Erwin Blomsma holds a Master’s degree in Bioscience Engineering and a Ph.D. in Applied Biological Sciences from KU Leuven in Belgium. After working at UCB and Janssen Pharmaceutica, he co-founded Crystallics, a spin-off from the University of Leiden (NL) specializing in preformulation research in 2000 and one year later merged Crystallics with Avantium Technologies in 2001. He was appointed Chief Operating Officer at Avantium in 2004, playing a key role in making the company cash positive. In 2007, Dr Blomsma became co-founder and CEO of Okapi Sciences, a company focused on antiviral drugs for pets. From January 2014 to August 2015 he was the General Manager of Aratana Therapeutics NV in Belgium and Vice President of Aratana Therapeutics, Inc., a dual role he assumed after the acquisition of Okapi Sciences. In July 2015 he became co-founder and CEO of ViroVet. Furthermore, Erwin Blomsma is Vice Chairman of flanders.bio (the biotech cluster in Flanders with over 340 member companies), board member at Leuven Mindgate and mentor to several start-up companies.
