, he became Chairman of Janssen Belgium in 1998 until 2012. He also served in the Global Operating Committee of Johnson & Johnson.

He is Chairman of the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology (VIB) and is a member of the Board of Directors of various pharmaceutical companies in Belgium, USA and China. He is also a Trustee of Carnegie-Mellon University (USA).

In 2004 he was elected “Manager of the Year” in Flanders.

Patricia van Dijck
Independent Director

Patricia van Dijck has a degree in medicine and a specialization in clinical biology and pharmaceutical medicine from the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL).

She began her career in the pharmaceutical industry in 1996 as an International Medical Advisor at UCB. In 1998, she became Medical Director at Lundbeck, before being appointed to the position of Managing Director in 2007. In 2011, Ms. van Dijck joined Novartis Belux as Head of Market Access & Public Affairs, before joining the mother company in Basel in 2014, in order to assume the position of Head Patient Access Excellence. Three years later, she became Project Lead of an IMI project of European private-public partnership in hemato-oncology, in Milan. Since 2018, she has worked for GSK Belux as a Market Access & Public Affairs Director.

Throughout her career in the pharmaceutical industry, Patricia van Dijck has developed a solid experience in the different life cycle areas of a drug.

Erik Van Den Eynden
Independent Director

Erik Van Den Eynden has more than 30 years’ experience in banking. After joining ING (formerly BBL) in 1990, he held various commercial and management positions throughout the bank, including director of a branch district, CEO of ING Insurance Belgium, Luxembourg & Variable Annuities Europe, head of MidCorporates and Institutionals at ING in Belgium and most recently CEO of ING in Belgium from 2017 to 2020.

He holds a degree in economics from the University of Antwerp

Liesbeth Weynants
Independent Director

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An Cloet
Independent Director

François Fornieri
Non-Executive Director

Mr Fornieri has over 25 years of pharmaceutical experience with a strong focus on women’s health.He obtained a degree in Chemistry and is the founder and CEO of the Company.

François previously worked for Bayer-Schering and was also a co-founder of Uteron Pharma, which was sold to Watson/Actavis (NYSE: ACT) early 2013.

François has been elected the French speaking “2011 Manager of the year” by the Belgian business magazine Trends/Tendances.

Valérie Gordenne
Non-Executive Director

Gaëtan Servais
Non-Executive Director

Gaetan-Servais

Mr Servais holds a Master Degree in Economics at the University of Liège.

He started his career as Research Assistant at the University of Liège.

In 1995, Gaëtan joined the Federal Planning Bureau as Expert and later the Economic and Social Council of the Walloon Region. Since 2001, he was chief of staff for several ministers of the Walloon Government.

Since 2007 he has been CEO of Meusinvest, a financial company that has structured its activity in different subsidiaries to better respond to business financing needs of small and medium enterprises (SME) located in the province of Liège.

Amel Tounsi
Non-Executive Director

Jean-Michel Foidart
Executive Director

Prof Jean-Michel Foidart co-founded Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA and Uteron Pharma SA.

Through his membership of international research centers, his academic and industry career, he has extensive knowledge of reproductive medicine.

He trained in Gynecology at the University of Liège where he also obtained a PhD in cell biology and biochemistry. He was the former head of the Gynecology and Obstetrics department at the University of Liège, the general secretary of the European Society of Gynaecology (ESG) and member of multiple editorial boards of international peer-reviewed journals.

Prof Foidart was awarded the Bologne-Lemaire Prize from Institut Destrée (Walloon of the year) in 2011.

Executive Management

Leon Van Rompay

Chief Executive Officer

Leon Van Rompay has more than 40 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical market. During his professional career he served in several positions including country & area manager (covering major territories) and board member of the Zambon Group. He was founder and CEO of Docpharma, a Belgian based generics company that was listed on Euronext and served on different boards including Ecodis and Uteron Pharmaceuticals.

He was a founding member of BIGE/IBES (Belgian Institute for Health and Economics), the B.G.A. (Belgian Generic Association), BAPIE (Belgian Association of Parallel Import and Export) and was an executive committee member and board member of the Belgian Pharmaceutical Industry Association. He also was a member of the pharmaceutical deontological commission and responsible for this commission in the industry association executive committee.

