CARLO BOUTTON

Dr. Carlo Boutton joined Biotalys in May 2022 as Chief Scientific Officer. In March 2026, he was appointed as CEO ad interim and in August 2026 he became the CEO on a permanent basis.

Carlo brings more than 20 years of antibody and biochemistry leadership to the company. In his most recent role as Sanofi’s Global Head of Innovation, Large Molecules Research, Carlo drove the innovation strategy and managed an expansive team exploring novel technologies with antibodies, NANOBODIES® and other biologic modalities to find innovative pharmaceutical solutions. Before Sanofi, he held various scientific leadership roles at Ablynx (now Sanofi), where he focused on bioinformatics, protein modelling and finding new therapeutic applications for its NANOBODY® platform. At Ablynx, Carlo was also involved in multiple strategic partnerships as member of Joint Steering Committees. Previously, he took part in several anti-HIV and anti-HCV drug discovery projects at Tibotec (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson). At the start of his career, he contributed to the development of a platform to develop rationally designed therapeutics in the broad field of immunotherapy, at Algonomics (now Lonza). He is named co-inventor on more than 20 patent applications.

Carlo Boutton obtained his M.S. and PhD from the University of Leuven (Belgium), where he researched the physico-chemical behavior of proteins under high-electromagnetic fields.

WIM  VAN CRIEKINGE

Wim holds a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Ghent, he won the first engineering price with his masterthesis on the fysicochemical use of liposomes. After studying a year of chemisty in France (Montpellier) he returned to Gent University, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in 1998 at the lab of Prof Fiers working on yeast three hybrid to elucide apoptoic signal transduction in oncology.

In 2002, Wim Van Criekinge was appointed tenured professor at the University of Gent at the faculty of bioscience engineering (boerekot @ Coupure) where he founded and heads the laboratory for computational genomics and bioinformatics (BIOBIX) as well as the core sequencing facility (NXTGNT) with global collaborative reach across applied bioscience and clinical discovery.

Wim’s lab was the first to employ routine whole epigenomics sequencing at scale in pursuit of diagnostic discovery and his lab has published results in nearly 200 peer-reviewed papers. He recenlty completed his first book entitled: Hitchhiker’s guide to the Genome (2024).

Prof Van Criekinge work 6 years as professor at the VUMC (Free University of Amsterdam) and the NKI (Netherlands Cancer Institute) and is a regular lecturer at Upsala University in Sweden and Stanford in California. He recently moved from the bay area to Boston.

Wim has successfully applied his knowledge in bioinformatics (epi)genetics and diagnostics through extensive collaborations as well as in founding innovative start ups, that resulted in successful exits by M&A (BISC, NXTDX, XIO, Genohm, OHMX.bio, Wobblebase ) and IPO (Devgen, MdxHealth).

He together with Jan Van den Berghe, is a co-founder of the Novalis Biotech Incubation and Acceleration Fund, that invests around 30M Euro in 20 differentent life science startups where he holds several board memberships in biotech start-up biotech companies and founded Biolizard (Bioinformatics), myNEO (Personal Cancer Immunotherapy) and H42 (longevity).

In 2024 he became founding partner of GEN the Ghent Entrepeneur Network from the University of Ghent that is looking to accelerate innovatiion towards spin-offs. He also became an indepentent co- founder and shareholder of the Wintercircus in Gent, which is quickly becoming the house of houses , a place of wonder - bringing together entrepreneurs and changemakers to forge a better future.

ANNICK VERWEEN

Annick Verween manages biotope by VIB and supports early-stage biotech entrepreneurs in turning groundbreaking technologies into scalable solutions for planetary health. She plays a key role in developing biotope into a leading startup ecosystem, recognized by the Financial Times in 2025 and 2026, and the investment fund Biotope Ventures. Driven by her belief in the power of personal interactions and the conviction that combining biotechnology and entrepreneurship offers solutions to some of the greatest challenges of our time, she is committed to further growing biotope into a leading incubator for the next generation of biotech and sustainable innovations.