2020 Speakers

Jürgen studied biology/molecular biology in Osnabrück and Aberdeen (UK). After his diploma thesis at the EMBL in Heidelberg, he worked at Genentech, Inc. (USA). He undertook his PhD-thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. He joined Cellzome AG (Heidelberg, now part of GSK) as the first employee where he was instrumental in setting up the company and was later responsible for IP-issues. After a stint in the patent department of Baxter AG in Vienna, he changed to technology transfer. At Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH, Vienna, he was managing life science inventions developed at Austrian universities.

In 2007, he moved to PROvendis, the central technology transfer agency of the universities of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where during most of his time at PROvendis, he served as a head of the Life sciences team. Except for another stay for one and a half years in Vienna, as head of technology transfer at the University of Vienna, he stayed with PROvendis until May 2022. In June 2022 he became the Managing Director of Life Science Nord, the regional industry network for medical technology, biotechnology and pharma for the German states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.

He also holds a Master´s degree in Pharmaceutical Business Development and Licensing from the University of Manchester.

Gerald has a background in Management Consultancy and academia. A London Business School alumnus with a Doctorate from Oxford University, he has experience of several start-ups and their exits, with considerable experience in building company executive boards, which has led him now to sit on VC investment committees, among other roles.

In 2010, he founded Innovation DB, which links those with novel technologies to those who may wish to commercialise them. IDB offers the world’s largest database of technologies available for license, drawing from around 5,000 academic institutions. Now, in partnership with the UK MOD’s Army Futures Command, IDB is developing military-grade AI code to build a new global data intelligence system, that will feed back into the core product, expanding and enriching it significantly.

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon

Dr. Reyk Horland was appointed  CEO of TissUse in October 2020 following  8 years as Head of Business Development. Since 2010 he has implemented a profitable product business with a remarkable annual sales growth rate and has led the market launch of the HUMIMIC® technology in 2014. His business network includes leading pharmaceutical and consumer product companies as well as regulatory authorities and outstanding research institutions worldwide. Prior to TissUse, Dr. Horland studied Biotechnology at the Technische Universität Berlin and specialized in Medical Biotechnology. During his academic career he was involved in various tissue engineering programs, all with a focus on the commercialization of the respective products. He gained experience in marketing and sales in various German companies.

Biography available soon!

Michael has both broad scientific and commercial expertise. With a strong passion for facilitating entrepreneurship, he is currently part of the New Ventures and Transactions team at Cancer Research UK focused on identifying, transacting and seed-investing in next-generation oncology spin-out opportunities (both within and outside the charity’s network).

Complementing this passion to support new venture creation, Michael also works as a Senior Investment Associate at Start Codon, a venture capital fund, which focuses on supporting highly disruptive ideas, founded on strong science and a driven team, to enable them to realise the full potential of their work.

Michael has a first-class degree in Biochemistry, a PhD in Molecular Virology and Molecular Toxicology, an MBA focused on finance and entrepreneurship, postdoctoral experience in immuno-oncology, drug discovery expertise to Principal Scientist level and is a Certified Licensing Professional.

Biography available soon!

Tobias Silberzahn is a trained biochemist and immunologist and works as a Partner in McKinsey’s Berlin office where he is a member of the Pharma & MedTech Practice and the Innovation Practice. Over the last 12 years with McKinsey, Tobias has served mainly pharmaceutical, medical device, digital health companies and ministries of health across Europe. The focus area of his work is the interface between Research & Development and Commercial, where he support his clients on strategic, digital/analytics and organizational topics. Areas of particular interest for Tobias are precision medicine, genomics programs, (national) health data spaces and disease prediction.
Tobias leads the global Health Tech Network, a community of >500 startups in the healthcare space, where he hosts the Health Tech CEO Roundtable. As part of his R&D work, Tobias also hosts the MedTech R&D Industry Roundtable and the Pharma Technical Development Forum.

Biography available soon!

Jill Ogden has over 30 years of commercial/ business development and R&D experience in the biopharmaceutical and healthcare industries, working at senior management and Board level for a wide range of public and private companies both in-house and as a consultant. With a focus on out-licensing/ sell side activities, Jill has led and been involved in numerous product and technology deals as well as corporate M&A.

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Christian, 36, is the inventor of NUMAFERMs technologies, co-founder of NUMAFERM and serves as CEO. Our vision is that in the near future nature-made pepteins – peptides of 20 -100 aa – have found their way into new markets and are a well-known feed stock for better products in life sciences and beyond. For this purpose screening libraries for pepteins were developed. The unique expression platform enables the reliable, costefficient and scalable production in a few months meeting pharmacopoeia specifications. We want to enable innovation and add value to your projects.