Mr Christophe Maréchal was Director, Group Treasury and Credit Risk Management, at Hamon Group (Euronext Brussels: HAMO), an engineering and contracting company. He has more than 20 years of international financial experience in the industrial, telecommunications, manufacturing and banking industries, including M&A, operational and financial strategy, and tactical initiatives to drive long-term business growth.

Before joining Hamon Group in 2006, Mr Maréchal held a number of positions at France Telecom Group in Paris, London and Brussels, including Deputy Group Treasurer. He holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Liège, Belgium, and studied econometrics at the Katholieke Universiteit Brabant, Tilburg, Netherlands.

Christophe Maréchal

Chief Financial Officer

Graham Dixon

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr Graham Dixon has a 27 year international career in the pharmaceutical industry, with a strong track record in R&D across many therapeutic areas. He also has solid leadership experience having worked across a number of R&D management positions at AstraZeneca plc and in C-level management positions in several biotech companies: Entomed SA; Galapagos NV (AMS:GLPG); Addex Therapeutics SA (SWX:ADXN); Sensorion SA (EPA:ALSEN) and Onxeo SA (EPA:ONXEO).

Dr Dixon has also held leadership roles in successful programmes spanning the whole continuum of R&D, including clinical proof-of-concepts and regulatory approvals. On the business side, he has held executive roles in two successful IPOs (Galapagos & Sensorion) and 10 clinical stage licensing deals.

He has also held several non-executive director positions in the biotech sector and acted as an advisor to several venture capital organisations and their portfolio companies.

Dr Dixon obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Bradford, UK and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Swansea, UK.

Prof Jean-Michel Foidart co-founded Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA and Uteron Pharma SA.

Through his membership of international research centers, his academic and industry career, he has extensive knowledge of reproductive medicine.

Prof Foidart was awarded the Bologne-Lemaire Prize from Institut Destrée (Walloon of the year) in 2011.

Jean-Michel Foidart

President of the Scientific advisory board

Jean-Manuel Fontaine

Chief Business Officer

Mr Fontaine has over 18 years of experience in the pharma industry in manufacturing, supply chain and commercial positions.

He started his career at Pfizer in supply chain and manufacturing where he ensured ERP implementation and integration of Pfizer’s Belgium manufacturing site. In 2001 he joined Lundbeck where he held various positions in sales & marketing in Belgium and France, notably for Cipralex^® product. In 2010, Jean-Manuel joined UCB global marketing team as associate director developing global campaign for the brand and driving business alignment across EU regions.

In 2013, Jean-Manuel joined Mithra to lead successively business development and public relations.

Jean-Manuel holds a Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences and MBA from Cornell University.

M. Brands holds a bachelor’s degree from the university of Liège ( Belgium) in Public Health with a major in Epidemiology and Health Economics and has over 10 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. His area of expertise covers Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance and Supply Chain.

M. Brands started his career at Astra Zeneca in a commercial role and joined Mithra in 2009 to take growing responsibilities in the Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs department. After developing the Quality Assurance activity at Mithra as QA Manager he progressively transitioned to Supply Chain Manager to develop the whole Supply activities and manage the growing logistic and supply streams.

His deep knowledge of the logistical organisation within the company together with his sound experience in establishing and developing the Supply Chain activity allows M. Brands to take the role as Chief Supply Chain Officer at Mithra. In this position M. Brands will address the Mithra CDMO logistic and supply development , which is key to the company’s growth.

Benjamin Brands

Chief Supply Chain Officer

Benoît Mathieu

Group Investor Relations Manager

With over 8 years of experience in investor relations for Belgian international groups active in the insurance and real estate sectors, Benoît Mathieu brings together expertise in mergers and acquisitions, operational strategy, financial communication and capital raising.

After a Master in Management with a specialization in finance from HEC Liège, he started his career at BNP Paribas Fortis. In 2010 he joined Deloitte Luxembourg as International Tax Consultant in the M&A sector. Since 2013, he has been working as investor relations at Ageas (Euronext Brussels: AGS) and Cofinimmo (Euronext Brussels: COFB) before joining Mithra.

Board of Directors