Barbara Lu joined Achelous in 2019 and has over 10 years of experience in investment banking, with a strong focus on Mergers and Acquisitions. With an international background across the United States, France, and China, she has been actively involved in the execution of both buy-side and sell-side mandates, including numerous cross-border private transactions. A CFA charterholder, Barbara brings deep expertise in financial modeling and corporate finance and has developed strong sector knowledge in outsourced life sciences services—such as CRO’s, CDMO’s, and regulatory consulting—as well as life science tools and reagents.

Barbara holds a Master of Science in Finance from the University of Rochester and a dual Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from ESSEC Business School and Tongji University.

As President of Achelous Partners, Mark is a leading investment banker to international public and private life science companies. He has a successful history of cross border mergers and acquisitions and cross border joint ventures.

Mark has significant expertise in the US listing process and in all forms of financing available to domestic and international companies. He leverages his extensive contacts both on Wall Street and in the international financial markets to maximize financial opportunities for our clients with market makers, international traders, institutional public and private funds and high net worth investors.

Mark was general outside legal counsel to Citibank’s ADR Division, undertaking over 300 transactions involving non-US companies listing on NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. He was head of Greenberg Traurig’s International Corporate Finance Group, where he advised and assisted non-US companies to issue securities in the US capital markets, representing companies from Australia, the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia. Mark was also a Partner with the US law firms of Brown & Wood and Parker Chapin, specializing in securities and corporate finance. Mark holds a Juris Doctor from New York Law School and is a member of the New York Bar Association

Artur Aira previously served as Executive Vice President and COO of AddLife AB (“AddLife”). AddLife is a spinoff from AddTech AB and is the Nordic market leader in several niche areas of diagnostics, biomedical research and laboratory analysis, as well as medical technology. During his tenure, AddLife grew organically and via acquisitions to over 600 employees with annual sales of over US$250 million and completed a successful IPO in 2016. Prior to AddLife, Mr. Aira held senior level positions at Addtech AB and was President/ CEO of Addtech LifeScience.

Dr. Jan Boesen focuses on deal origination and developing various corporate strategies for the European market. Using his long-term management experience in the biotech and diagnostic industry, he advises on and supports international mergers and acquisitions.

Jan Boesen has over 20 years “hands on” experience in the Life Sciences industry of which 16 years were in executive positions. He obtained his Ph.D. degree at Leiden University in 1992. He held various management positions in clinical development, operations and business development at Introgene (now Crucell-J&J). From 1999-2005, Jan Boesen was CEO of Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT) B.V. (now UniQure, a publicly trading company). During this period, AMT brought a gene therapy for lipoprotein lipase (LPL) deficiency (Glybera) to the clinic. In 2012, Glybera became the first gene therapy approved by the European Commission. Furthermore, he was General Manager of BioConnection (spin-off from Organon-MSD) and COO of ISA Pharmaceuticals, a company developing therapeutic vaccines. From 2008-2015 he was CEO of IBL International, which develops, produces and sells immunodiagnostics products. During this period, IBL was transformed into a niche player with 50% increased turnover and 86 employees. In July 2014, IBL International was sold to the Tecan Group (Switzerland) for €29 million by Achelous Partners.

Dr. Katja Neuer focuses on deal origination in Germany and globally with a focus on the CRO market. She has developed and leverages a very broad network in this industry since 2008.

Katja Neuer is a chemist by training and studied at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. She completed her PhD thesis at the University of Technology in Munich, Germany in the area of analytical chemistry and started her professional career more than 20 years ago in the environmental healthcare sector, with a strong focus on technical chemistry. In 2008 she joined INTERLAB, a leading central laboratory for clinical trials in Germany which was later acquired by Synlab (acquired in 2015 by Cinven). During her tenure at INTERLAB, the client base grew significantly as a result of her network. In 2011, Katja became Director of Business Development at MLM Medical Labs, a Germany based central lab with a focus on clinical trials. During her time at MLM, she built a business development team from scratch and helped grow the company from 20 employees to over 80 employees and double-digit M€ revenue. In December 2019, MLM was sold to the US based life science focused private equity fund, Great Point Partners, LLC, by Achelous Partners

Dr. Wilhelm has significant expertise in the life sciences field in general and in the area of dermatology contract research in particular. Dr. Wilhelm joins Achelous Partner from proderm, which he founded in 1994. Under his leadership as owner and CEO, proderm was highly profitable and grew organically to over 100 employees and became one of the leading dermatology CROs in the world. Achelous advised proderm on its sale in 20222 to a strategic investor, SGS AG, with nearly 100,000 employees worldwide.

