13th edition

Format
HYBRID

December 3rd & 4th, 2024

IN-PERSON | LILLE, FR

December 11th& 12th 2024

ONLINE MEETINGS

2020 Speakers

Learn more about BioFIT 2020 speakers

Over 65 international experts from academia, industry and biotech addressed issues to learn about the latest trends and explore hands-on approaches to tech transfer and open innovation in the field of Life Sciences, by sharing their experience and knowledge and keeping these goals in mind: Entail new partnerships, source innovative and competitive early-stage R&D projects, facilitate the emergence of collaborative projects and increase licensing opportunities in the field of Life Sciences.
Jürgen Walkenhorst

Jürgen Walkenhorst

Managing Director
GermanyLife Science Nord

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.

Jürgen Walkenhorst

Managing Director
GermanyLife Science Nord
Gerald Law

Gerald Law

Chief Executive
United KingdomInnovation DB

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. Developed under contract from the UK MOD, IDB has now created an AI-enhanced data gathering system, that identifies, captures and describes emerging technologies, drawn from around 20,000 academic institutions. This provides an unparalleled dataset of research with real-world applications, that includes all biotech and pharma-related tech transfer activity to be found globally.

Gerald Law

Chief Executive
United KingdomInnovation DB
Reyk Horland

Reyk Horland

CEO
GermanyTissUse

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.

Reyk Horland

CEO
GermanyTissUse
Michael Salako

Michael Salako

Senior Investment Associate // New Ventures and Transactions Executive
United KingdomStart Codon // Cancer Research UK

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.

Michael Salako

Senior Investment Associate // New Ventures and Transactions Executive
United KingdomStart Codon // Cancer Research UK
Tobias Silberzahn

Tobias Silberzahn

Partner
GermanyMcKinsey & Company

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.

Tobias Silberzahn

Partner
GermanyMcKinsey & Company
Jill Ogden

Jill Ogden

Principal
United KingdomMedius Associates

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.

 

Jill Ogden

Principal
United KingdomMedius Associates
Christian Schwarz

Christian Schwarz

CEO
GermanyNumaferm

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.

Christian Schwarz

CEO
GermanyNumaferm
Therese Liechtenstein

Therese Liechtenstein

Principal
The NetherlandsM Ventures

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.

Therese Liechtenstein

Principal
The NetherlandsM Ventures
Pierre-Michel Bringer

Pierre-Michel Bringer

Investor Relations Officer
SwitzerlandNovartis

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.

Pierre-Michel Bringer

Investor Relations Officer
SwitzerlandNovartis
Jonas Jendi

Jonas Jendi

Investment Manager
SwedenIndustrifonden

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

Jonas Jendi

Investment Manager
SwedenIndustrifonden
Rodrigo Mallo Leiva

Rodrigo Mallo Leiva

Partner
United KingdomIndieBio – SOSV

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.

Rodrigo Mallo Leiva

Partner
United KingdomIndieBio – SOSV
Bert-Arjan Millenaar

Bert-Arjan Millenaar

Founder & CEO
The NetherlandsNLC

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.

Bert-Arjan Millenaar

Founder & CEO
The NetherlandsNLC
Sascha Berger

Sascha Berger

Partner
GermanyTVM Capital

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.

Sascha Berger

Partner
GermanyTVM Capital
Pierre Meulien

Pierre Meulien

Executive Director
BelgiumInnovative Medicines Initiative

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.

Pierre Meulien

Executive Director
BelgiumInnovative Medicines Initiative

Rafaela Kunz

Open Innovation Consultant, Biotechnologist & IP Expert
GermanyInseaConsulting

Contact

Eline Delcroix

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