Meet our team

Christopher Aulin

CEO

Christopher has more than 20 years’ experience in strategic sales and management positions in medtech and ICT companies. He was previously Commercial Director and General Manager at Abbott Toxicology Nordics. Christopher was the CEO at EDTS (drug testing at workplaces) that went from an entrepreneurial company to a fast-growing profitable company. The company was acquired by Alere Inc. in 2016 (acquired by Abbott in 2017).

Kristina Thomsen Hall

CFO

Kristina has worked as a finance professional and consultant for more than ten years. She has worked across various sectors, but primarily within IT and Technology. She has held key positions as Finance Director at Sea by Maritech and CFO at Chinsay, where her responsibilities included budgeting, financial analysis, and capital raising efforts. Kristina holds Bachelor’s Degrees in International Business Economics and in International Relations.

Mikael Ström

Business Development Director

Mikael, PhD from the Karolinska Institute, has 4 years sales & distribution experience from the life science industry representing international producers on the Nordic market at Nordic BioSite. He has worked 5 years within clinical diagnostics at the Karolinska university hospital laboratory as molecular biologist and was the unit manager for molecular diagnostics at Clinical Microbiology Karolinska where he built up the Covid-19 PCR capacity.

Erica Birgersson

Sales Operation & Quality Manager

Erica has several years’ experience of managing and developing people and processes in sales service departments from one of the global leaders within laboratory supplies. She has a double master’s degree in chemistry from KTH Institute of Technology, Sweden and Stockholm University, Sweden.

Anna Ohlander

R&D Manager

Anna has 10 years’ experience of applied research within Fraunhofer Institut, Germany’s largest application-oriented research organization and a PhD from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Her research expertise is in the fields of lab-on-chips, microfluidics, integrated sensor systems and roll-to-roll manufacturing.

Pär Lidö

Production & Regulatory Manager

Pär has more than 20 years’ operational and strategic experience within the medical device industry. He was CTO and CEO at the medical Device company Biolight AB publ, listed at NGM Equity, for several years. He has a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering at Chalmers Tekniska Högskola and a DIHM business at IHM Business School.

Mathias Karlsson

CMO

Mathias, MD PhD from the Karolinska Institute, has been working in Swedish healthcare in different positions > 25 years. As nurse, physician, head of outpatient care in the county of Värmland and as a senior consultant in Clinical Chemistry. Mathias has a research background and is also co-founder of two diagnostic start-ups. He has been Chief Medical Officer in the Nordics for IBM and CEO of Equalis AB.

Carissa Jones

General Manager, US

Carissa has over 21 years of experience in supporting the pharmaceutical research and in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) sectors with expertise in immunoassay technology. As President of Mercodia Inc.’s US subsidiary for over 20 years, she built their US brand strategy within cardiometabolism and oversaw the launch of their US-based bioanalytical laboratory.

Ylva Andell Elias

Sales and Distribution Manager

Ylva has 30 years of experience in life science as a researcher and in sales and marketing to pharma, biotech, CRO, academia, diagnostics and via distribution partners, in the US and Europe, including sample prep and CE-IVD products, and platforms for immunoassay and mass spectrometry. Joining in 2024, Ylva is now excited to employ her extensive background in sales and marketing of the Captainer products.

Gang Liu

Senior Product Specialist

Gang holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from Stockholm University and postdoc experience from Karolinska Institute. With 20+ years in Life Sciences, Gang spent 11 years in pre-clinical drug discovery at AstraZeneca and a decade in customer focussed Tech Support at Nordic Biosite, most recently as Team Leader for 4 years.

Johan Olausson

Senior Product Specialist

Johan has 20 years’ experience within the diagnostics field in different roles. To mention a few roles he has been hospital chemist, senior scientist for a microfluidic POC solutions, product manager and clinical assay manager. Johan brings a vast amount of experience considering the actual assays that the different Capitainer sampling solutions can be used for.

Brian Butler

Director Business Development, US.

Brian was the longtime VP of sales & business development for The Allied Group, a leading full-service program provider in the diagnostic kitting industry. Allied helped their US partners launch kits both in the EU and internationally. Brian is thrilled to join Capitainer as the Director Business Development, US, to support novel blood collection technologies, remote sample collection and patient monitoring initiatives.

John Dinan

Senior Product Specialist UK & Ireland

John has >25 years’ experience in remote sampling, representing Whatman in ’95, co-founding S&S UK in ‘97. Representing both ID Biological Systems and BSD Robotics in 2008, quickly securing Europe’s screening card business. Becoming PerkinElmer UK/Ireland Team Leader in 2011. John is delighted to deploy his extensive sales & marketing experiences in remote patient sampling joining Capitainer in ‘19.

Donald Chace

Principal Scientist Mass Spectrometry Applications

Donald Chace, MSFS, PhD, FAACC has worked in the dried blood spot (DBS) and mass spectrometry spaces for >30 years. He developed the tandem MS analysis of amino acids and acylcarnitines from DBS that is used worldwide to screen newborns for dozens of rare genetic diseases. He is an expert in metabolic screening in newborns and guest researcher at the CDC.

