INTEGRITY: Our approach is scientific. We are dedicated to our task and never cut corners. Those who need us the most rely on our precision. We always deliver the highest quality. Because we know that trust is earned, and without it we are nothing.
COLLEGIAL: We work together as a team to enhance each other’s strengths, and we keep our partners close. Everyone has equal input. We share information to keep our stakeholders updated on our progress so that we can tackle challenges together and share our victories.
BRAVERY: Exploring new technologies, without certain knowledge of whether it will succeed, takes courage. So does doing things differently. Believing in change. Pushing boundaries and daring to be innovative. For us, it is all or nothing. We have set out to change respiratory medicine. That is our passion.
RESPINOR and UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
We lead responsibly and prioritize the highest quality standards for more transparent, ethical, and resilient operations — from governance and workforce to human rights and supply chain responsibility. In all we do, we hold ourselves accountable to higher governance standards for our people and the planet.
RESPINOR’s Contribution to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:
3. Good health and well-being: We create breakthrough medical technologies within critical care, to have a direct positive impact on patient’s outcome and long-term prognosis.
5. Gender equality: RESPINOR strives to achieve a good gender balance in its organization and at all levels. RESPINOR’s management team currently consists of more than 50% women.
8. Decent work and economic growth: RESPINOR is committed to work with suppliers that have quality and ethical standards compliant with applicable laws and regulations regarding ethical sourcing, and decent work conditions.
12. Responsible consumption and production: While developing technologies and working with suppliers, we continuously strive to reduce the environmental footprint of our design processes, manufacturing, and operations.
13. Climate action: We continuously work to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint, both internally and with our suppliers.
Key Team Members
Trude Tingvoll
CEO
Trude holds a Global Executive MBA and a Master of Business and Economics degree, both from BI, Norwegian Business School, Norway. Trude has a proven track record of accomplishments with more than 20 years of expertise in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry at Global, European and National levels within alliance management, business development, building corporate and brand strategies, new product launches, and sales development for companies such as Pfizer, UCB, and AstraZeneca. Prior to joining RESPINOR, Trude served as Global Director of Business Development and Alliance Management for Photocure, in Norway. She has been Chief Business Officer of RESPINOR since April 2018 and the CEO since May 2019.
Tristan Hollande
CTO
Tristan holds a M.Sc in computer science from University of Paris XI. He has over 20 years of experience in engineering new products and software mainly related to sensor measurements, maps, and GPS positioning. During the last ten years, he has been engineering manager at Schlumberger and CTO at Think Outside, responsible for the R&D teams. He has experienced all phases of the development process. In 2017, he managed a team of 25 specialized engineers in software, electronics, signal processing, and mechanics. Prior to joining RESPINOR, Tristan served as Sr. IT Consultant at Teleplan. He has been CTO of RESPINOR since April 2022.
Magdalena K. Gjefle
Director Business Development
Magdalena holds a M.Sc in Finance from the London School of Economics and a M.Sc in Business Administration and Economics from the Gothenburg School of Economics. Magdalena has 30 years of experience from a multitude of roles within business development, strategy, and finance, the past 12 years within the pharma/biotech sector. She has a proven track record from leading innovation and commercialization processes, including international partnering/licensing, new market entrance, supply chain management, and new venture creation. Previous positions include Director of BD in Weifa. Prior to joining RESPINOR, Magdalena served as Business Development and Licensing Executive in Inven2. She has been Director Business Development of RESPINOR since April 2022.
Geir Torheim
Director RA & QA
Geir holds a Ph.D. in Medical Image Analysis, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, and an MSc in Software Engineering, from NTH, Trondheim, Norway. Geir has more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Geir spent 15 years at Nycomed Amersham/GE Healthcare as Director Technology collaboration/Technology leader, working with MRI, CT, optical imaging, and ultrasound technology. Geir has experience in medical device development, including clinical, regulatory, and QA experience. Prior to joining RESPINOR, Geir served as Technology Leader at Mentis Cura in Norway. He has been Director QA&RA of RESPINOR since September 2020.
Marit Mellemseter
Clinical Affairs Manager
Marit holds an MSc in Human Movement Science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. She had an internship in France working on a pilot project testing an already CE marked medical device. During her studies, she worked as a research assistant at the Faculty of Medicine and Health at NTNU. She has been Clinical Research Officer of RESPINOR since June 2019 and Clinical Affairs Manager since January 2020.
Magnus Garden
CFO
Magnus holds a MSc in Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen.
He has been working with BDOs Business Services since 2017, and as CFO for hire for life science companies since 2022. For RESPINOR he has been serving as CFO since October 2022
Board of Directors
Aage Bryn
Chairman of Board
Lic.oec HSG (MBA) from Hochschule St. Gallen, CH, Director.
Aage is today a real-estate and life science investor and the largest shareholder in Respinor. He worked for 10 years as a management consultant and as “Management for Hire” with Asbjørn Habberstad AS in the Nordic countries. He was later Owner and CEO of the largest privately owned importer of agricultural machinery in Norway.
Jan Fikkan
Deputy Chairman of Board
Jan has more than 20 years of experience in various executive roles in the international pharmaceutical industry. He was running the Japan region for GE Healthcare for 10 years – a role including building infrastructure on the ground while optimise the business through Strategic Alliance and JV structures. He had full P&L responsibility for a $130m business. Jan has also been running the global pharma R&D operations in GE Healthcare including a $50m development portfolio and project/portfolio teams in UK, USA and Norway. Jan left GE in Oct 2014 as the President of the 800 employees Norwegian organization. Besides being a board member in RESPINOR, Jan is also Chairman of the board of Mentis Cura AS and Phoenix Solutions AS and board member of Oxy Solutions AS and Spinchip Diagnostics AS.
