Team

President & CEO, Evestra Onkologia Dr. Shaked has extensive managerial and pharmaceutical product development experience in commercializing biologics and conventional drugs. Before founding Evestra, he was President and CEO of Spherics, Inc. Prior to Spherics, Dr. Shaked was President of ILEX Products, Inc. and Chief Operating Officer of ILEX Oncology, Inc. where he helped to reshape the product pipeline by in licensing drug candidates and led the R&D department.. Dr. Shaked has held a number of senior R&D and corporate management positions at ImmuLogic Pharmaceutical Corp., Berlex Biosciences, Inc., Triton Biosciences, Inc., CODON Corp. and Chiron Corp. He obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and Applied Biochemistry from MIT.

Director of Projects, Member of the Board. For three years Dr. Wierzbicki worked in the Bio-Tech Consulting field, where he was responsible for the substantive part of the portal biotechnologia.pl and biotechnology market analyses. Next, for three years, he was associated with the EIT + where he coordinated the intellectual property protection in the Life Science Research Department and finally served as the director of the Biotechnology Department involved in the scouting for new projects related to medical devices, diagnostics, new drugs and delivery systems in the CNS, autoimmune diseases, cancer, metabolic, endocrine and cardiac diseases-  including R&D and infrastructural projects. From 2014, Dr. Wierzbicki was the R&D projects coordinator in Nickel Technology Park Poznań, responsible for building liaisons with the academic community, scouting for new translational pharmaceutical and biotechnological projects including assessment, fund raising and execution, and in project management. He then moved into life sciences commercialization and held a position of Head of Technology Transfer in BTM Innovations Company. He became Director of Project of Evestra Onkologia company and continues to provide leadership to the company. Dr. Wierzbicki received his Ph.D. in Immunology at the Medical University of Łódź.

Research Management Coordinator. Dr. Błaszczak-Świątkiewicz has been targeting a highly specific anticancer strategy, which is the starting point for new chemicals of potential cytotoxic properties. Her area of interest is hypoxia environment of the tumor cells as the target of action of her proprietary compounds with potential bioreductive activity. The result of completed plans are quinazoline and benzimidazole derivatives with a specific cytotoxic activity whose structure and activity are covered by patents. Another area of interest are radiopharmaceuticals. Dr. Błaszczak-Świątkiewicz led the development of potential ligands for complexation with technetium in order to obtain the new radiopharmaceuticals for imaging the organ function, especially the brain. The result of this research are the compounds, which due to their lipophilic and complexing properties served as ligands for radiopharmaceuticals in the research conducted at the Centre for Nuclear Research POLATOM Otwock-Świerk Poland. Another scientific area of her interest are effects of chemotherapeutic agents on various biochemical pathways which occur in cancer cells (reduction of re-resistance which accompanies the cancer therapy and to increase the cytotoxic potency through its impact on the individual, specific biochemical pathways in the selected anticancer strategy). In Evestra Onkologia  Evestra Onkologia she is involved in SPRMs development and has been planning, executing and reporting research agenda for NCE for endometriosis.  She has been involved in mechanistic studies, tox and safety studies as well as formulation development.

At Evestra Onkologia Dr. Mnich is involved in research management. Ewelina has broad expertise in genetic engineering – protein expression in wide variety of protein expression systems (prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms) and six years of experience in various molecular biology techniques. She obtained training in organic chemistry and pharmaceutical technology. She received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology at University of Copenhagen.

Dr. Skrok manages ongoing finances at Evestra Onkologia. Recently, Dr. Skrok has supported technology transfer as employee and/or coworker at the Center for Emerging Technologies in Europe (CETE),  The Institute of Computer Science (Polish Academy of Sciences), The Institute of Higher Pressure Physics (Polish Academy of Sciences) and BTM Innovations (administrator of Mazovia BioTechMed Cluster). Dr. Skrok is a graduate and employee of Warsaw School of Economics, and currently at the Department of Business Economics. For several years, he has been teaching economics and conducting research on innovation and sports economics. He also cooperates with The Sobieski Institute, a think-tank, utilizing his experience blend to design policy proposals for innovation and higher education. Previously, Dr. Skrok was also an analyst at the Institute for Structural Research (an economic think-tank) and expert at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, where his work focused on quantitative and strategic analyses. His expertise are in assessing the impact of regulations, funding of higher education, and EU funding.

Dr. Elger has an international reputation as a thought leader in endocrinology, contraceptives, endometriosis and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). He provided leadership to the Schering AG teams that developed its female health care products such as Jasmine, Angelique, Lilopristone, Onapristone, Cyclodiol, Cyclotriol and Cyproterone acetate. Dr. Elger led all research activities including the collaboration with Takeda-Abbott (TAP) in the development of SPRM/Mesoprogestins and other products. He obtained his M.D. at the University of Munster, where he graduated summa cum laude, and his thesis was in the area of anti-androgens. He was a lecturer at the Free University Berlin, Schering representative to the World Health Organization (WHO) task forces in the area of prostaglandins and anti-progestins and visiting scientist in a number of academic institutions including the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Dr. Elger received the Schoeller-Junkman award, which is the highest award of the German Endocrine Society.

Dr. Oettel obtained a Ph.D. in Veterinary Parmacology at Leipzig University in Saxony, Germany in 1964. Co-inventor of the progestin, Dienogest, his background includes more than forty years of work in the field of pharmacological management of reproductive functions in domestic animals and humans at organizations such as University Leipzig G.D.R., Academy of Sciences Jena G.D.R./Germany, Jenapharm, Schering AG/Berlin and the Human Reproduction Program of the WHO in Basle-Switzerland. Honors include the National Award for Science and Technology of the GDR and the Prix Casenne 10th Congress of European Association of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (1995, Monaco). He has co-authored 11 scientific textbooks and is editor of the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology: Estrogens and Antiestrogens (Springer-Verlag, 1999). He is currently a member of the Governing Board of Naari-AG, a pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, the Scientific Board of Gynecura-Förderverein Frauengesundheit in Leipzig and the Leibniz-Sozietät. He is a founding member of the Research Center for Medical Engineering and Biotechnology and the Juratorium Innoven e.V., Jena.

Dr. Zentel started his career in the pharmaceutical industry at Schering AG research where he lead a compound finding program. He moved through CMC coordination to global project management, where he served in managerial PMO roles and as program leader in global development teams at Schering AG, Bayer Healthcare and Tillotts Pharma. During his assignments as program leader, Dr. Zentel gathered extensive experience at all development stages, various technologies and a wide range of indications (including endometriosis, uterine fibroids, long term contraception). Since 2008, Dr. Zentel focusses on early stage development, from compound selection to PoC, including USP identification, program implementation and execution.
Dr. Zentel studied biology and physics in Mainz, Seattle and Chapel Hill andfinished his academic education with a PhD in Biology at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz. In Evestra Onkologia Dr. Zentel holds a position of Clinical Pharmacologis