Fabio Castillo Martinez

Development Engineer

Fabio has several years of experience in operations and product development within the medical device industry. He has a double master’s degree in biochemistry and Immunology from the University of Montreal and the University of Sao Paulo. His research expertise is within molecular biology, lateral flow cassettes and microfluidics, bringing valuable knowledge to the Capitainer R&D team.

Peng Zhang

Development Engineer

Peng Zhang has several years of hands-on experiences in research and development of microfluidic products in academia and the industry. He has a master’s degree in medical biotechnology from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, and a background in biological sciences from Nanjing University, one of the top ranked universities in China. Peng is part of the research and development team.

Ingrid Lyttkens

Marketing Manager

Ingrid Lyttkens has worked at the intersection of life science and marketing for several years, with experience spanning both strategic and operational roles. Ingrid is responsible for the company’s marketing strategy, branding, and external communication, and plays a key role in driving Capitainer’s global growth and visibility.

Richard Tejme

Chairman of the Board

Seasoned investor, advisor, and board director with over 25 years of executive experience as CFO and CEO across multiple industries. Currently Board Member at Mindler, Chairman of Copture and advisor to Myrspoven. Richard brings strong financial acumen, strategic leadership, and deep experience in scaling and governing innovative growth-stage companies.

Louise Warme

Board Member

Louise Warme, Head of We Venture Capital has over ten years of experience in venture capital and life science investments along experience from 17 board engagements. With a strong foundation as a medical doctor and researcher, she has showcased her leadership as the founding CEO of a medtech startup. Louise Warme currently serves as a director on the board of Axithra and as an observer on the boards of Deepull and Zetta Genomics.

Alain Pluquet

Board Member

Former Corporate Vice President and CTO at bioMérieux, where he led Innovation, R&D and Data Analytics strategy. Advisor to the Mérieux investment arms. Holds a PhD in particle physics from Pierre et Marie Curie University. Alain offers deep expertise in innovation strategy, clinical product development, and international healthtech commercialization.

Thomas Lindahl

Board Member

Global Chief Medical Officer at Unilabs, responsible for clinical strategy, governance and education across international diagnostics. Medical doctor and radiologist with a PhD in oncology from Karolinska Institutet. Thomas has expanded Unilabs’ clinical network and standardized practices, bringing Capitainer strategic medical insight and leadership.

Olof Beck

CSO and Co-founder

Dr. Beck was adjunct pofessor at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden and the head of the Pharmacology lab, Karolinska University Hospital before his retirement in 2019. Dr. Beck is a renown scientist in the bioanalysis field and a pioneer of alternative sampling technologies. Dr. Beck has published over 300 scientific articles in the pharmacology and toxicology fields. He is the initiator and co-inventor of the Capitainer.

Peter Bräutigam

Scientific Advisor & Co-founder

Peter Bräutigam has over 40 years’ experience in diagnostics and blood sampling businesses with executive positions at Roche Diagnostics, Sarstedt, Syva-Behring-Dade and Becton Dickinson. He is the founder of several companies active in the field of laboratory medicine and has served as chairman for the Swedish laboratory technology association. He was the CEO of Capitainer between 2016-2018.

Mathias Uhlén

Scientific Advisor

Professor Uhlén, biotechnologist, entrepreneur, and Professor of Microbiology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), is widely known for his work in large-scale quantitative analysis of proteins and leadership of the Human Protein Atlas project. Founding Director of the Science for SciLifeLab, 2010–2015. Mathias Uhlén’s research interests cover antibody engineering, proteomics, and precision medicine

Niclas Roxhed

Scientific Advisor & Co-founder

Dr. Roxhed is an associate professor in medical micro and nanosystems at KTH, Sweden and a research fellow of the Langer lab, MIT, Boston, USA. He is the initiator and co-inventor of Capitainer and has worked with several start-up companies and licensed IP to several medtech companies including Fortune 100-companies. He has co-authored more than 100 scientific papers and is a named inventor of 30 patents.

Ingvar Ryden

Scientific Advisor

Dr Rydén is an associate professor in clinical chemistry at Linköping University. He has worked 8 years as the head of a clinical chemistry lab network in South-East of Sweden, and nearly 7 years as senior medical advisor at Roche Diagnostics.

Martin Carlsson

Scientific Advisor

Martin Carlsson, entrepreneur, docent, Specialist in Endocrinology/Diabetes, Internal Medicine, and Clinical Chemistry, as well as the founder of the healthcare provider Blodtrycksdoktorn. He is currently working as Chief Physician at Yazen Health, a digital healthcare provider of which he is also the co-founder.

Lars L Gustafsson

Scientific Advisor

Dr Lars Gustafsson is a trained anesthesiologist professor in clinical pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and has previously worked as senior consultant in clinical pharmacology with a broad network in Sweden and globally.