Meet Renée Aguiar-Lucander

Renée joined Hansa Biopharma as CEO in April 2025, bringing more than three decades of experience across investment banking, life science investing, and biotech leadership. She previously built Calliditas from a development-stage company to FDA approval and led its $1.1 billion sale to Asahi Kasei in 2024.

At Hansa, Renée has moved quickly to reposition the company around commercial execution and key clinical milestones. Under her leadership, imlifidase achieved highly statistically significant results in the US Phase 3 ConfIdeS study in highly sensitized kidney transplant patients, supporting the company’s BLA submission to the FDA. She has also led a restructuring and recapitalization of the business, renegotiated its debt facility, raised $96 million in equity capital, and sharpened the company’s pipeline strategy, including the decision to advance next-generation enzyme HNSA-5487 in Guillain-Barré syndrome.

“Building a career across investment banking, life science investing, and biotech leadership over three decades is something I never thought would have been possible. As an often lonely senior woman in these positions, I was at the very forefront of change, evolution, and acceptance, which taught me a lot about negotiation, unconscious bias, insight, and power.”

“One widely held belief I disagree with is that ‘science always wins.’ There are many components involved in making a drug a success, and it is often, but not always, driven by the best science. One should not underestimate the impact of informal networks, professional connections, resources, and location of the operation.”