Steering Committee

Ariane Voyatzakis is Innovation manager at ANIA, the association representing the French Food Industry. She holds a MS of AgroParisTech and a MBA of Sciences Po Paris. She has nearly 25 years’ experience in innovation financing.

In her most recent position, she was in charge of the agri-food sector at Bpifrance, where she was responsible for implementing French state funding for innovation and industrialization.

In 2023, she joined ANIA to bring her expertise to the food industries, supporting them in their search for funding for their projects and coordinating national and European collaborative projects.

Biography soon available

Catherine Lefranc-Millot qualified as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the National Veterinary School, Maisons-Alfort, France and later obtained a French PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Technology, Compiègne, France.

Prior to working for Roquette, she managed Research and Development on Nutritional and Health ingredients in a French dairy company. Several years were spent working in the area of milk peptides, proteins and hydrolysates with specific biological activities, compatible with food and nutraceutical applications.

In this context, Catherine Lefranc-Millot contributed among other things to the registration of patents on many products. She monitored toxicological, pre-clinical and clinical studies on nutritional products, in order to assess their efficacy and safety, and also to set up files subsequently submitted to the regulation authorities, in order to get claims authorizations. In addition, Catherine Lefranc-Millot managed application studies to verify biological activities in final products after food processing.

Catherine Lefranc-Millot joined Roquette in September 2005 as Nutrition Communication Manager to support the needs of the Nutrition R & D team specifically relating to the communication of scientific data obtained from nutritional studies. The main areas of expertise in this role are fibers, polyols and proteins, with special focus on areas such as digestive wellbeing, glycaemic responses, prebiotic effects, colonic health, satiety and weight management. She also participated in the launching of new activities in innovation, by building data files and bibliographic syntheses on some potential health properties of microalgae.

She has been appointed as a representative for Roquette at the new “Pôle Débat” (literally debates unit) of the new FFAS (Fonds Français pour l’Alimentation et la Santé, literally French Fund for Nutrition and Health), formerly IFN (Institut Français pour la Nutrition, literally French Institute for Nutrition) where she has been a member of the Scientific Committee.

She is also actively participating in the activities of some European Prebiotics Task Forces, for example the Task Force on Prebiotics, at the ILSI (International Life Science Institute, Bruxelles).

She is regularly appealed to take part in steering committees of international conferences recently NutrEvent, Lille, 2011), to chair or moderate sessions in congresses, to present new scientific results in the form of scientific posters or to give oral talks in international congresses (recently Probiotech, Milan, 2011). She recently coordinated a sponsorised symposium dedicated to “Prebiotics, Microbiota and Immunity” and held by renowned experts at the ECO 2012 in Lyon.

Throughout her career, she supervised young academic researchers (French PhDs) in the scope of partnerships with universities and research laboratories, and has written or contributed to book chapters, scientific papers published in technological magazines or in renowned peer-reviewed journals.

Christine O’Neil is President & Co-Founder of Healthy Ingredient Solutions (HISCO) based in Lille, France and HISCO, LLC based in the United States.  She has been in the food and beverage industry over 25 years bringing new technologies platforms and healthy ingredients to the largest consumer products firms globally.  She’s worked for major firms such as Johnson & Johnson, Ajinomoto, Cognis/BASF and Dow Chemical during her career.  HISCO supports our clients with out-sourced business development services, bringing novel technologies and ingredients to the industry in order to create healthier and value-added consumer products worldwide.  HISCO also has a distribution business for healthy ingredient sales in the United States, Asia and Europe.

Contact Information:

Christine O’Neil

+33-6-38-57-22-89 France

Christine.ONeil@HISCO.FR

www.hisco.fr

Soon available

Doris has got a Ph.D in biology and a second degree in marketing. She has been working in the agro-food sector for 20 years. She has hold various positions in application technology, marketing, business development and R&D. Most recently she has been Research Fellow and Group Leader in the food ingredient industry for 5 years, before accepting her current position as Senior Scientific Officer and Advisor for European research policy and research funding in the Life Sciences.

Doris is holding several patents and has published in peer review and trade magazines, while acting as invited speaker at international conferences in the agro, nutrition & health area. With her longstanding experience as liaison body in academic, public and private institutions she adds valuable expertise re Open Innovation.

Biography to come soon

Soon available

Giovanni Sogari, MSc in Food Science and Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Food and Drug of the University of Parma. He teaches the principal methods and techniques of qualitative and quantitative research to explore consumer food behavior. His studies lie at the nexus of psychology, sensory analysis, and experimental economics to better inform policy-makers, private companies, and the general public on eating behavior. In particular, his main research activities and interests focus on consumers’ perception of sustainable and healthy diets, nutritional and environmental claims, and alternative proteins from novel foods.

