Koite Health is an award-winning team of doctors and engineers, based in Nordics.
Our mission is to develop treatments that have a long-lasting positive impact on the well-being and health of our customers and can dramatically reduce national healthcare expenses. Koite believes in the core values of Innovation, Camaraderie, Hard Work and Honesty.
Chairman of the Board
Seppo Mäkinen (born 1952 in Sweden, educated in Finland, MSc in Physical Chemistry 1979) began his career running an analytical laboratory and became an expert in chromatography before moving into Sales & Marketing, building the Waters liquid chromatography business in the Nordics. In 1987, he entered the investment sector, first as Director of Sitra’s biosciences fund, then as co-founder of BioFund, which he sold in 2008 to Capinordic. Since then, he has been a serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor in medtech, diagnostics, and digital health, also serving as partner with Merieux Développement (France) and Pathena (Portugal).
He has been a board member/owner in around 50 international companies, including Pharming Healthcare, Exiqon, Ginolis, Kone Instruments, Wallac, and Merlin Diagnostica, as well as listed companies such as Bittium Oyj, Optomed Oyj, and ValiRx plc. Since 2018, he has achieved about one successful exit per year. His current expertise lies in telemedicine, digital health/AI, and integrating diagnostics with therapeutics.
CMO, Co-Founder, Board member
Tommi is a cardiac surgeon specialised in repairing the most difficult birth-defect malformed hearts and performing kidney, liver and heart transplantations in children. He has an outstanding scientific career. He was leading the first-in-man cardiac surgical autologous stem cell transplantation for heart failure. He was awarded for the best medical PhD thesis supervision in Finland in 2016. The same year, he launched new decellularised pulmonary heart valves for clinical use in Helsinki as an on-shelf product, first in the Western world. He has firsthand knowledge of the systemic effects of mouth diseases, which was the early motivator for the development of Koite Dual-Light PDT, originally initiated in the iDenta project at Aalto University.
Board member
Dr. Norwich is a co-founder of Revolve and has been a major shareholder since 2012. He has wide-ranging board experience with publicly-listed companies including as an independent Director of Rio Alto Mining (TSX & NYSE) which was taken over by Mexican Silver Mines which was founded by Dr. Norwich and listed on TSX-V. Rio Alto subsequently grew to be a mid-tier gold producer in Peru and was sold to Tahoe Resources in 2015 for US$1.12Bn. More recently Dr. Norwich was a Director of Otis Gold (TSX-V) which was taken over by Excellon Resources (TSX & NYSE AMERICAN) where he remains an independent Director. He is on the board of Asante Gold (TSX-V).
Dr. Norwich is dual qualified having graduated from Manchester University England with degrees in Geology with Archaeology and in Medicine and he holds MB and ChB degrees. He also undertook postgraduate studies in Geology at Manchester University having worked with Texaco Inc in the North Sea, Permian Basin, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Dr. Norwich has been a Director of several high-tech companies in Finland and is currently on the Board of Optitune OY a coatings company based in Oulu and Lumichip a Hong Kong-based LED research company.
Dr. Meurman (M.D., Ph.D., D. Odont., Dr. hc. (multi), FDSRCS(Ed), ML) is professor emeritus of oral infectious diseases at the University of Helsinki and head physician at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases, Helsinki University Hospital, Finland. He is the author or co-author of hundreds of peer-reviewed original research publications (PubMed 325; Web of Science 368; H-index 48), several textbooks and textbook chapters, mainly focusing on the various aspects of oral health and systemic health and in oral microbiology. Dr. Meurman has also had special interests in probiotics, a new research area he pioneered in the early 1990s, and in Candida infections. Dr. Meurman is past-President of the IADR (International Association for Dental Research).
Dr. Timo Sorsa, is Professor of Periodontology at Helsinki University and Karolinska University. Timo is one of the most respected periodontal researchers in the world. He has been developing and patenting many solutions in the treatment of periodontitis, including the most validated clinical test for active periodontitis identification. Matrix metalloproteinase-8 immunological test is the most respected and vigorously tested diagnostic method in the market. Timo Sorsa has also been in the early phase of innovating the low-dose doxycyclin, which is one of the few solutions to treat chronic activated periodontitis in the currently available. Timo has 700 peer reviewed publications, with over 30 000 citations, and the h-index of 89.
Dr. Pekka Kallio received his dental degree from the University of Helsinki (1986) and successfully completed his MSc at the University of London in the field of Public Dental Health (1994). He specialised in Periodontology and Implantology in Helsinki (1999) and has been on a UK specialist list since. He has also completed a doctorate in dentistry and published 20 original scientist papers. Mr Kallio is a leading UK expert in adhesive bridge and splint restoration. He introduced Stick adhesive bridge technique to the UK in 1999 and it has been successfully applied to hundreds of patients. Mr Kallio has been treating patients with dental implants since 1998, routinely carrying out during placement advanced surgical procedures such as sinus lifts and bone grafting. Mr Kallio is member of the British Dental Association and British Society of Periodontology and has served twice as a chairman for North Hertfordshire section of British Dental Association.D
Dr. Leif Hildén brings more than four decades of experience in pharmaceutical discovery, development, and manufacturing. Throughout his career, he has led or contributed to the Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control (CMC) activities of ten successful global drug launches. Leif has extensive expertise across the full spectrum of drug development — from early-stage research to commercialization and regulatory approval.
An accomplished innovator, he is listed as an inventor on several international patents, with eight patented inventions to his name. Leif has also overseen the preparation for eight U.S. FDA audits.