Marco Renoldi
Board member
Marco has more than 35 years of experience in various international executive roles in the biopharma industry. His most recent position was Chief Operating Officer at Nordic Nanovector, a public clinical stage company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (2014-2021). Prior to joining Nordic Nanovector, Marco served as SVP, Chief Commercial Officer at Shionogi Ltd (2012-2014). From 2009 to 2012, he was Executive Director, Oncology Franchise Head for Amgen International, after leading (2005-2008) the Italian affiliate as Managing Director. Prior to Amgen, Marco held national and global R&D and business roles at Novartis, Searle-Monsanto and Pharmacia. Marco is Board Chairperson of Phi Pharma, a private Switzerland-based biotech company focusing on the development of peptide drug conjugates. Marco holds a medical degree from the University of Milan and an MBA from Fondazone IDI/Assolombarda. Marco is an Italian citizen, and he resides in Switzerland.
Otto Skolling
Board member
Otto Skolling is currently Chief Business Officer at Asarina Pharma and Nanexa AB. He has more than 25 years within life science industry predominantly within BD, financing, and product development in management positions within Pharmacia Upjohn, Siemens Life support systems, Novozymes and Karolinska development. He has broad board experience from several early-stage life science companies. As a background, Otto has a MSc. in Chemical Engineering from the Royal institute of Technology, Stockholm
Dr. Carl Christian Gilhuus-Moe, PhD
Board member
Carl Christian Gilhuus-Moe holds a Ph.D. in clinical biochemistry from Oslo University and has studied business management at the Swedish Institute of Management and Sloan School of Management at MIT (Boston)
He has 25 years of experience from 1997 as a Partner/Senior Advisor to NeoMed Management, making Venture Investments in the Health Care Industry. Prior to this, he had another 25 years of operating experience in the healthcare and life science industry. He was founding President and CEO of Dynal Biotech (now part of Thermo Fisher) 1986 – 1997. He was founding President and CEO of Dynal Biotech (now part of Thermo Fisher) 1985-1997Prior to this, he held a number of management positions at Nycomed (now part of GE Healthcare) most recently, as Senior VP and Head of the Diagnostic Division (1971-1985). During his Venture Partner tenure, he has been a Board member and Chairman to the Board of various healthcare-focused start-up companies in NeoMed’s portfolio, both in Europe and the US. He is currently the Board Chairperson of Bio-Me, a key player in the quickly evolving microbiome field, and a board member of both Cardiaccs and RESPINOR.Dr. Gilhuus-Moe was the founding Chairperson to the Board of health industry cluster: Norway Health Tech 2009 – 2019. He had the same position in Sintef Unimed (the health industry sector of the Norwegian Institute of Technology) 1992 – 2005. Prior to this, he was elected to President of ECCLS (the European Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards) 1985-1997. Since 2015, he has been a member of the Executive Board of Excite International, a not-for-profit organization of global stakeholders in Health Industry Innovation.
Partners
Ullevål Hospital (OUS), Pulmonary section Leading center for investigation and treatments of patients with diseases and failure in lung function.
Buskerud and Vestfold University College (HBV), part of the Centre for Innovative Ultrasound Solutions (CIUS).
BDK Industrial Products Ltd. UK, a top class developer and manufacturer of medical tapes.
Norway Health Tech is a health technology cluster, dedicated to accelerating and supporting the development of new medtech, eHealth products, services and innovative solutions for the Norwegian and global health care market.
Grants & recognitions
RESPINOR was ranked number 1st of 237 applications in the Horizon 2020 phase II SME instrument call. The company will use the EU funding to develop a market ready product and to conduct a randomised clinical trial to obtain clinical evidence of its use in the weaning process.
Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries, and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market.
RESPINOR was awarded funding for 2017 from FORNY 2020 to perform activities bringing the company to clinical and technical verification.
FORNY2020 aims at creating value and benefits for society from research results. This is done by funding the Norwegian technology transfer offices (TTOs) and projects in need of proof-of-concept.
RESPINOR was awarded seed funding from Inven2. Through this investment, Inven2 became the third largest shareholder in RESPINOR.
Inven2 is owned by the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital and aims to support the commercialization of Norwegian innovations.
RESPINOR was awarded funding from Innovation Norway for exploring market opportunities and the commercial potential of our product idea. The support was of great help to the company in the early phase of development.
Innovation Norway is the Norwegian Government’s most important instrument for innovation and development of Norwegian enterprises and industry. We support companies in developing their competitive advantage and enhancing innovation.
RESPINOR (in collaboration with K8 Industrial Design) was awarded funding from Design and Architecture Norway (DOGA) as part of their Design-driven Innovation Program (DIP).
Under this program, DOGA aims to facilitate the involvement of designers during the idea phase of innovation projects so that final products have a greater chance of meeting the needs of the user.
RESPINOR ranked 3rd of 323 applicants for Eurostars funding. This funding was used to support the development of the prototype device.
Eurostars is a joint program between EUREKA and the European Commission for SMEs to foster international collaboration to support the rapid development of innovative projects.