Elisabeth V. Carstensen

Director of Pharmaceutical Operations

Chief responsibility

Managing CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls) for clinical and commercial products in Topotarget's pipeline.

Experience

Dr Carstensen joined Topotarget at the very beginning in 2000. Over the years, she has held a number of different positions and areas of responsibility.

Initially, Dr Carstensen started out as responsible for the synthesis of new lead candidates and thus established and managed the chemistry laboratory for the first years.

In 2003, she became involved in pharmaceutical operations with overall responsibility for the supply chain management of Savene^®, Totect^®, belinostat as well as other products in the Topotarget clinical pipeline.

Dr Carstensen was responsible for CMC during the registration process of Topotarget's first two products on the market, Savene^® and Totect^® (approved in 2006 and 2007).

Education

Dr Carstensen holds a Masters degree and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Moreover, Dr Carstensen is a multilingual speaker (Danish/English/French) due to a childhood spent partly in Denmark and partly in France.

One of my favorite quotes

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure" (Colin Powell)

In my own words

At Topotarget
As the first employee of Topotarget, I have been part of Topotarget's evolvement over the past decade from an entrepreneurial company to a company with bold visions and great goals.

Our ability to achieve our goals is based on dedication, team spirit, and a hard-working staff as well as a shared belief that belinostat will be a huge success in the coming years, for the benefit of patients, employees, and shareholders.

The main reason I chose my field
Originally I was motivated by inspiring university lecturers who led me into the field of organic and medicinal chemistry.

When I then came in contact with the founders of Topotarget and saw the scientific challenges and the obvious opportunity to push cancer research forward, I chose this career.

The other side of me
Being the mother of three active minors (boys), the time out of the office hardly leaves any spare time for non-family activities, but I hope my recently attained interest in golf will be allowed to develop over the coming years.