Anthony is science communicator, game designer, PhD researcher and former segment host of Discovery Channel's Daily Planet. He's spent over 15 years working across multiple disciplines in science communication including live engagement at the Ontario Science Center, web series production for Asap SCIENCE and radio hosting CBC's Quirks & Quarks.

For this work and his work with Science Everywhere, he was recognized as one of Canada’s top 10 millennial changemakers by the CBC. His PhD research focuses on developing tools for reducing polarization around science.

Roger is a European patent attorney and partner in the Dentons Patent Solutions Munich office, having moved to Dentons after almost 20 years working at a German IP boutique law firm. He is a specialist in life sciences including computer-implemented inventions and has considerable experience across a wide range of pharmaceutical and biotech fields.

Having a background in biochemistry, structural biology and bioinformatics, Roger started out as a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry with Boehringer Ingelheim and, since becoming a patent attorney, has worked with a number of businesses ranging from large corporations to SMEs and academic institutions.

He brings with him considerable experience in both German and European matters, including preparation and prosecution of patent applications, handling opposition and appeal hearings, as well as opinion and litigation consultancy matters. Roger has been involved in a number of contentious matters at both the German courts and the European patent office, as well as advising on contentious matters in several other jurisdictions across the world.

Valerie Alexander is a renowned expert on happiness and inclusion and a globally recognized speaker on the topics of happiness in the workplace, unconscious bias and the advancement of women. Her TED Talk, “How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias” has been viewed over 450,000 times. Valerie’s books include the Amazon #1 seller, Happiness as a Second Language and several more on happiness and success.

Prior to this work, Valerie was a securities lawyer, an investment banker, a tech startup CEO, and a screenwriter and film director. She also writes Christmas movies for the Hallmark Channel. 

Valerie and her husband, writer-producer Rick Alexander, live in Los Angeles, CA, with their ill-mannered German Shepherd, Vegas, Baby!

Please visit SpeakHappiness.com to learn more about her work. 

Jennifer Altomonte is a research group leader in the II. Medizinische Klinik at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of the Technical University of Munich. Her work focuses on the development of oncolytic virus-based cancer immunotherapeutics.

She is currently planning a university spin-out, Fusix Biotech, in which she will serve as interim CEO. Fusix is developing a best-in-class oncolytic virus candidate for clinical application in solid tumors with a high clinical need. The start-up project is supported by pre-seed funding through the m4 Award and EXIST Research Transfer.

Jennifer holds a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from the Pennsylvania State University, a Master’s Degree in Forensic Science from the City University of New York, and a doctoral degree in Natural Science from the Technical University of Munich. She has been working in the field of virus engineering for more than 20 years and has been developing translational oncolytic virus therapies for over 15 years.

Konstantinos studied physics at TUM in Garching and then received his PhD as an electrochemist at BMW in cooperation with TUM. He then continued at BMW as a technology scout and R&D project manager, supporting early-stage technologies on their way to the series development.

Since 2008, he has been co-founder and managing director at mk2 Biotechnologies, where he is particularly responsible for the business development and the collaborations. His team successfully completed an extended seed round a few months ago and is now focusing on driving the transformation towards a sustainable bioeconomy with the help of its platform technology for the synthesis of peptides - now also as a tenant at the IZB.

Cédric Barra is Senior Investment Manager at OCCIDENT, an international venture capital investor with offices in Munich and Zug. OCCIDENT invests in innovative deep tech start-ups with excellent technologies in the fields of life sciences, high-tech and digital with broad application possibilities and the potential for further value-generating developments. The geographic focus is Germany and Switzerland. The preferred stage for initial financing is from seed rounds or later and from 0.5 million euros.

Cédric Barra joined OCCIDENT in 2014 and is responsible for the healthcare and life science portfolio. He studied Pharmaceutical Sciences and Management & Economics with a specialization in strategic management, both at ETH Zürich.

Dr. Philipp Baaske obtained his diploma in biophysics at the University of Bayreuth in 2005. Three years later, in 2008, he founded NanoTemper Technologies GmbH together with Stefan Duhr. Since 2008, Philipp is co-founder and co-CEO of NanoTemper. In 2010, he received his Dr. rer. nat. in Biophysics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Philipp was awarded with the German Innovation Award in 2012 and the German Founder Award in 2014. One year later, in 2015, he belonged to the Top 40 under 40 and was awarded by “Capital” magazine as one of the 40 most promising talents under 40 in the “Entrepreneur” category.

