Management

Thomas Klein - Founder & CEO

Thomas Klein is the founder and CEO of Cytolon AG. He focuses on the company’s strategy, business development and marketing of the matching platform CordMatch^®. With more than 20 years of professional experience as an entrepreneur, he has a proven track record in biotechnology and IT. Before establishing Cytolon, he successfully founded NOXXON Pharma AG. In addition, he was co-founder and chair of the supervisory board of the software company ARCWAY AG.
Thomas Klein was the CEO of NOXXON Pharma AG for over nine years. He founded the company as a spin-off from the Free University of Berlin in 1997, setting up a novel pharmaceutical technology platform. He concluded multiple large cooperation agreements with pharmaceutical companies. In 2006, Thomas Klein closed a multi million USD product development deal with Pfizer. Today, NOXXON is one of Germany’s top independent bio-pharmaceutical companies. The company has several of its own products in clinical development.
ARCWAY AG was the first spin-off of the Hasso-Plattner-Institut für Softwaresystemtechnik (HPI), initiated by Thomas Klein in 2004 as the seed investor. Thomas Klein chaired ARCWAY’s supervisory board until 2010 and supported the company through its start-up phase and the following expansion phases.

Dr. Torsten Horns, Ph.D. - Head of Business Development

Torsten Horns has 20 successful years of business development experience, including working in both biotechnology and software companies. Torsten brings valuable insight into personalized medicine, in particular, from his last 11 years in leadership roles at Epigenomics AG, Berlin. The focus of his work at Cytolon will, above all, be on key account management for projects in the pharmaceutical industry. Torsten Horns obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology in 1994.

Ralf Schliehe-Diecks, M. Sc. – Vice President IT Systems

Since January 2010 Ralf Schliehe-Diecks is the Vice President IT Systems of Cytolon AG. He is heading the Development Department and is responsible for the operation of IT systems. His activities at Cytolon focus on coordinating international IT projects with partner clinics, registries, cord blood banks and IT cooperation partners such as Cytolon’s German-American IT and hosting partner CSC. Prior to Cytolon, Ralf Schliehe-Diecks has been the responsible project head of ARCWAY AG and in charge of designing software architecture, defining comprehensive specifications developed in international workshops and preparing the call for tender on the development and hosting agreement. Ralf Schliehe-Diecks is an experienced IT project manager and business analyst who gained more than eight years of experience in IT, particularly in the specification of IT systems and coordination of IT development teams.

Karsten Balzer, Dipl.-Ök.-Head of Finance and Administration

Karsten Balzer joined Cytolon in March 2013. He is responsible for the areas financial planning and reporting, corporate controlling and general administration. Previous and in parallel to his activities at Cytolon, he leads emerging growth projects as well as turnaround and reorganizational processes, including the implementation of state-of-the-art finance systems. he serves for national and international clients as consultant, interim manager and board member, mainly in the manufacturing industry and in technology-driven companies. Karsten Balzer holds a Master of Science degree in Economics from the University of Economics in Berlin.