Isabelle is CEO and Managing Partner of Seventure Partners, one of the European leader in venture capital investor investing broadly in life sciences (Rx, Dx, medical device) with a specific focus on the human microbiome. Seventure has raised the two first fund worldwide dedicated to the microbiome, called Health for Life Capital and Health for Life Capital 2, respectively in 2014 and 2019.

She joined Seventure in 2001 to establish the Life Sciences division and became CEO in 2011. Isabelle still personally supervises the Life Sciences business and personally invests in French, Scandinavian and North American biotech, nutrition, healthcare, personalized medicine and foodtech. Isabelle has a particular interest in the microbiome field where she holds a worldwide expert reputation and she frequently gives lectures at conferences in this domain.

Isabelle’s investment experiences include Santaris (sold to Roche for $450 million in August 2014), ArgenX (now listed), OPI (sold to Eusa for € 110 million), Bioalliance (now listed), Pixium vision (now listed), Biophytis (now listed), Metabolic Explorer (now listed),  Cambrooke (sold to Ajinomoto).  She is currently responsible for Enterome Biosciences, Maat Pharma, LIMM Therapeutics, Targedys, LNC-Ysopia (where she currently holds mandates) as well as for Vedanta, Foodsmart/Zipongo etc.

Isabelle is one of the 6 members of the French “Conseil de l’innovation” (French Innovation Committee) which give strategic direction to French ministry of Education and Research and Ministry of Finance since its establishment in 2018.

Isabelle is non executive chairman of the Private Equity Investment dedicated branch of French AFG professional association.

Formerly, Isabelle began her career in 1991 with Arthur Andersen in Detroit, USA. She then moved to PFIZER France and PFIZER Europe where she held various positions for six years within management, clinical research and business development. In 1998, Isabelle joined Laboratoire Fournier / ABBOTT as Deputy Director of Business Development, in charge of product and technology licensing and acquisitions. She negotiated and signed several deals in Europe and in the US. She has been independent non-executive Director at a frozen meals company (Euro100m turnover) from 2011 to 2018 and independent non-executive Director at NATUREX from 2015 to 2018 prior to the acquisition by GIVAUDAN.

Isabelle has a degree in Engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris in France, holds DECF and ISEB degrees and brings more than 25 years of international business development and investment experience in the pharmaceutical, food and nutrition industry to the team.

Isabelle Socquet, qualified as Doctor in Pharmacy (PharmD – Faculté de Pharmacie de Marseille). Later she obtained an MBA, specialized in health marketing services at KEDGE school (2010) and a specific degree in Phytotherapy in 2013.

Before working for Arkopharma, Isabelle was an hospital pharmacist at the CHUV of Lausanne. Coming back to France, she was involved in the medical communication for a French pharmaceutical laboratory.

Since 1999, previously in charge of medico marketing training of French sales representatives and customer pharmacists, she acquired a high level of expertise in phytotherapy and nutraceuticals products and markets.  She has a good knowledge on ingredients, products, consumer et healthcare professional needs and attends on prospective vision.

She is now the corporate scientific and medical communication director of ARKOPHARMA also in charge of some innovation research programs in R&D department.

Passionate by sciences and innovation, she has the willingness to transmit to as many people as possible a comprehensive medical and scientific vision about phytotherapy and nutrition. From healthcare professionals to the general public via the most suitable communication channels to her interlocutors.

Jean-François BALDUCCHI, 62, is currently CEO of Atlanpole, Technopole, BIC¹, and academic Incubator of the Greater Nantes Area of Innovation, Western France.

He is also Executive Vice-President of the Atlanpole Biotherapies Bio Cluster, and sits on the Boards of two other Western France clusters : Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique and Pôle Images&Réseaux.

He has just ended his 2 years term (2014-2016) as  President of IASP (the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation).

He has also held the positions of President of EBN (European Business Innovation Centre Network), European Innovation network (2004-2007) and President of Retis, the French Innovation network gathering BICs¹ (Business Innovation Centre), academic and research oriented  incubators, Technopoles and Competitiveness clusters (1999-2006).

Jean-François Balducchi was the founder and Managing Director of Futura Corse Technopole (1992-1996).

Prior this “Innovation period”, Jean-François Balducchi spent 12 years in the Oil and Gas industry and held various executive positions with Total, Oil and Gas Company (Paris Headquarters and Overseas subsidiaries) (1981-1992), mainly in the upstream and gas sectors.