In 2017 and 2018, Dr. Philipp Baaske reached the TOP100 as “Innovator of the Year” in the category “medium-sized companies”. He was also appointed as a senator in the Federal Business Senate BVMW (Federal Association of Medium-Sized Businesses). The company NanoTemper Technologies GmbH was appointed as one of the most innovative companies in Germany (by “Capital” magazine).

Dr. Sascha Berger is a Partner at TVM Capital, based in Munich, Germany. TVM Capital is one the pioneer transatlantic Life Science Venture Capital funds with teams based in Europe and North America.

Sascha joined TVM Capital in 2016, helped to raise the current $480M fund and works closely with entrepreneurs and founders to advance promising pharmaceutical assets, medtech, diagnostic and digital health technologies to the next value inflection points. Sascha is a passionate VC, a Boston Consulting Group alumnus, and has an academic background in chemistry and finance.

William is Managing Partner at Azzandra – experts in human factors that drive BioTech success.

He advises leading executives and investors on the critical impact of leadership, culture, and organization in value creation for early-stage biotechnology ventures.

William has a 30-year international track record in leadership assessment and organizational development across many complex and challenging industries.  He brings hard-won experience as a business builder, early-stage investor, and as a company leader in professional services and advisory firms.

William holds a BSc in Psychological Science (University of Bristol, UK) and an MBA with Distinction (Bayes Business School, City University, London).  He lives and works in Munich, Germany.

Originally studying medicine in Scotland, John is a pioneer of the Australasian medical recruitment industry and has over 20 years’ experience growing his award-winning business, Wavelength International, from two founders to over 100 staff.

Moving to Europe in 2012, John worked initially for an equity crowdfunding
business focused on raising seed funds for European life sciences start-ups,
before launching LUKA BIO with the cofounders in 2019. John provides guidance and mentorship to start-up founders on how to set up their own in-house recruitment capabilities in preparation for growth. His recruitment portfolio includes Csuite, medical and research roles within life sciences.

A keen surfer and musician, John lives in Barcelona but travels extensively in Europe, North America and Australia.

Prof. Dr. med. Wulf Otto Böcher has been Head of Clinical Research at Galapagos in Basel since 2021. Previously, he worked for 13 years at Boehringer Ingelheim in the field of virology and immunology and most recently as deputy head of medicine in the field of gastroenterology/hepatology and infectiology.

For 25 years, he was an assistant/superior physician at the University Hospital in Mainz. During his residency (PostDoc) he also worked in Israel at the Weizmann Institute in the field of Immunology.

Jesaja Brinkmann is the co-founder and co-CEO of Cara Care, a Berlin-based digital health company that empowers people with chronic digestive diseases to enjoy a healthier, happier life.

In 2021 he was a honoree on the European Forbes 30 under 30 list in healthcare. Outside of his work at Cara Care, he serves on the Board of Directors at Aignostics, which provides AI-powered precision diagnostics for pathology and is a member of the advisory board of not less but better (nlbb), a behavioral health company that fights smartphone addiction.

Jesaja studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Würzburg and Hamburg and conducted research in the field of lung cancer screening at MGH / Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Roel Bulthuis is a Managing Partner and head of the Healthcare investment team at INKEF. Roel combines more than 15 years of experience across venture capital, pharma business development and investment banking. Prior to joining INKEF he served as an SVP and Managing Director of M-Ventures which he created and developed into a leading CVC fund.

Prior to that, he served in senior positions in global business development at Merck Serono and in the investment banking team at Fortis Bank. Roel is a Kauffman Fellow and passionate about continuously challenging the status quo. Roel holds a Msc. in Biopharmaceutical Sciences from Leiden University and an MBA in Finance from the Helsinki
School of Economics.

Bruno Cadilha is a clinical pharmacology resident medical doctor in the Department for Clinical Pharmacology from Prof. Dr. Stefan Endres. Strong focus on immunological and cancer research, working in the group of Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kobold.

Between his work at the LMU Munich and HMS Boston he has contributed and drove several projects that unveiled new mechanisms of action of effector and regulatory T cells in solid tumors. In the work that is the foundation of CARMOUFLAGE he has shown that the combination of a receptor that directs T cell migration and  a receptor that shields T cells from suppression, can enable effective CAR T cell therapy in pancreatic solid tumors.

Aline is the Head of Innovation Support for the London – Cambridge Life Science network One Nucleus.  She joined in 2010 and covered various roles including European projects and strategic partnerships development; now managing the Virtual Innovation Centre to support the network’s biotech R&D in their growth activities.

Prior One Nucleus, she worked on technology transfer programmes for the scientific services of the French Embassy in the USA (Boston) and technology scouting at the CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique). She holds a MSc in biochemistry from the University of Toulouse and a MBA from Grenoble School of Management.

