About SAGA Diagnostics
SAGA Diagnostics AB is a personalized cancer diagnostics and disease monitoring company focused on molecular genetic analyses of a powerful cancer biomarker: circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). The company was founded in 2016 as a spin-out from a highly successful research group at Lund University, with a mission to improve precision cancer medicine, provide more accurate treatment monitoring, and improve patient survival using minimally-invasive liquid biopsy cancer testing services and kits.
The SAGA team consists of renowned scientists, highly qualified staff and an experienced management team who work together to launch SAGA’s ultrasensitive services and products as part of the ongoing revolution in cancer research, drug development, and clinical diagnostics. SAGA’s proprietary tests can help patients, oncologists, and drug developers detect actionable mutations, stratify patient groups, and monitor treatment response, residual disease, and disease recurrence at an unprecedented sensitivity.
The Team
Peter Collins
Peter is a highly experienced entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in the pharma and diagnostics sector. Prior to taking the reins at SAGA, he had successful executive roles at major players in the liquid biopsy field such as Inivata as Chief Business Officer and at Guardant Health as VP Biopharma Business Development, and CBO of Yourgene. Peter was also VP, Head of Diagnostics at GSK for 5 years. Throughout his various executive positions, he has demonstrated a track record of building high performance teams and leading organizations’ commercial growth.
Anthony George, MSc
Anthony graduated cum laude with a BSc in computer science and engineering from the University of Toledo, Ohio, in 2005 and earned a Master of Science in molecular biology and genetics at Lund University, Sweden, with a thesis entitled “Targeted High-Throughput Deep-Sequencing of Cancer Associated Genes and SNP Array Analysis of Human Breast Cancer”. He is co-inventor of the SAGAsafe® technology.
Annina Hube, PhD MBA
Annina has been working with cancer diagnostics since 2011, with companies such as Abcam, Vela Diagnostics, and NEO New Oncology GmbH, in roles from marketing, communications, supply chain, and project management. She has a PhD from University of Bremen and MBA from FOM Hochschule.
Karolina Holm, PhD
Karolina graduated in 2011 with a PhD in experimental oncology from Lund University, Sweden, studying the genetic and epigenetic characterization of breast cancer. She has extensive clinical diagnostics laboratory and regulatory experience from performing NGS mutational analyses for breast and lung carcinoma and malignant melanoma, as well as screening for BRCA1/2 hereditary cancer mutations.
Jenny Williams
Jenny is an experienced executive and human resources assistant, previously holding such positions at Svar Life Science AB from 2019-2022 and Diaverum AB from 2013-2018. Prior to that, she also worked in coordination, controller, and office manager roles at companies such as IMP Nordic AB, Ericsson Mobile Platforms AB, and NationsBank.
Miguel Alcaide, PhD
Miguel is an accomplished scientist in molecular diagnostics. Following his genetics PhD from the University of Seville, he had post-doctoral experiences at Harvard University, University of British Columbia, and at Simon Fraser University where as a research associate he developed in-depth expertise in cancer liquid biopsy assay development. Miguel strengthens the R&D unit with emphasis on development of new dPCR diagnostics.
Nuria Seguí, PhD
Nuria is an expert in the development of new NGS products. She earned her PhD in hereditary cancer at the Catalan Institute of Oncology-Idibell, and had a three-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge in NGS-based cancer molecular diagnostics. Prior to joining SAGA's R&D unit with a strong focus on NGS product development, she was a product development scientist at Aniling working on genomic and epigenomic analyses.
Yilun “Alan” Chen, PhD
Alan has been working with advanced genomic methods to analyze human cancers since 2010, and earned his Master of Science in Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology from Lund University, Sweden, in 2012. He is the Senior Laboratory Analyst at SAGA, an expert in the analytical and laboratory methods for measuring circulating tumor DNA using SAGAsafe® and SAGAsign® methods, as well as a developer of new diagnostic products.
Sofia Birkeälv, PhD
Sofia earned her PhD degree at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Cambridge, studying the "Genetic alterations defining human primary melanoma and mechanisms of immune evasion." She has solid knowledge of next-generation sequencing application design, bioinformatics, as well as industrial experience from both AstraZeneca and BioInvent. At SAGA, Sofia is a key member of the R&D team with focus on NGS-based diagnostics.
