Dr. Satoshi Takamatsu graduated from Tohoku University with a PhD. After graduating, he has been consistently involved in contract development and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals (CDMO), pharmaceutical business, and life sciences for over 30 years, working for companies such as Ajinomoto, Fujifilm, and AGC. During his career at Ajinomoto he held various positions in the CDMO field, including research and development, manufacturing, sales, and business management, both domestically and internationally. At Fujifilm, he served as a general manager, leading the expansion of the biopharmaceutical CDMO business, including M&A, and driving pharmaceutical licensing activities. In 2018, he served as the Chief Planning Officer (CPO) at Fujifilm Irvine Scientific, a U.S. company manufacturing cell culture media for biopharmaceuticals, overseeing finance, accounting, human resources, legal affairs, and strategic planning departments and executing post-merger integration (PMI) of acquired companies. In 2020, he joined AGC as the head of the Fine Chemicals division, expanding the CDMO business for small-molecule pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals.
In May 2023, he assumed the position of CEO at ARCALIS, Inc. Leveraging his diverse and global experience in the life sciences and CDMO industry, he aims to lead ARCALIS in establishing a Japanese bio-CDMO company that challenges new modalities and contributes to global health and medical care.

After graduate school, Mr. Fujisawa joined Takeda Pharmaceutical Company as a researcher at the company’s drug discovery center. During his 20-year career at Takeda, he founded Takeda Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Takeda located in Palo Alto, CA, USA. He also served as the global head of Takeda's product licensing and research alliance groups. In 2012, Mr. Fujisawa joined Whiz Partners as Managing Director, where he organized and led the healthcare private equity fund team. In 2021, he was appointed as CIO and Co-COO of Whiz Partners. In addition, Mr. Fujisawa also serves as President & CEO for PassPort Technologies. He leads Axcelead with experience and foresight in the healthcare field, aiming to build an unprecedented healthcare platform group company.

Mr. Iino spent 11 years with Hitachi, Ltd., where he was involved in global technology sourcing and alliances in the computer, telecom, and semiconductor fields. He then spent the next 10 years with CSK Venture Capital, where he led domestic and international investments in biotechnology and life sciences. In 2010, Mr. Iino joined Whiz Partners when it was founded. Among the Axcelead Group companies, he serves as a Director of Axcelead and President & CEO of A-Digital.
Other board positions include Chairman of IP Gaia and Board Member of Axelmark (TYO 3906), CRI Middleware (TYO 3698) and NANO MRNA(TYO 4571).

Masamichi Sato spent 15 years at Hitachi, Ltd., where he was involved in HR. He spent three years at SAP Japan, where he was Vice President of administration for the Asia Pacific development division.
He spent 18 years at Santen Pharmaceutical Ltd., where he was responsible for many fields such as corporate development, business development global operation, ESG, and so on as Senior Corporate Officer. In addition, he spent three years in Europe as the CEO of Santen Europe. In 2022, he joined Axcelead, serving as Chief Corporate Development officer, and has been Chief Strategy Officer since June 2023.

Hiroki Maekawa joined Axcelead as the Chief Financial Officer in April 2021, and he has been the CFO of ARCALIS since it was founded.
Prior to joining Axcelead, Mr. Maekawa served as Chief Financial Officer at several biotech and pharmaceutical companies such as Kubota Pharmaceutical Holding, Sosei Heptares, SymBio, and CEOLIA (private company) for over 16 years.
Mr. Maekawa started his career as a securities analyst covering the Japanese stock market at Nippon Life Insurance and has extensive experience in fundraising, business management, IPO, and IR/PR for start-ups and growth stage companies.
He is a Certified Member Analyst of the Securities Analysts Association of Japan and a Registered Management Consultant.

Pad Chivukula, PhD, is the Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Arcturus Therapeutics. Dr. Chivukula has an exceptional and technically solid foundation in nanoparticle technology. Prior to Arcturus, from 2008 until February 2013, Dr. Chivukula was employed by Nitto, where his titles included Group Leader and Chief Scientist. Dr. Chivukula brings over 15 years of experience in drug delivery and therapeutic drug development, including leading the polymeric RNAi research department at Nitto. Dr. Chivukula has a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Utah, where he specialized in nanoparticle technology.

Lance Kurata has served as the Chief Legal Officer of Arcturus Therapeutics since August 2020. Prior to Arcturus, from 2006 to 2020, Mr. Kurata was a partner at Mintz Levin and Chair of the West Coast Technology Transactions Practice. From 2002 to 2006, he was a partner at Fish & Richardson, where he was a member of the corporate group and nationwide head of the technology transactions practice. From 1996 until 2002, Mr. Kurata practiced corporate law at Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, specializing in strategic collaborations, public and private financings, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. Mr. Kurata is licensed to practice law in the State of California. He received his Juris Doctor (JD) degree from Stanford Law School and was an editor of Stanford Law Review. During undergraduate studies at UCLA, Mr. Kurata did a one-year education abroad program at Osaka University in the economics department.

After earning a PhD in genomic science, Dr. Yuki Hasegawa joined the Center for Genomic Sciences in RIKEN as a researcher in 2007 and worked on . . .After working as a deputy team leader in the Research Center for Life Science Technology Platforms in RIKEN, she joined Asahi Kasei Corporation in 2014 and gained experience in project initiation and other activities within the regenerative medicine research team. In 2016, she joined Whiz Partners, and she has been Head of Healthcare Investment since 2021. In 2023, she was appointed as a Vice Chairperson and General Manager of Business Development of ARCALIS. Dr. Hasegawa also holds concurrent positions as an outside director at ActualEyes Inc. and NANO MRNA Co., Ltd.

Mitsuru Seino spent eight years in Mitsui & Co., in its Fine-Chemical business and five years in Masterfoods (Mars) for its brand management of vet business and its global dog genomics project. Then he joined the pharmaceutical contract business, and has been driving business growth of each global CRO/CDMO company for approximately 20 years, starting from the global CRO company, Omnicare CR, as Representative Director in Japan, and then moving to the global CDMO company,Catalent, as Regional Sales Director in Japan. In 2019, he served as Japan GM of Colocon, Inc., which is a global leader of film coating, and specifically doing business in Japan based on contract manufacturing due to the specific Japanese regulatory environment. He has served as the Vice Chairperson of ARCALIS since March 2024.