Kenneth R. Chien is an American doctor and medical scientist who has been a research director at Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, since 2013. Chien has several papers with over 1,000 citations and a h-index of 132. His area of expertise is cardiovascular science.

His research into regenerative cardiovascular medicine, specifically while director of the Cardiovascular Program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, led to his co-founding, in 2013, of Moderna Therapeutics. In 2018, the company re-branded as Moderna, Inc. Chien is a recipient of the Walter Bradford Cannon Award of the American Physiology Society and the Pasarow Award.

He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh.

Daphne Collias is a Postdoc in Prof. Chase Beisel’s lab at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI). She is a Greek-American trained as Chemical and Biomolecular Engineer at the U. Delaware. She obtained her PhD on CRISPR technologies from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at North Carolina State U. in 2020, while conducting part of the research in Würzburg as a visiting PhD student at HIRI. Currently, she is leading the commercialization efforts of LEOPARD, a highly multiplexable diagnostic platform technology based on CRISPR.

Daphne has done research and internships at Princeton U., Merck & Co., U. Delaware, U. Crete, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She has published five peer-reviewed papers. Outside of biotechnology, she enjoys traveling, hiking, and learning new languages (speaks English, Greek, German, and has basic knowledge of Mandarin). 

Daniela Couto is a Partner with BGV (BioGeneration Ventures). She joined BGV in 2015 and serves on the board of four portfolio companies.

Daniela served as Managing Director of cardiovascular-focused Staten Biotech, an antibody company that is now collaborating with Novo Nordisk. Previously, she was co-founder and CEO at Cell2B, a life sciences company dedicated to treating immune and inflammatory diseases.

Daniela holds a M.Sc. degree with honors in Biomedical Engineering from Universidade do Minho and a PhD degree with the highest honors in Bioengineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) – Technical University of Lisbon and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-Portugal Program).

Since joining Bioqube Ventures in October 2017, Alexander has focused on identifying and evaluating investment opportunities within the biotech landscape across various therapeutic areas. He is responsible for providing in-depth analysis and coordinating the investment’s team evaluation process.

Previously, as part of Bioqube Ventures’ previous investment and incubation model, Alexander was involved in working side-by-side with the resident start-up companies. He also co-founded the SINC Alumni network, bringing together entrepreneurial young professionals active across multiple industries

Dr. Sophia Doll is co-founder and Managing Director at OmicEra Diagnostics. She studied Molecular Biology at the University of Munich from which she also holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry.

During her doctoral thesis, she explored the scientific interconnections between industry, academia and the clinic. This journey took her to Genentech Inc., the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry.

Sophia co-authored more than 25 peer-reviewed publications and was a doctoral fellow of the elite German Academic Scholarship Foundation. She won the Max Planck Science Slam and beyond her scientific career, she is a passionate ski instructor.

Since 2006, Horst Domdey has been Managing Director of Bio^M Biotech Cluster Development GmbH, which evolved from Bio^M AG, and is also Managing Director and spokesman for the Bavarian Biotechnology Cluster.

After obtaining his PhD in biochemistry, Horst Domdey worked as a scientist at various German, Swiss and US institutes such as the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, ISREC, UCSD and the California Institute of Technology. From 1984 to 1994 he led an independent research group at the Gene Center of the University of Munich, and in 1994 he was appointed Professor of Biochemistry at LMU Munich. In the same year, he and colleagues founded the biotechnology company Medigene. In 1996, he successfully led the Munich biotech region into the BioRegio competition. From 2010 to 2015, he was also spokesman for the Munich Leading-Edge Cluster Program m⁴.

Florian Ebel is co-founder of the Munich-based medtech startup Dymium. Before joining Dymium, Florian worked several years at the renowned tech accelerator program of UnternehmerTUM, Europe's biggest entrepreneurship center, helping high-tech startups forming cooperations with established players and preparing for growth.

Florian Ebel and the whole Dymium team consisting of medical and chemical engineers want to set a new global standard procedure for the extraction of kidney stones.

Ali Ertürk studied molecular biology and genetics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, and obtained his PhD at the MPI Neurobiology in Munich, Germany. After five years of postdoctoral work at Genentech in San Francisco, he returned to Munich as a principal investigator at the LMU in 2014. In 2019, he was appointed director of a new institute, the Institute of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (iTERM), at Helmholtz Zentrum München.

His aims to develop novel personalized medicine based on tissue clearance and artificial intelligence (AI) to image and analyze intact rodent bodies, human organs, engineered tissues and organoids at cellular resolution. In contrast to the traditional histological methods relying on tissue sectioning and imaging of selected small regions, this new approach enables 3D imaging of the entire biological specimens at the cellular level at unprecedented speed and accuracy.

