Gunnstein Norheim MScPharm, PhD

Dr. Gunnstein Norheim, MScPharm, Ph.D. is a Director of Infectious Diseases at the Nykode Therapeutics. Here he lead a team of Discovery Project leaders, focused on creating and developing medicines to help fight infectious diseases utilizing Nykode’s unique platform based on antigen-presenting cell (APC) targeting. Starting in 2020, we initially focused on COVID-19 vaccines, and two candidates are currently in clinical testing. One of these (VB10.2210) is in collaboration with Adaptive Biotechnologies. Further external and internal projects are at the discovery/preclinical stage, two of which are in collaboration with Regeneron Pipeline - Nykode).

He is passionate about developing infectious disease vaccines and has had R and D experience in this area since 2001. He started off in a stimulating environment at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, with the development and control of meningococcal vaccines, and epidemiology projects in Ethiopia. He has a Ph.D. in Molecular Epidemiology and Meningococcal Vaccine development from the University of Oslo in 2007 and served as a consultant for the WHO in Burkina Faso on the MenAfriVac carriage study. He has worked as a postdoc at the Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford, and at NIPH working with Finlay Institute, Cuba. Research areas have included molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis and bacterial meningitis in developing countries, the development of meningococcal and Ebola virus vaccines, and Zika virus natural immunity. In 2016, he was seconded by NIPH to support establishing the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) Secretariat, by coordinating vaccine science and development programs, being part of the interim SAC, and serving as Acting Director for Vaccine science until December 2017. In 2017 he received the Norwegian Association of Pharmacists' "Pharmacist of the Year" in recognition of the Ebola ring vaccination trial work. In 2018 and 2019 he served as Director of Vaccine Science at CEPI. He was responsible for the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) which guided CEPI’s investment in vaccine development for WHO’s priority pathogens and shaped its concept on vaccine platform providers responding to Disease X epidemics. He built up a team specializing in Strategic Science, Epidemiology, and Preclinical Immunology, resulting in an investment portfolio within epidemiology, diagnostics, biological standardization, and animal models; areas critical to facilitate regulatory approval and future access.