Hans van der Saag
Co-Founder & Managing Director

Mr. van der Saag has a Master of Laws from Leiden University, The Netherlands (1984) and a Masters in Business from Bradford University (1993). He further received a research fellowship from the Max Planck Institute in Munich to specialize in intellectual property law. He was member of the
bar and practised as an IP-lawyer. From 1989 to 1992 he held several positions with ICI/Zeneca in the Netherlands and Belgium. From 1992 to 1997 he was a Senior Commercial Lawyer with Monsanto and in that capacity involved in numerous biotech related transactions. In 1998, he co-founded the agro-biotechnology company CropDesign (Ghent, Belgium). From 1998 to 2004 he was Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer of CropDesign.

Dr. Herman Van Mellaert
President
Dr. Van Mellaert has worked for more than 20 years in the biotechnology industry. He has been Business Development Director of Plant Genetic Systems, co-founder and CEO of CropDesign. During his tenure, CropDesign raised more than 40 mio EUR and became the leading research company in the field of applied genomics for cereal crops. Most recently, he has been the CEO of RNA-TEC, an iRNA synthesis company which he successfully sold to a US-company.

Peter Ekhart
Product Development Manager

Peter Ekhart has a masters in food science from Wageningen University and has been Research Manager of the food ingredients division of Friesland Food. In that capacity he spearheaded the development of galacto-oligosaccharides, today one of the most successful food ingredients of the Royal Friesland Group. Subsequently, Peter has worked as a Project Manager for TNO Voeding, the largest food research organization of the Netherlands. Peter Ekhart is responsible for production, coordination of contact manufacturing and business development.

Dr. Sam Possemiers
Scientific Advisor & Interim Research Director

Dr. Possemiers has a masters in agronomy from Ghent University and a PhD from Ghent University. He obtained the McKinsey Young Scientist Price for his PhD work on the relationship between micro organisms and the activity of phytoestrogens from hops. Sam is a specialist on the interaction between prebiotics and probiotic strains.

Rob Minnee
Business Development Director

Rob Minnee has a master degree in Biotechnology and Marketing at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He has over 15 years of business development and general management experience in the food and nutrition industry. In recent years he was responsible for the successful introduction and roll out of weight management ingredient Fabuless® at DSM Food Specialties. He has an international track record in health ingredient positioning and new concept development in partnership with BtC clients. Rob is responsible for business development.