Our Team
Management Team
Dr Chris Barbé- CEO
Chris is an entrepreneur with a passion for the development of new materials technology to tackle global issues.
Chris received his BSc from the Université Pierre & Marie Curie in Paris and a PhD in Materials Science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). He has over 25 years of experience, spanning 3 continents, in developing and commercialising new materials and technologies for a wide range of commercial applications from high temperature superconductors, to blue-lasers, biosensors, solar cells and drug delivery. Having gained experience in world-class R&D organisations such as Dupont Central Research, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology (ANSTO), he pivoted from science to innovation management when he created Ceramisphere in 2007.
Since 2009, he has raised a cumulative $15 millions of private capital. During his time at Ceramisphere, he has instigated and managed a wide range of joint development programs with large multinational companies including Airbus (Fr), Zoetis (USA), Merck (USA), CSL (AU), Altana (D), Michelin(FR), Cadbury(USA), Troy (USA), SC Johnson (USA), Danisco(USA), Saint-Gobain(FR), Cabot (USA) totaling several millions dollars of contract research. He also launched a new range of innovative micro-encapsulated anti-corrosion products in 2017. This involved setting up a network of distributors in Europe, North America and Asia as well as hiring two sales representatives based in Australia and Cleveland USA. This also entailed building from scratch a manufacturing plant capable of producing a micro-encapsulated product with a capacity of 50 metric tons per year as well as establishing and vetting a network of trusted suppliers in China.
He has been the recipient of many innovation-based selective grants including Commercialization Australia, ATSE, AMGC and ARC linkage.
Dr Aparajita Khatri - CSO
Aparajita leads the Healthcare R&D program at Encapsolutions. Prior to that she acted in the same capacity at Ceramisphere for over 6 years, where she played a key role in developing our Nanofibrous Patch technology. Aparajita supervised the preclinical development of several dermal products using this technology and played a key role in reshoring the electrospinning capability to Ceramisphere.
Prior to joining Ceramisphere in 2012, Aparajita was Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales and Team Leader of the Nanotechnology and Cancer Therapeutics Unit at the Oncology Research Centre, Prince of Wales Clinical School.
Aparajita has been involved in Molecular Virology and Cancer Gene Therapeutics since starting her PhD in 1994 at CSIRO, where she was instrumental in characterising and developing a gene therapy vector for treatment of cancer. This vector was approved for a Phase I clinical trial in Prostate Cancer patients. Since 2003, she has been actively involved in developing improved diagnostics and targeted therapies for cancer, in particular, Ovarian and Prostate Cancer. In 2007, she initiated the development of novel nanotechnology-based combined Therapy + Diagnostic agents. With her work funded by prestigious granting bodies like NHMRC and ARC and supported by the local biotech industry. Aparajita has several publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Advisory Team
Dr Francis Scanlan
Dr. Francis Scanlan is currently the Founder and Managing Director of two companies Cloud 9 Switzerland LLC and VIVA Brands LLC. C9 is a Phyto-pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of cannabis-based Pharmaceuticals. VIVA Brands LLC develops and commercializes botanical based premium confectionery products, notably VIVA™ Swiss Chocolate. Francis has 26 years of international professional experience with increasing roles of responsibility in the Environmental, Tobacco, Phyto-pharmaceutical, Flavors & Food Ingredients, Food & Beverage and Wines & Spirits industries having been based in France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Italy and Jamaica. His last position before founding Cloud 9 Switzerland and VIVA Brands was SVP Global Technical Gruppo Campari based in Milan Italy for nearly 10 yrs. Previous to that he was Senior Portfolio Manager with Nestlé’s Corporate Technical R&D in Vevey Switzerland managing the Innovation & Renovation pipeline of five Nestlé business units with sales of 50bn CHF and before that was Global Director QA and Analytical R&D at Quest International’s Flavor & Food Ingredients Division in Naarden, The Netherlands (now Givaudan AG).
Francis has an MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management, a PhD in Physical-Organic Chemistry from the Université de Lorraine-Metz and did his Post-Doc at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Francis was recipient of the U.K. Imperial Chemical Industry’s Award for Innovation, Creativity and Excellence in Science & Technology for the development of a platform technology generating flavor sales of 100+ Million USD. He is the author of 40+ publications, 2 patents and has been a speaker at numerous international conferences. He was a founding shareholder of Micropolluants Technologie SA France and has contributed to managing several successful company/consumer brand acquisitions valued at 1.8 billion Euros.
Dr Phil Kearney
Dr Kearney holds an MBA from the University of Sydney and completed his PhD genetics at Monash University. He spent a post-doc at Imperial College London mapping the human Y chromosome and later worked on mapping the X chromosome at the Murdoch Institute in Melbourne. Returning to Sydney he led the Haematology Research Laboratory for over 12 years focussing on ribozyme and gene therapy approaches to therapy in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia. In 2000 he moved to ActiveBiotech AB in Sweden, as head of preclinical oncology studies, then to Santaris Pharma as Head of Biology, where the company focussed on antisense mediated knock down of RNA and miRNA targets in a number of indications.
Dr Phil Kearney joined Merck Sharp & Dohme Australia in 2007 as the key scout for innovative research and development in the Asia Pacific region for India, South East Asia, Australia, & New Zealand. As head of the External Licensing group at the company’s APAC office in Sydney, he liaised with regional biotechnology companies and research institutes to look for new chemical and biological entities with therapeutic potential, validated drug targets and new platform technologies. Significant publicly disclosed deals in which Dr Kearney played a part include the license to the Vaxxas patch technology for vaccine delivery, and the license of the Bionomics alpha 7 PAM for cognition, the acquisition of Viralytics, as well as a series of academic partnerships totalling almost $2 billion.
After almost 15y at MSD Phil left to join Axelia Oncology Pty Ltd and Amaroq Therapeutics in executive roles.