Onno Faber loves to build stuff. He started his first internet company in high school and has a degree in architecture. Along the way he started multiple projects and companies in education, technology, sustainability, design thinking and medical research. He is always trying to create new opportunities and to solve the most pressing problems.

Onno grew up in the Netherlands and currently lives in San Francisco. Onno speaks about his journey as a serial entrepreneur and as a patient. He has been previously speaking at TEDx, Future of Genomic Medicine, Exponential Medicine and numerous patient events.

Merlin Fege has been with Ventury Analytics for over two years. At the moment, he advises especially on questions regarding financing processes in the venture capital environment. This includes planning equity stories or preparing for financing rounds.

He has a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in finance. He is also constantly developing the software's functions with the experience gained from our projects.

Nadja studied biochemistry at the University of Bayreuth, University of Stockholm, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. Afterwards she performed her doctoral thesis in the laboratory of Prof. Erich Nigg at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, where she graduated in 2010. Since then, she is working on the development of effective antibody-based cancer therapies with reduced side effects and initial focus on Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) at the Gene Center of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. In 2015, Nadja received the pre-seed funding M4 Award as a co-applicant and took over the management of the spin-off project Opsyon. Since 2019 Nadja is funded by the Exist Transfer of Research grant and leading the team with exceptional commitment and determination.

Marc Filerman is Managing Partner at German Accelerator Life Sciences – an organization accelerating international growth of German startups. With over 30 years in healthtech, Marc has expertise in market development, commercialization, and innovation acceleration, and broad experience leading marketing, sales, and business development for large companies and startups.

Marc co-founded a molecular imaging startup, and was Chief Commercial Officer at an NIH-funded hometech venture. Prior to that, Marc held multiple corporate leadership positions including VP of Global Marketing at iCAD, and Group Director of Marketing at Smith & Nephew. Marc holds MS and BS engineers degrees from MIT, did his graduate work at the MIT AI Lab, and started his career designing ultrasound imaging equipment.

Prior to co-founding mbiomics gmbh in early 2020, Dr. Laura Figulla spent over 15 years in life science strategy consulting and transaction advisory. Moreover, she brings prior entrepreneurial and fundraising experience (founder CEO of two cardiovascular implant start-up) and strategic advisor / non-executive board member to various med tech and digital health start-ups.

Laura holds a Ph.D. in health economics and studied business administration, finance & innovation management at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. She is truly passionate about creating company strategies, vision and enabling high-performing teams.

Dr. Patrik Frei is founder and CEO of Venture Valuation AG, Switzerland, the company he started in 1999 based on a collaboration with the Novartis Venture Fund, which became his first client. Since then he has been involved in over 700 valuations around the globe for investors as well as Biotech, Pharma and Medtech companies.

Venture Valuation runs two additional services:
1) Biotechgate, a global business development database.
2) HelloPartnering, a leading one2one partnering software including the Biotechgate Digital Partnering event (www.digitalpartnering.com).

Patrik graduated from the Business University of St. Gallen in Finance and completed his Ph.D thesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL in Lausanne. Patrik has experience as a board member of public and private companies, published numerus articles and provides valuation workshops around the world.

Patrick Frick graduated as business economist. He joined PAN Biotech in 2015 where he started to expand the international business and building new cooperations world wide. In 2019 he became general manager of PAN-Seratech GmbH.

Apart from international business he initiated the PAN Sustainbility concept. His aim is to find solutions for outdated "cell culture habbits" by improvements and more sustainibilty.

Merle Fuchs studied Biology in Germany, the Netherlands and USA. She did her undergraduate and graduate work at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry with Nobel Laureate Manfred Eigen.

In 2000, she founded TechnologieContor, a consulting firm focusing technology-oriented start-ups and grown-ups and cofounded eight hightech start ups in the fields of optics, pharma, chemistry and biotechnology.

Since July 2021, she is managing partner of PRAMOMOLECULAR GmbH, a bio-pharma start up focusing on gene silencing by self-delivering siRNAs in lung and pancreas.

Merle is member of the board of the EXIST initiative of the Federal Ministry of Economics and in the prize jury of the Leibniz Association and was honoured as an "impulse generator" for innovative start-ups by the Thuringian Minister for Economy.
 

Matthias has over 20 years of professional experience in venture capital and corporate finance. He joined MIG in 2007 and has been key in various exits of the MIG Portfolio. He brings sector expertise in medtech, biotech, clean tech and diagnostics. He sits on the board of Creative Balloons, Kewazo and OD-OS.