Dr. Stephan Wnendt focuses on deal origination in Germany and globally with a focus on clinical trial service providers as well as medical device companies and contract manufacturers.

Stephan Wnendt has almost 30 years of experience in various segments of the global life science sector. Since 2000 he has worked in executive positions throughout Germany and the US. After finishing his PhD at the University of Technology in Berlin he joined Grunenthal, a mid-sized pharmaceutical company, where he was responsible for projects on recombinant thrombolytics, immunomodulating drugs and pain research. After Grunenthal, Stephan joined the medical device company, JOMED (now Abbott), as managing director of one their largest production plants. Under his leadership a drug-eluting stent project had been launched. In 2003, Stephan became CEO of the cell therapy company, Kourion Therapeutics. Stephan led Kourion through its merger with ViaCell, Inc. (now Perkin Elmer) and ViaCell’s subsequent IPO on NASDAQ. Stephan later served as Managing Director of Paion Deutschland, a biotech company with a focus on neurological diseases. In January 2008, Stephan joined Germany based MLM Medical Labs, a central lab focused on clinical trials. At that time, MLM had six employees and a limited client base. Under Stephan’s leadership, the company grew to over 80 employees and double-digit M€ revenue. In December 2019, MLM was sold to the US based life science focused private equity fund, Great Point Partners, LLC, by Achelous Partners.

In addition to his business career, Stephan has completed a habilitation in biochemistry at the RWTH Aachen University in 1999 and was awarded with a honorary professorship in 2012.

Akshay Nadkarni is involved in multiple activities across the firm ranging from originating new acquisition opportunities, corporate valuation analysis and leading M&A transaction execution.

Akshay has managed cross-border transactions valued at +$3.0 billion involving over 50 companies in a range of healthcare and life science fields and has been the leader on Achelous’ past transactions in the life science tools / reagents / diagnostics / services and specialty pharma sectors, including transactions involving major names such as IQVIA, ProPharma, Validant (Eliquent), Catalent, Eurofins, Lonza, Merck KGaA, Tecan, Danaher, ThermoFisher, SeraCare, Affymetrix, Alere, Novozymes, Ansell, Valeant, Sigma Pharmaceuticals, Novartis and Allergan. Akshay holds a joint Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Finance from New York University.

Based in Los Angeles, California, Marius Sava has over a decade of investment banking experience in mergers and acquisitions and corporate advisory. Marius has directly participated in transactions with aggregate value of more than $1 billion. He has advised owner managed and publicly traded companies on a number of transactions including buy side, sell side, negotiated sale, divestiture, and strategic investment mandates. Marius’ advisory experience spans several industries, most notably the life science and healthcare industry in which he specializes. His client list has included leading healthcare corporations such as Ansell, Covance, Life Technologies, Novozymes, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

Marius is an alumnus of the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Eric Zitter focuses on deal origination with a focus on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. Eric has researched and traveled globally searching for M&A opportunities for Achelous Partners’ international client base.

Previously, Eric was a Business Development Analyst at Quintiles Transnational, where he conducted research on potential blockbuster late Phase III/registered drugs as targets for new business opportunities, analyzed competitor companies as targets for possible acquisitions, and launched the company’s first weekly internal newsletter consisting of latest drug news, new drug approvals, and pipeline information. Eric holds a joint Bachelor of Science and Engineering in Bioengineering with a minor in Applied Economics from Cornell University.

Since joining Achelous in 2014, Charles Tebbetts has worked on and led numerous M&A transactions including buy-side, sell-side, and cross-border engagements. As a Vice President, Charles has successfully executed on both buy and sale processes, including a publicly listed client on an industry buy-and-build as well as private, founder-owned clients on their competitive sale processes. As a long-term member of Achelous, Charles has become a sector expert in valuation analysis, corporate finance and financial modeling. His broad sector knowledge involves every facet of life science outsourced services, IVD diagnostics, tools and reagents, medtech, medical supply transport and disposal, and much more.

Charles graduated in 2014 with a degree in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University.