About

Who we are

Samabriva is a plant-based biotechnology company that has successfully developed an automated, proprietary bioproduction system available to companies who want to produce high-value molecules including natural molecules from plants and recombinant proteins.

The platform combines the advantages of plant-based systems (low cost, safe, serum- and animal-free) with traditional bioproduction in large-scale bioreactors to offer continuous, reliable and environmentally sustainable manufacture of a wide range of high value molecules all year round, in any location.

Why we exist

Currently it is difficult to create natural molecules from plants in a way that’s both scalable and sustainable. These molecules are mainly obtained by growing plants in fields, but the process of extracting them only yields very small amounts from each plant. For example, producing just 1 gram of vinblastine for chemotherapy requires half a ton of dry leaves from the Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), which makes the process both expensive and environmentally unfriendly.

Creating recombinant proteins is complex, costly and difficult to produce a final product that is contaminant free. These proteins are usually produced using either bacterial (Escherichia coli) or mammalian (usually Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO)) cell cultures. These bioproduction systems are complex and expensive. Mammalian cell cultures often use animal-derived media, which means that the final product must be thoroughly purified to prevent any risk of virus or prion transmission.

As the demand for these high-value molecules continues to grow, there is a growing need to produce them at scale, in a cost-effective, more controlled and environmentally sustainable way.

Our team

Management team

Marina Guillet

PhD – MBA

Chief executive officer

A biotech entrepreneur with extensive hands-on experience in the biotechnology industry. Responsible for the creation of companies such as TcLand Expression, Effimune-OSE (Euronext:OSE), and Thabor Tx. Previous management positions include CEO, CSO and management of an ISO17025 accredited laboratory.

Florian Cardon

PhD – MBA

Chief business officer

10 years of experience in developing complex molecules across various expression systems. A laureate of Choiseul Hauts de France, a prestigious award that recognizes promising young economic talent. Previously served as the COO of Samabriva, which provided invaluable experience in managing complex operations.

Board of Directors

Pascal Lizin

Chairman

More than 30 years of expertise in the Biopharmaceuticals sector with management experience at a senior level, including stakeholder management, strategy development and execution. Experienced Board member in different sectors, including Chairman of the Board of the Belgian Federal Holding and Investment Company, and as Head of Governmental and Public Affairs at the headquarters of GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines. He’s also supporting different companies and VC’s as strategic advisor.

Marina Guillet

Alain Huriez

MD, co-founder of the company, Alain brings 30-years of experience in the biotech industry. Serial entrepreneur and Business Angel, he was Vice President at IQVIA, CEO of Neovacs, TcLand- Effimune, and former chairman of Orphalan. Alain is a VC investor since 2012 and is currently Managing Partner at AdBio Partners and a Venture Partner at Advent Life Sciences.

Patrick Stragier

Patrick is a biochemist with 30+ years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry in the areas of vaccine, recombinant protein and cell and gene therapy, both in Europe and North America.

He worked for several biopharmaceutical companies (Solvay, DSM-Biologics and Genzyme) as well as for cell and gene therapy companies (Promethera, Glycostem, Lonza and Catalent), where he occupied various technical and senior managerial positions. He is also a co-founder of Masthercell, a Belgian based cell therapy CDMO, and joined Noshaq, a Belgian (Liège) based investment fund, as life science investment manager in 2021.

Florence Vicaire

Florence brings 25+ years of extensive experience in leading and developing businesses in life sciences and bioprocess sectors in both start-up and established biotechnology companies across Europe, Asia, and North America. Florence is currently Chief Commercial Officer at Univercells Technologies (Donaldson), where she contributed to structuring commercial operations ensuring readiness for scale up into a larger organization. Previously, she played a key role in successfully establishing and growing GE Healthcare then Cytiva global Gene Therapy business. Florence also founded and served as CEO for a point of care diagnostic start-up.

Pierre Dextrixhe

(Observer)

Pierre Detrixhe is Managing Partner at Financière spin-off luxembourgeoise and Venture Director at Newton Biocapital. He brings more than 15 years of experience in the field of venture capital and has accompanied many companies in the start-up phase. Previously, he held positions of scientist and technology transfer officer in the biotechnology field. Pierre Detrixhe is Director at the Board of some promising Belgian start-up companies. He holds a Master in Bioengineering from the University of Liège (Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech), Belgium and a Master in Management from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.