Before joining MIG, Matthias was Principal at Wellington Partners and Investment Director at goetzpartners.

Matthias holds a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, specialized in Medical Technology, from RWTH Aachen. Matthias is co-author of the book "Handbuch Venture Capital" and has been a coach for the High-Tech Gründerfonds and the Seedfonds Bayern since 2008.

Jan Heidelberger studied Biochemistry at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and obtained his PhD at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Mainz. Since last year he is working as a PhD Coordinator for the Max Planck School Matter to Life in Heidelberg.

During his time as a PhD student, he and his colleagues established the grassroot sustainability group IMB Green in order to evaluated and implement strategies to make the lab work and the institute more ecologically sustainable. This led to the institute wide formation of the IMB sustainability initiative. After he moved to the Max Planck School Matter to Life, he joined the Max Planck Sustainability Network (MPSN) and became a member of the steering committee in June this year.

The goal of the MPSN is to make research in the Max Planck Society and in science in general more ecologically sustainable.

Kerstin Hermuth-Kleinschmidt worked for several years in sales and technical customer consulting for products in the life science sector before turning to the topic of sustainability and founding NIUB Sustainability Consulting.

As an independent consultant, her focus is now on the implementation and support of sustainability processes in the life sciences - both in scientific work and research as well as in companies. She is also a speaker as well as an author of publications on various aspects of sustainability. Since 2017, she has also been teaching at the Center for Applied Cultural Studies (ZAK) at KIT Karlsruhe as part of the "Sustainable Development" degree program. As a member of EGNATON since 2014, she has contributed to the development of EGNATON-CERT, the first certification system for sustainable laboratory technologies, and is now part of the audit team.

Kerstin Hermuth-Kleinschmidt studied chemistry at the University of Freiburg and received her PhD in microbiology from the University of Freiburg.

Gemma Hernández is MSc in Cellular Biology. She currently works as a consultant providing technical support for RDI projects. Among her tasks are IP, regulatory and market analysis in biomedical field. Also, she gives support in the evaluation of the team, the competitive advantage of the technology and support investors’ relationship.

Gemma is a Business Angel Associate in WA4STEAM contributing with her experience in drug development, market valuation and knowledge of entrepreneurship.

Gemma has deep experience in the biomedical sector working in biotechnological companies (Amgen) and Pharma companies (Almirall) and in Innovation and Technology Transfer.

She previously worked in the TTO of University of Barcelona (Fundació Bosch I Gimpera) and the aim of her position as Business Developer Manager in Biotechnology was to facilitate the licensing of knowledge to the productive sector, especially in the Bioscience & Health field. She has more than 10 years of experience in technology transfer through the patent protection to commercialization of the technology and enhancing entrepreneurship.

Regina is a Managing Partner at Wellington Partners Life Sciences (WPLS) and represents the WPLS funds on the Boards of Ayoxxa, Carisma Therapeutics, ONWARD, Sidekick, SNIPR Biome and STipe Therapeutics. She was a founding investor in Rigontec (acquired by MSD), Sapiens (acquired by Medtronic), Middle Peak Medical (acquired by Symetis / Boston Scientific), represented Wellington Partners of the Board of Themis (acquired by MSD), and served as the Spokesperson for the Board of the German PE and VC Association (BVK). Since joining the industry in 2000, she has become an influential investor in the European VC industry, focusing on early-stage and growth deals in Life Sciences.

Before joining WPLS, Regina led the European life sciences efforts of Boston-based Atlas Venture. She was the founding investor in Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BCYC), F-star (NASDAQ,: FSTX) and Jenavalve, and served on the Boards of U3 Pharma (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), Nitec Pharma (now part of Horizon Pharma NASDAQ HZPN), and Novamed (acquired by SciClone NASDAQ SCLN). Before, Regina worked for Apax Partners and McKinsey.

Regina studied chemical engineering in Vienna and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and was as post-doctoral researcher at the MRC, Cambridge UK.

Dmitrij is Principal in the Munich office and joined the Forbion team in 2020. Prior to joining Forbion, Dmitrij was Senior Director of Global Business Development & Licensing at Bayer Pharma where he was mainly responsible for Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Nephrology and Pulmonology. His spectrum of activities included scouting, evaluation, negotiation and transaction for in- and out-licensing. Before joining the Business Development Group at Bayer Pharma, Dmitrij spent two years in R&D where he was Head of Pharmacology Lab in Ophthalmology. His role encompassed activities ranging from target discovery to start of preclinical development.

Dmitrij received his PhD in Immunology (summa cum laude) from the University of Aachen/Fraunhofer IME in 2013.

