Dr. Schmidt joined ArmaGen as the President and Chief Executive Officer, and member of ArmaGen’s board of directors, in October 2016. Dr. Schmidt 20 has years of global biopharmaceutical industry experience in executive management focused on the research and development of biotherapeutics and pharmaceuticals. Serving the patients whose hopes for better therapies rely on us was always front and center to his work.
He received his MS in Biotechnology from the University of Stuttgart and his Ph.D. in Tumor Biology (summa cum laude) from the University of Freiburg, Germany. After working for several years at various cancer hospitals in Germany and the U.S. (MD Anderson Cancer Center), he joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1999, where he developed a great passion for drug discovery and development, especially for protein therapeutics.
Prior to ArmaGen, he held various positions with Takeda Pharmaceuticals and its subsidiaries since 2001, including oncology drug discovery, drug discovery partnerships, and biologics. He joined Takeda California in 2012 as Vice President of Biological Sciences where he built a Biotherapeutics unit serving all therapeutic indications and all research sites within the global Takeda organization.
In 2011, he was awarded the venia legendi in pharmacology from the University of Constance. He lectured cellular biology, disease biology and pharmacology at the University of Constance.