2025 Speakers

Ester Sklarsky is an investment professional in life sciences, currently at Sound Bioventures, a Scandinavian biotech venture capital fund. Prior to joining the firm, she spent over two years at Industrifonden, where she worked across the investment lifecycle, managing deal flow and performing scientific and strategic due diligence for early-stage biotech ventures.
Ester began her career in management consulting at Sirona Health Solutions, advising key stakeholders in the Swedish public healthcare sector. She also gained experience as an equity analyst at DNB, with a dedicated focus on the biotech sector.
She holds a B.Sc. in Biomedicine and an M.Sc. in Bioentrepreneurship, both from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

Gemma is Principal at Invivo Partners, a Spanish venture capital firm based in Barcelona, focused on early-stage investments and technology transfer in innovative areas of drug development. Invivo Partners manages three VC funds, including its first fund, Healthequity, launched in 2012, a second fund raised in 2019 with €60M under management and a third fund launched in 2024 targeting 100M€. Backed by a majority of private investors and supported by institutions such as the European Investment Fund, Fond-ICO Global, the Catalan Finance Institute, the Valencia Institute of Finance, and the Barcelona City Council, Invivo Partners seeks opportunities across Europe and leverages a strong co-investment network.

Previously, Gemma was a Project Manager at UPF Ventures. She holds a BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Barcelona, an MSc in Business Management Applied to Biotechnology from the Biotechnology Business Institute, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Financial Management from UPF Barcelona School of Management. She currently serves as a Board Observer at Telomere Therapeutics, EsoBiotec, Integra Therapeutics, Telum Therapeutics, Peptomyc, and Signadori Bio.

Joachim Eeckhout is the founder of The Science Marketer and previously built Labiotech.eu into one of the most influential media platforms in European biotech. He now helps life sciences companies grow through smarter marketing, with a focus on scalable content and audience building.

Dr. Werner Lanthaler is the founder and CEO of Wlanholding, an investment company focused on driving innovations and sustainable growth in cutting-edge technologies. With over 20 years of management experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors, Dr. Lanthaler supports visionary entrepreneurs in transforming innovative business ideas into scalable, successful organizations. As CEO of Evotec SE, he led the company through significant global growth. Prior to that, as CFO of Intercell AG, he was instrumental in establishing Austria’s first Biotech IPO and several product approvals. Dr. Lanthaler brings an extensive network, top class expertise in due diligence and a hands-on approach to building all aspects of a business.

He is the chairman in leading high-tech companies, including Fair Journey Biologics (Portugal), HAL Allergy (Netherlands), aTenstion.life (Austria), OncoDesignServices (France), and Proxygen (Austria).

His career is further supported by a strong academic background, including a PhD in Business Administration and an MPA from Havard Universit.

Recent key investments of Wlanholding include Proxygen GmbH, Cerabyte GmbH, Solgate GmbH, Planet Pure GmbH, Cyment GmbH, Pirche GmbH and Pexxes GmbH.

Yao has over 14 years of experience in deal-making and forging strategic partnerships spanning academia, non-profit and industry. After earning a PhD in Pharmacology from Yale University, Yao began her career at the technology transfer office of Columbia University, followed by Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she marketed university inventions and negotiated partnering deals with academic and industry parties. Her virology background and interest in patent pooling then led her to the Business Development team of Medicines Patent Pool, where she managed scientific liaison with KOLs, industry and UN agencies, and built strategic research alliances with universities and donor agencies. Following a Business Development role at Redbiotec AG, evaluating academic innovations and executing pharma collaboration in Oncology, Yao joined the Academic Partnerships & External Innovation team at Novartis Biomedical Research in 2020. As the Associate Director of External Research Collaborations, Yao leads cross-functional deal teams to negotiate partnering agreements with predominantly academic institutions worldwide, focusing on non-clinical research collaborations in multiple disease areas.