Andreas Huber is Scientific Director Life Science and Senior Investment Manager at Bayern Kapital. His background is in biology, which he studied at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). Additionally, he obtained a degree in Business Administration and Economics. Prior to joining Bayern Kapital he worked as an analyst for a Munich-based venture capital company and as business development manager with a medtech software start-up.

Bayern Kapital is a Venture Capital company, founded in 1995 by the Bavarian government. and invests- always together with other investors- in young, innovative high-tech companies in Bavaria. Since 1995 Bayern Kapital has invested in more than 300 companies, with a focus on Life Science and IT/Internet start-ups. Bayern Kapital currently has 700m EUR under management including the new 200m EUR Scale-up funds with ticket sizes between 10-25m EUR.

Dr. Bastian July is the CEO of the AI-driven IP strategy company GoodIP. Just believing that your innovations are protected is a huge risk. That's why GoodIP rethought IP strategy from scratch. GoodIP is a team of data scientists, lawyers, engineers and business analysts. Its solution is the future way to create an IP strategy: Get the big picture of what is really protected in the GoodIP dashboard. Finally have a data driven strategy to protect your innovations. GoodIP’s customers include Osram, Giesecke & Devrient, ProGlove and Invitris.

Before Bastian founded GoodIP, he successfully negotiated various multi-million patent license agreements for the lighting company Osram and ran Osram's patent litigations globally. Bastian is admitted to practice law in Germany and New York.

Andreas Jurgeit joined the Gimv Health & Care team in 2021. Prior to that, he has been working at Lundbeckfonden Emerge (Copenhagen, DK) and at Merck Ventures (Amsterdam, NL) where he was responsible for VC investments and company creation in Europe, the US and Israel.

Andreas started his career at Redalpine Venture Partners (Zurich, CH). Andreas Jurgeit holds a PhD in Cell Biology/Virology from the University of Zurich (Switzerland) as well as a master’s degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Innsbruck (Austria).

After finishing Medical School in Erlangen and Munich, Germany, Dr. Klein´s professional stations included postdoctoral fellowships at the Department of Physiology at the University of Munich and at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in Bethesda. He received his clinical training at the Medical Policlinic of the University of Munich and at the Department of Clinical Chemistry at the University Hospital Grosshadern.

After successfully passing the board examinations for Clinical Pathology and Human Genetics, Dr. Klein left the university and started his career as an entrepreneur. He founded MEDIGENOMIX GmbH, a genomic services company, which today is part of the Eurofins group. Shortly after, Dr. Klein founded the Center for Human Genetics and Laboratory Diagnostics in Martinsried and IMGM Laboratories GmbH, being the Medical Director and CEO of both companies to date. In a joint transaction in 2018, both companies have become part of the international Medicover group (Sweden). In 2019, Dr. Klein founded acmaios GmbH, an investment company for seed financing start-ups in biotech and digital health.

Dr. Klein is author of more than 120 scientific publications and book contributions and serves as a field editor for the Journal of Laboratory Medicine. He is also a member of several medical associations and teaches Clinical Chemistry at the University of Munich. Dr. Klein served as a board member of the M4 cluster “Personalized Medicine” steering committee in Martinsried, an initiative supported by the State Government of Bavaria to improve treatment of cancer and other diseases. Recently, Dr. Klein was a founding member and appointed Vice-President of the newly formed network initiative “Personalized Medicine” and in 2017 elected Board Member of the Association of German Human Geneticists (BVDH).

Karin Kleinhans, PhD, is a Partner at LSP and her investment focus is primarily private companies. Prior to joining LSP, Karin was an associate in an international patent law firm where she was involved in all aspects of the patent life cycle for international clients in the biotech industry.

She gained experience in clinical trials and regulatory affairs within pharmaceutical drug development working at the Max-Planck Department for Stem Cell Aging and the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University Ulm. Her research focused on the basic mechanisms of cellular and organismal aging and DNA damage, which led to a number of scientific publications and book chapters in renowned journals.

Karin received her PhD from the International Graduate School in Molecular Medicine in Ulm. She was awarded her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Molecular Medicine where she combined medical studies with scientific research training.

Patty Lee has more than 15 years of experience in the pharmaceuticals and diagnostics industries. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Patty was a global leader at Roche Diagnostics.

Patty graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelor of Science and earned an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, York University in Toronto, Canada. Patty had worked and led teams in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

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 and life science companies. Previously she 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 received her 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.

Prior to joining Forbion as General Partner, Nanna was a Partner at Novo Ventures and a key member of the European deal team focussing on late-stage biopharma investments across Europe.