From 1979 to 1981, he worked at the Automatic and Computer Sciences Laboratory of Ecole des Mines de Paris.

Jean-François Balducchi holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics – Paris Dauphine (1981) and is an Engineering graduate of Ecole Centrale de Paris (1978).

With a dual scientific and economic background, Jean Luc has held various advisory and research positions in support structures for the economic development of agricultural and agri-food sectors in France. Having both a good knowledge of the world of business and public policies, it is naturally that he joined the Valorial competitiveness cluster in 2007. He became the Director in 2010 to boost the development of research and development of agri-food innovation in the west of France, and make Valorial one of the main agri-food competitiveness clusters in France.

Juliette joined Capagro in 2021 after a first experience at Seventure Partners in their Health For Life fund. She has an engineering degree from AgroParisTech, and is now an Associate for the management company. As part of the investment team, she notably specialized herself in alternative proteins, alternatives to food packaging and agricultural robotics.

After the MSc degree in Food Science Kees de Gooijer started to work with Cebeco-Handelsraad in the IT sector. From 1988 he worked at the department of prof.dr.ir. J. Tramper, the Food & BioProcess Engineering group, at Wageningen University, from 1995 till 1999 as a Associate Professor. Besides research in the field of Animal Cell Technology he was responsible for the curriculum of Bioprocess Engineering. During January 1999 until April 2000 he was director of the Educational Institute of Technology and Nutrition of Wageningen University. From April 2000 till October 2003 he was director of State Institute of Food Safety (RIKILT). After this, he was the General Director of  the Agrotechnology and Food Sciences Group, of Wageningen University and Research Center. This included 20 full chairs of Wageningen University as well as the applied research institute  Agrotechnology & Food Innovations Ltd.

Since oktober 2006 he is managing director of Food & Nutrition Delta. This innovation program is carried out in dialogue with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and its subsidiaries. Within a framework of five years a total investment, along with accompanying measures, in food innovation of at least 200 M€ is foreseen.

Besides this dr.ir. de Gooijer is chairman of the board of B-Basic, an innovation program for sustainable chemistry, member of the executive committee of the Dutch Separation Technology Institute, board member of the international advisory committee for an investment program of Yes Bank in India, international science advisory council member of AFMnet in Canada, advisory board member of BF3 Ltd, Syntens Noord-Oost and Schuttelaar & partners Ltd, and member of several editorial boards in life sciences.

Dr Laurent BAZINET has studied in agri-food sciences at the École Supérieure d’Agriculture D’Angers (France) where he obtained in 1993 his degree in food and agriculture engineering. He continued his graduate studies at Université Laval (Quebec City, Québec) where he obtained his M.Sc. (1994) and Ph.D. (2000) degrees in Food Science and Technologies. Since july 2002, he is professor at the department of Food Sciences and Nutrition at Université Laval, and is an active member of the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods (INAF) and Dairy Research Center (STELA).

The research interests of Dr Bazinet aim the study of electrodialytic phenomena and their impacts on bio-food compounds in order to design, optimize and develop new eco-efficient technics and lees energy consuming electrochemical technologies. He collaborated to research projects on soybean 11S and 7S fractions separation as well as milk casein and whey proteins electroseparation. He also worked on electroreduction to decrease whey protein allergenecity and to increase the shelf-life of omega-3 enriched milk and fruit base cocktails. Amongst other technologies, he recently developed and patented a new technology called electrodialysis with filtration membrane (EDFM). This technology allows the separation of molecules according to their charges (electrical field) and their molecular weights (filtration membrane cut-off). This technology has already demonstrated a high selectivity for the separation of molecules of very different natures such as tobacco polyphenols, anthocyanins, chitosan oligomers and bioactive peptides from hydrolysates. Another research interest is the study of membrane fouling nature and formation during electromembrane processes.

Scientific publications :

• 130 peer-reviewed articles
• 10 books and book chapters
• 4 patents

Dr. Nico van Belzen is the founder and Director General of ScienceConsult.

From 2012-2018 he was Director General of the International Dairy Federation (IDF).

From 2003-2012 he was the Executive Director of ILSI Europe, the European branch of the International Life Sciences Institute.

From 1998-2003 Nico worked for DMV International, the business-to-business division of the dairy company Campina, where he set up and managed a laboratory to develop bioactive food ingredients, and subsequently became head of the department Research and Analysis.

From 1986-1998 Nico worked in universities and academic hospitals in The Netherlands as biomedical researcher specialised in molecular cell biology and cancer research, e.g. cloning the genes Drg1/NDRG1 and ICT1. He received a PhD in cell biology from Utrecht University, The Netherlands, in 1990.