About us

Pharma Holdings AS

Pharma Holdings AS develops novel drugs for treatment of microbial infections (including multi-resistant microbes, and difficult-to-treat microbes). The Company was founded in 2017 as a spin-off of Lytix Biopharma, which was established in 2003 to commercialize world-class research in the field of lytic peptides. The technology was founded by scientists working at the University of Tromsø and University Hospital of Tromsø, Norway.

Strengths of Pharma Holdings position:

  • Large market, large unmet need, with increasing opportunities
  • World-class science
  • Diversity of indications
  • Potential for new opportunities beyond the initial indications (e.g. through reformulation and new administration routes)
  • Multi-level partnering opportunities

Pharma Holdings Management

Pharma Holdings is a small and cost-effective company without its own laboratories or research facilities, using a network of high-quality contract research organizations and contract manufacturing organizations. The company has experienced advisors in all critical functions such as product development, regulatory affairs, design and execution of clinical trials. Agir AS is retained for administration and project management.

Christian Lütken, CEO

Christian Lütken holds an MD from the University of Oslo and has several
years of experience in the fields of pediatrics, family medicine, emergency medicine and occupational medicine. He has management experience as previous Head of Department in a private healthcare company. In recent years Christian has been working in DNB’s Global Healthcare team financing healthcare companies globally, and also working closely with the Norwegian healthcare startup scene comprising all subsegments of the healthcare industry including med.tech, pharma, bio tech, digital health and healthcare services.

christian.lutken(at)pharmaholdings.no
Christian is located in Oslo, Norway

Torsteinn Erlingsson, CFO

Mr. Erlingsson has been with Pharma Holdings AS since 2018. He holds a
Master Science degree in Fishery Science from UiT, the Arctic University of Norway. He has more than 25 years of experience from corporate finance and business development. In his tenure in corporate finance Erlingsson worked on several biotech transactions, and in Pharma Holdings Mr. Erlingsson has secured equity financing for the relaunch of the development of our lead drug candidate.

torsteinn.erlingsson(at)pharmaholdings.no
Torsteinn is located in Tromsø, Norway

Edvard Christian Fuglset Dahl

Edvard Christian Fuglset Dahl, CBDO

Mr Dahl has a bachelor in food&dairy technology, and have more than 25 years’ experience from health care industry, including pharma, medical devices and diagnostics, in different roles comprising sales, marketing and business development. His track record includes inter alia establishing a pharmaceutical company in Norway, and having scaled a digital diagnostic company internationally. Further, he has documented results in establishing distributor networks, distributor contracts, both exclusive and non-exclusive and has track record from merger & acquisitions – from screening fase, negotiations and final take over. His last position in Inven2 included working with health care startups, accelerating their commercial potential and contributing in key processes such as finding potential licensing partners.

edvard.dahl(at)pharmaholdings.no
Edvard is located in Oslo, Norway

Niklas Hammarstedt

Niklas Hammarstedt, CQO

Mr. Hammarstedt has a M.Sc. in chemistry, chemical and pharmaceutical engineering from KTH, the royal institute of technology in Stockholm Sweden.
He has more than 10 years of experience from working within the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries specifically in roles within Quality Control, production management, project management and Quality Assurance.
The majority of his experience was gathered working at Octapharma AB starting in QC, then as Head of Production Documentation managing master batch records, batch record review and company SOPs, and finally working in QA. In his last position, as CQO at Atlas Antibodies AB, Niklas has been focusing on defining and building quality routines into a company-wide quality management system, from a compliance and sustainability perspective, combined with adapting best practices. Process compliance and efficiency together with supportive system implementation, integration and optimization were key needs and focus areas throughout previous positions.

niklas.hammarstedt(at)pharmaholdings.no
Niklas is located in Stockholm, Sweden

Johnny Ryvoll, VP Projects

Mr. Ryvoll has been with Pharma Holdings since 2018. He holds a MBA from University of Washington, Foster School of Business, and also a degree in Electrical Engineering (Siv. Ing.). He has more than 25 years of experience from corporate finance, project management and business development. In his tenure in corporate finance Mr. Ryvoll worked on several biotech transactions. In his time in Pharma Holdings he has built a network of high-quality contract research organizations and contract manufacturing capacity as well as networks of experienced advisors in all critical functions for the company such as product development, regulatory affairs, design and execution of clinical trials.

johnny.ryvoll(at)pharmaholdings.no
Johnny is located in Tromsø, Norway

Francois-Xavier Frapaise, CMO

FX Frapaise (Xavier) holds a MD from the University of Paris and brings on board over 40 years’ experience in the Pharma Industry (Sanofi, Abbott, Bayer, Merck, Gruenenthal as well as in several start-ups) in different roles such as VP R&D and Medical Affairs, CMO, CSO, and CEO. He has an extensive experience of international drug development (phase I to IV) and interaction with the FDA/EMA. One major focus of his experience is in the field of infectious diseases, such as Covid-19, RSV, hepatitis and C. difficile infections.

Xavier is located in Paris, France

Pharma Holdings Contracted Advisors

Pharma Holdings is a small and cost-effective company without its own laboratories or research facilities, using a network of high-quality contract advisors and worldwide Key Opinion Leaders.

The company has highly experienced advisors in all critical functions such as Target Product Profile, drug development, regulatory affairs, design and execution of clinical trials.

Davey Smith, Scientific Advisor US

Dr. Smith obtained an MD from East Tennessee State university in 1996, is board certified in infectious diseases and is a professor of Medicine at University of San Diego.  He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2015 and works as Head of Division of Infectious diseases and public health at UC in San Diego. Since 2003 he has been awarded 37 mill USD in federal funding as PI. 