During her 10 years at Novo, Nanna was involved in numerous successful European growth stage investments including high-profile cross-over deals and IPOs. Notable investments led by Nanna include NBE Therapeutics GmbH, which was later acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim, LAVA Therapeutics N.V. (NASDAQ: LVTX) Orphazyme A/S (ORPHA.CO; ORPH), Inventiva S.A. (NASDAQ: IVA – Euronext Paris: IVA), ObsEva SA (NASDAQ: OBSV; SIX: OBSN), Numab Therapeutics AG, Nodthera Limited and ReViral Ltd.

Nanna began her career in venture capital at Apposite Capital and worked as a Senior Business Analyst at Cancer Research UK. Nanna holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge, a PhD in Neuroscience from University College London, and a BA in Physiology and Psychology from the University of Oxford.

Shelley Margetson joined V-Bio ventures as managing partner in December 2020. Prior to joining V-Bio, Shelley spent over 20 years in executive roles in both finance and business, in multiple European biotechnology companies. As CFO of Merus (MRUS) she managed the Initial Public Offering on the Nasdaq in May 2016 and as CEO of Gadeta she closed a ‘build to buy’ deal with Kite/Gilead. Shelley has managed funding rounds, business exits and negotiated multiple international business transactions.

Vera is Investment Associate in the life science team of coparion, where she focuses on biotech, medtech and digital health startups. Since joining coparion in 2020, she has supported the investments in Tubulis, CatalYm, Cardior and Abalos.

Vera has a scientific background in regenerative medicine and stem cell therapy, working on induced-pluripotent stem cells during her PhD at UCL / NIBSC.

Jason is a scientist entrepreneur passionate about translating innovative technologies into better patient outcomes. As CEO and co-founder of Start Codon, a Cambridge based accelerator, he aims to identify the most disruptive healthcare founders and innovations worldwide, seed fund them and leverage the exceptional resources of the Cambridge cluster to de-risk and drive the success of their start-ups. Previously he was CEO of Cambridge Epigenetix and Business Development Manager for Horizon Discovery’s diagnostics division. He also served as an associate at Cambridge Enterprise, the technology transfer office of the University of Cambridge.

Julia Moosbauer is a mathematician, data scientist and co-founder of the startup deepc. After studying mathematics at TU Munich and École normale supérieur in Lyon, she obtained a Master of Science in Data Science as part of the Elite Network Bavaria program at LMU Munich.

After years of active academic research in Machine Learning, Julia Moosbauer is currently COO of the startup deepc, which develops an AI platform for radiology.

Liliana Nordbakk is a serial entrepreneur, scientist, and investor in high-tech and biotech companies, with a demonstrated history of co-founding and growing several companies with successful exits.

She co-founded NorCom Information Technologies AG in 1989 and took the company public at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 1999.  After the IPO Liliana severed as NorCom’s CFO and was also responsible for Mergers & Acquisitions and business development in the US.  Later she engineered the successful turnaround of the company and oversaw its entry into the AI-software for autonomous vehicles business.  Liliana formerly served as NorCom’s Chairman of the Board.  She has been an Angel Investor since 2005, investing in companies in Germany and in the US.  She is a member of Band of Angels and ASTIA Angels in San Francisco. She recently founded TreBiome Inc, an incubator of microbiome biotech companies based in Silicon Valley.

Liliana holds a Master of Biotechnology (MBT) degree from San Jose State University and a BA Psychology degree from John F. Kennedy University.  

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Maija Palmer launched Future Proof, Sifted corporate innovation news and data product and is Sifted's innovation editor.

She is an experienced editor and award-winning technology journalist whose 19-year career at the Financial Times has involved helping the newspaper expand into several new types of journalism.

She was one of the journalists that launched FT.com in 1999, and later, in 2013, was part of the team that built the FT’s presence across social media channels . As deputy editor of FT’s Special Reports department Maija was at the forefront of experimenting with new types of content concepts for the FT, from longform immersive stories to new podcasts.

As European Technology correspondent for 7 years, Maija was twice named Technology Journalist of the Year, and reported on some of the world’s biggest tech companies from Google and Apple, to Autonomy and Arm.

Kathrin Prebeck is a senior grant consultant as well as project and grants manager at Modis. Located close to Munich, she is not only familiar with the regional and national developments in the funding landscape, but an expert in European funding. With her expertise of 13 years in developing, writing and managing grants, spanning across FP7 to Horizon2020 and Horizon Europe, she has followed the various features of each workprogramme closely. Sustainability included.