Lucia Oton, PhD
Lucia earned her PhD in biomedical sciences and biotechnology at the University of Ferrara, Italy, studying oncogenic viruses, in particular human papillomaviruses (HPV), and their involvement in head and neck cancers, as well as diagnostic and prognostic biomarker research using dPCR. She also had cancer research experiences at the University Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland, and the Hackensack University Medical Center, USA. Lucia is a key member of SAGA's R&D team with a focus on dPCR.
Robert Rigo, MSc MSc
Robert has a background in molecular biology and computer science, with a Master in Molecular Biology from Uppsala University in 1995 as well as a Master in Bioinformatics from Lund University, Sweden, in 2015, and has had industry positions at Sony Ericsson and Pharmacy & Upjohn, among others. At SAGA, Robert is a Senior Programmer developing software systems supporting the ultrasensitive measurement of mutations.
Sergii Gladchuk, MSc
Sergii obtained an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and earned his MSc in Bioinformatics from Lund University, Sweden, in 2018. He has extensive experience in the bioinformatics processing and analysis of NGS DNA and RNA data, and application of advanced methods such as machine learning and neural networks. He is a Bioinformatician at SAGA, supporting infrastructure and developing new molecular classifiers.
Patricia Saxenborn, MSc
Patricia graduated from the University of Skövde in 2018 with a Master of Science in Systems Biology with focus on tumor biology. She was an instructor and laboratory engineer at the University, and previously worked at Unilabs in the clinical chemistry workflows. At SAGA, she analyzes tissues and blood samples with our advanced ultrasensitive methods for our collaborators and internal R&D.
Cecilia Forsberg, MSc
Cecilia has a MSc in Molecular Biology from Lund University and is an experienced research engineer with deep knowledge of cancer genetics analyses, most recently at the BRCA-laboratory in Lund. Previously, she worked in the life science industry at Alligator BioScience and Active Biotech. At SAGA, "Cilla" applies our ultrasensitive methods to analyze clinical samples for biopharma and internal R&D.
Cecilia Wahlström, BSc
Cecilia has a BSc in Biomedical Laboratory Science from Malmö University and is deeply experienced with NGS-based tumor profiling, most recently at the Center for Translational Genomics facility in Lund. Previously, she worked at the Department of Oncology and Department of Laboratory Medicine at Skåne University Hospital. At SAGA, "Cissi" applies our ultrasensitive methods for partners and internal R&D.
The Board
Greg Batcheller, JD, LLM
Greg brings a strong track record from his previous positions in the life science industry as a executive decision maker, company founder, and commercial lawyer. He was part of the leadership teams in DuoCort, AcuCort, and Laccure, and was Chairman of Monocl, Abliva, and Guard Therapeutics. He is currently involved with a number of companies including Xintela, ImmuneBiotech, CarryGenes, Lundoch Diagnostics, and Immodulate. Greg is an accomplished dealmaker and has successfully negotiated many international licensing and M&A deals in Europe, the U.S., and China. Greg holds a JD from University of Toronto and a LLM from Lund University, Sweden.
Roopom Banerjee, MPP
Roopom has 25 years of experience in corporate strategy, investment banking, private equity, company formation and operating leadership. He is currently the Managing Partner of WhiteLeaf Advisors, Strategic Advisor to Bain Capital, and Operating Partner at CRG Investments. Previously, he was President and CEO of Raindance Technologies, which pioneered the first clinical tests based on digital PCR, as well as a Director of Investment Banking at Leerink Swann, and a consultant at McKinsey. He holds degrees from MIT and Harvard.
Walter Stockinger, PhD
Walter is a seasoned healthcare investor and Managing Partner at Hadean Ventures, a Nordic venture firm specializing in the life sciences. He has previous experience in strategy consulting at Boston Consulting Group, and in VC since 2009 at the London office of one of the largest healthcare VC firms. Walter also has basic research background, with Master’s and PhD in biochemistry from the University of Vienna, and five years postdoc fellowship at Harvard University with publications in Cell and EMBO.