Christian is biochemist/biotechnologist by education and studied at the University of Duesseldorf, Germany, and Ann Arbor, USA. He received his PhD in the field of type 1 secretion systems in bacteria (2009-2012) before starting NUMAFERM. Christian received several awards for his developments (Deutscher Studienpreis 2013, Innovation Award HHU 2012, Next Economy Award 2019, Start Me Up Award 2018, Most Innovative European Biotech Award 2017, 40 under 40, Capital) and is co-author of more than 30 patents and peer-reviewed publications.

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Therese Maria Liechtenstein, PhD, is a Principal in the Biotech Fund of M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck. Therese is responsible for investments in early-stage therapeutics companies in the fields of Oncology, Immunology and Fertility. Previously Therese managed strategic projects for the Healthcare business of Merck in Darmstadt, Germany. Prior to Merck, Therese was a client relationship manager for the wealth preservation company Industrie- & Finanzkontor. Therese has a PhD in Immuno-Oncology from University College London, an MSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, and a BA in Biology and Business studies from New York University. Therese is based in Amsterdam.

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Dr. Pierre-Michel Bringer, former Investor Relations Officer with Novartis, and President of PM. Bringer Consulting, a consultancy firm helping biotech executives (CEO, CFO …) to improve the efficiency of their communication with capital market

His experience spans Investor Relations, M&A / in-licensing, external communication, business planning, marketing & sales etc., always in the pharma sector. Hi focus is always to combine a deep understanding of the science and a simplification for appropriate external communication.

Jonas has been focused on the commercialization of life science innovation for about 20 years. Between 2001 and 2010, Jonas was the CEO of Cogmed, a start-up in the field of evidence-based cognitive training (clinically validated software), based in Stockholm and later in the US. Cogmed came out of Karolinska Innovation and was the first Karolinska Development portfolio company to be sold. Jonas took the company from the research phase at the Karolinska Institute in 2001, to acquisition by Pearson, in 2010.

Before joining Industrifonden in 2017, Jonas also held various advisor and board member roles, in both early stage and public companies, and across digital health (such as Shim, acquired by Kry), medtech and biotech (such as Bioinvent). His background also includes strategy work with The Boston Consulting Group.

Jonas holds a M.Sc. from the Stockholm School of Economics

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Rodrigo is currently a Partner at SOSV, where he leads the New York based early-stage life sciences investment program, IndieBio. He currently provides support to over 60 companies in his portfolio and sits on the boards of Algiknit, Visusnano, and Chronomics. He serves as a mentor for The Founder Institute, Techstars, and is an Ambassador for the MIT Technology Review in Europe. Rodrigo is a regular speaker at Slush, Vivatech, Dublin Tech Summit, and South Summit, among others conferences.

Before his venture career, he founded four LatAm companies in the food, gaming, and digital advertising industries. He became an angel investor after selling TheFanLeague, an Argentina-based gaming company.

Rodrigo is a Kauffman Fellow and holds executive education qualifications in venture capital from UC Berkeley.

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

I founded NLC with a mission to bring healthtech inventions to market. Due to market complexities and fragmentation, 95% of life-changing, science-based healthtech inventions never reach the patients.
At NLC we don’t accept this status quo; we scout medical inventions all over Europe and build these out into commercially viable ventures, so that these life-changing inventions can reach the patient.
Throughout the years, we have built a dedicated network, driven by data and learnings. We support our ventures in a variety of different ways, including fund-raising, team-building and legal support.
As founder & CEO, my primary role is to set-out the strategy and rally internal- & external stakeholders.
I am always on the look-out for potential partners in Europe, who share my passion for venture building and advancing health. Specialities: healthtech, healthcare, medtech, biotech, venture building, start-ups, fundraising, valorisation, seed investing, entrepreneurship.

Dr. Sascha Berger is a Partner at the TVM Capital Life Science team based in Munich, one of the oldest and most successful transatlantic Life Science Venture Capital firms. As a Partner he is very active in deal flow generation, investment due diligence, investment management, exit transactions and also investor comms of the fund. Sascha joined TVM in 2016 after gaining 10 years of industry experience in Consulting and M&A. He studied technology management and holds a Master from Munich University of Technology with majors in chemistry and entrepreneurial finance. Later he obtained a Ph.D. in Finance while already working for BCG and PwC.

Biography available soon!

Pierre Meulien is executive director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a €5 billion public-private partnership between the European Union and the European pharmaceutical industry. At IMI, he is responsible for the overall management of the program, which works to improve and accelerate the drug development process by facilitating collaboration between the key players involved in health research. Previously, Dr Meulien was president and CEO of Genome Canada, where he raised money and oversaw the launch of novel projects and networks in the field of genomics-based technologies. Prior to that, he was chief scientific officer for Genome British Columbia and was the founding CEO of the Dublin Molecular Medicine Center. Dr Meulien also worked with the French biotechnology company Transgene and with Aventis Pasteur (now Sanofi Pasteur). He has a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh and carried out a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!

Biography available soon!