Dr. Smith was the protocol co-chair for the ACTIV-2 trial, which was part of the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19. He was also invited as speaker at Nobel Price symposium 2022 in Stockholm for the theme Covid-19 therapeutic interventions

Davey is located in San Diego, California, USA

Edvard Christian Fuglset Dahl

Martin Hoenigl, Scientific Advisor EU

Dr Hoenigl helds an MD from University of Graz and is holding an appointment as Associate Professor for Translational Mycology at the Division of Infectious Diseases, Medical University of Graz. Dr. Hoenigl has expertise in conducting research on clinical mycology, including fungal diagnostics and pharmacology of antifungal drugs and correlation with clinical findings, as well as virology with a focus on HIV and respiratory viruses. He is the current president of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology (ECMM), and the Vice Chair of the EHA Infections in Hematology SWG. He was awarded researcher of the year 2011 and is an author on 250 publications in the field of infectious diseases. 

Martin is located in Graz, Austria

Niklas Hammarstedt

Lars Heggelund, Scientific Advisor Nordic

Dr Heggelund holds a MD from university of Trondheim and became Specialist in Infectious Diseases in 2008. He is head of Research at Drammen Hospital, senior consultant at section of infectious disease and adjunct Professor at University of Bergen. His scientific focus is Microbiological and clinical immunological studies in infectious diseases, particularly airway infections and human immunodeficiency virus infection, which has led to 60 scientific publications. Dr Heggelund has been Chairman in Specialist Committee for Infectious Diseases, The Norwegian Medical Association

Lars is located in Drammen, Norway

Niklas Hammarstedt

Cecil Nick, Regulatory Strategic Advisor

Cecil Nick, Vice President (Technical), at PAREXEL Consulting has been working in regulatory affairs and clinical development for over 40 years and has expertise inter alia in the development of anti-infective medicines including having supported many COVID-19 therapeutic interventions.  Mr Nick has applied his extensive scientific, drug development and regulatory experience in supporting clients with clinical development plans and regulatory strategies for EU, US and global approval. 

He is a Fellow of TOPRA and has been a guest lecture at UCL, Cardiff University and Greenwich University MSc Programs and Biotech Module leader for the TOPRA MSc course. He was on the editorial panel of SCRIP Clinical Research and has authored many articles on regulatory and clinical development issues

Cecil is located in Surrey, UK

Dr. René Bommer

Dr. René Bommer – nasal spray expert

Dr.Bommer has over 30 years’ experience from academia and the pharmaceutical industry. After various research positions in pharmaceutical chemistry and in molecular biology he joined the delivery device and dispenser industry. René published several articles in medical device and packaging journals and was regularly invited as a speaker at international drug delivery conferences and has been chairing the annual Nasal Drug Delivery Conference in London. Dr. Bommer is founder and owner of PharmAccel Consulting

Rene is located in Moos, Germany

Board of directors

Bernt Endrerud

Chairman

Endrerud is an active innovator and investor. He has established and led several successful businesses and has more than 30 years of experience as a business owner and developer. Endrerud is the owner of Care Holding AS, which is one of the main shareholders of Pharma Holdings AS​

Per Erik Sørensen

Board Member

Sørensen brings with him more than 20 years’ experience as a senior executive from both international management consulting houses and Nordic top tier corporations – Big Pharma included. He is a Norwegian citizen currently working out of the Copenhagen area, and has also spent years in The Netherlands and UK.​

Lars Vorland, Phd.

Board Member

Lars Vorland, is the Managing Director of Helse Nord RHF, a health enterprise under the Norwegian Regional Health Authority. Mr Vorland gained a degree in medicine (“cand.med.”) in 1975, a science degree (“cand.real”) specializing in molecular biology in 1982, specialist in Medical Microbiology in 1983, Master of Public Health in 1989 and his PhD (“dr.med.”) in 1999. Vorland has many years of experience as a medical doctor and was an attending physician (“avdelingsoverlege”) at the University Hospital of North Norway for nearly twenty-five years. He was Divisional Director at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) before joining Helse Nord RHF as Managing Director in January 2004. Vorland has also been a researcher at the University of California, and has been Professor of Medicine at the University of Tromsø, Norway.

Håkon Selby Ebbestad portrait

Lars Vorland, Phd.

Board Member

Lars Vorland, is the Managing Director of Helse Nord RHF, a health enterprise under the Norwegian Regional Health Authority. Mr Vorland gained a degree in medicine (“cand.med.”) in 1975, a science degree (“cand.real”) specializing in molecular biology in 1982, specialist in Medical Microbiology in 1983, Master of Public Health in 1989 and his PhD (“dr.med.”) in 1999. Vorland has many years of experience as a medical doctor and was an attending physician (“avdelingsoverlege”) at the University Hospital of North Norway for nearly twenty-five years. He was Divisional Director at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) before joining Helse Nord RHF as Managing Director in January 2004. Vorland has also been a researcher at the University of California, and has been Professor of Medicine at the University of Tromsø, Norway.

Pharma Holdings IP Rights

Pharma Holdings has secured broadly defined rights to our new class of cationic antimicrobial peptides– harnessing the essence of naturally occurring host defense molecules and designing around the potential instability challenges linked with antimicrobial peptides. We are also actively exploring new patent applications to prolong and expand our IPR. Two patents are already granted, and three new IP filings will reach the PCT filing stage during 2022.