Rolf Ehrnström, MSc
Rolf is a seasoned executive in the life sciences. He is owner of Reomics AB, partner at Ventac Partners, and Chief Scientific Officer at Immunovia AB and currently serves on the board of directors for Reomics AB, Gradienttech AB, Scandinavian Chemotech AB, and Fluimedix A/S. He has a track record of leading R&D organizations and was Vice President R&D and CSO at Dako/Agilent as well as at Gyros AB. Mr. Ehrnström also has experience as Science Director at Amersham Bioscience and Pharmacia Biotech. He holds an MSc in biochemistry and biotechnology engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Ernst Westman, MSc
Ernst has a strong track record in managing and leading a diagnostic company and was CEO of Boule Diagnostics AB between 1994 and 2017. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Capitainer AB, HiloProbe AB and Zalvac AB, and Board member of Astrego Diagnostics AB. He holds an MSc in chemistry from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.
Lao Saal, MD PhD
A childhood cancer survivor himself, Lao is passionate about improving cancer diagnosis and treatment. Lao trained at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, where he received MD and PhD degrees, with distinction, in 2008. After clinical postdoctoral research at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Lao established an independent research group at Lund University, Sweden. Since then, as a Berta Kamprad Associate Professor and Head of the Translational Oncogenomics Unit, he has led an award-winning team spearheading research in circulating tumor DNA, mutational analyses of cancer, and RNA-sequencing. He has published more than 60 articles in leading journals such as Nature Genetics, Science, and PNAS, which have been cited more than 10,000 times. This research forms the basis of SAGA Diagnostics.
Christine Widstrand, PhD
Christine has over 15 years of experience in research and development and holds a PhD in Analytical Chemistry. She has been the co-founder of several companies in the life science field, including founding and serving as CEO of MIP Technologies (2000-2009), and has been a board member of a dozen start-ups. After serving as the Executive Vice President of LU Holding AB from 2014-2021, now Christine is the CEO and has the overall responsibility for the development of their 60 portfolio companies.
Anthony George, MSc
Anthony graduated cum laude with a BSc in computer science and engineering from the University of Toledo, Ohio, in 2005 and earned a Master of Science in molecular biology and genetics at Lund University, Sweden, with a thesis entitled “Targeted High-Throughput Deep-Sequencing of Cancer Associated Genes and SNP Array Analysis of Human Breast Cancer”. He is co-inventor of the SAGAsafe® technology.
Our Advisors
Anne-Lise Borresen-Dale, PhD
Anne-Lise is world-renown cancer researcher, emeritus Head of the Department of Genetics at the Norwegian Radium Hospital in Oslo, Norway, and former President of the European Association for Cancer Research. She is truly a pioneer in the field of cancer genomics and application of high-throughput methods and has authored over 400 publications and won numerous awards including the 2015 Distinguished Lectureship in Breast Cancer from the American Association for Cancer Research.
Niklas Loman, MD PhD
Niklas is a highly experienced Clinical Oncologist and Senior Attending Physician at the Department of Oncology, Skåne University Hospital, and served as Head of Section for Breast Cancer, CNS, and Melanoma, and Clinical Head of Diagnosis for Breast Cancer for Region Skåne (1,100 new diagnoses/year). He earned his PhD in 2003 from Lund University, Sweden, and has published over 50 articles on cancer genetics, with major contributions in the area of hereditary cancer and clinical trials.
Maria Fe Paz, MD PhD MBA
Maria has over 15 years of technical, entrepreneurial, and leadership experience in molecular diagnostics and precision medicine. She is President and CMO of Inflection Point Biomedical Advisors, General Partner of Article25 Capital, and the former CMO for Rosetta Genomics. For more than 5 years, she also was founder and president of Labceutics and CMO for The Diaceutics Group.
Florian Eckhardt, PhD MBA
Florian is seasoned executive in medical diagnostics, since 2003 having worked in senior management and BD roles at companies such as Epigenomics AG, and ThermoFisher Scientific, as well as being the CEO of DST Diagnostische Systeme und Technologien GmbH from 2013-2018. He is also a senior investment director at Hadean Ventures, and previously was an investment manager at Inventages.
Careers
When we are hiring all positions will be listed below.
We also welcome unsolicited applications to [email protected].