Kathrin is part of the Modis Grant Consulting team that supports SMEs, industry and academia through the various stages of grant applications.

Dr. Sebastian Pünzeler is Senior Investment Manager and responsible for Life Science investments at coparion. He represents coparion in nine portfolio companies and serves as board member for Fasciotens, Protembis, Tubulis and Abalos.

Before joining coparion in 2016, Sebastian started his VC career at Gimv in Munich. Sebastian holds a diploma in biology from the RWTH Aachen University / the LMU Munich and a PhD in epigenetics & chromatin biology from the International Max Planck Research School for Molecular Life Sciences (IMPRS-LS) Munich. His research resulted in several publications in renowned journals.

Dr. Markus Rinecker brings 22 years of entrepreneurial and finance experience, including venture capital funding, asset&trade sale transactions, business operations, and corporate strategy.

Prior to co-founding mbiomics gmbh, he served as CEO of a digital health start-up Florio (SOBI SE group) and Chief Financial & Strategy Officer of Definiens AG (AstraZeneca group). Markus holds a doctoral degree in medicine from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich as well as a MBA of INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and Singapore.

Nabiha Saklayen is CEO & co-founder of Cellino, a personalized regenerative medicine company developing an AI-guided laser editing platform for autologous cell-based therapies.Cellino’s proprietary technology makes personalized stem cell-derived therapies scalable for the first time.

Nabiha has published several peer-reviewed articles in the field of pulsed-laser delivery to cells. Nabiha was selected as a Pioneer in MIT Tech Review's 35 Innovators under 35 list for her patented inventions in cellular laser editing and is on the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 List for Healthcare.

She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Fellow. She is also the inaugural Tory Burch Foundation Fellow in Genomics at the Innovative Genomics Institute led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Jennifer Doudna.

Dominic is a Partner of Syncona Investment Management Ltd. He is a Director on the boards of Anaveon, and Purespring Therapeutics and serves as an observer on the board of Gyroscope. Prior to joining Syncona, Dominic worked in the life science practice of strategy consultancy L.E.K. Consulting.

He received his PhD from the Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge where he was a Cancer Research UK scholar. He also holds a German Diplom Degree in Biochemistry.

Dr. Johannes Schmidt is Managing Director of the TUM Venture Lab Healthcare, a newly established initiative by TU Munich (TUM) and UnternehmerTUM to support start-ups at TUM in the fields of biotech, medtech and digital health.

A biomedical scientist by heart and training, Johannes focuses on translating scientific concepts and findings into products, bringing innovation to the patient. In his current role, he supports academic entrepreneurs on their journey to the market, strengthening the Munich entrepreneurial ecosystem in healthcare.

Before joining the Venture Labs, he worked on his own company developing an autologous cell therapy and led the clinical development of a novel drug candidate at a Munich-based start-up, after working at McKinsey as an engagement manager in the pharma practice.

Johannes holds a PhD in Clinical Medicine from University of Oxford and a MSc degree in Molecular Biotechnology from TUM.

Adrian Schomburg, PhD, is a drug discovery expert with over 10 years of experience in pharma and biotech. He moved projects successfully through drug discovery - from target identification to the delivery of preclinical and development candidates. In his former roles at Pfizer and Proteros, he kick-started collaborative R&D projects in epigenetics with big pharma.

He is the co-founder and CEO of Eisbach Bio GmbH, a biotech start-up developing novel drugs that successfully target molecular vulnerabilities arising in cancer genomes. He is married and has 4 children.

Catherine Schreiber (Dipl.Ing, Intl. BA (EMA)) is co-founder of ADVITOS, responsible for strategy development & deployment, as well as fundraising and investor relations. Together with the founder Bernhard Kreymann (an acute care kidney specialist), Catherine has not only developed the ADVOS device from idea to CE market approval, but also build-up ADVITOS from a start-up to now fully compliant medical device company.

ADVOS is the first 4-in-1 organ support (liver, kidney, lung, acid-base balance) for patients with multi organ failure on the intensive care unit.

Catherine has implemented the ISO 13485 QM standard, norm compliant development processes and established the finance, HR and legal departments. She successfully closed financing rounds and grant applications, securing the capital needed for the continuous therapy development and business scale-up.

Dominik Schumacher, PhD serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Tubulis.

From the early founding phase on, Dominik successfully secured several prestigious start-up awards for Tubulis. In 2019, he was awarded as one of MIT’s Innovators Under 35. Dominik is also a Life Science Investor and has been actively investing in young, European biotech companies. Prior to co-founding Tubulis in 2018, Dominik worked as a group leader at the Ludwig Maximillian University (LMU) in Munich.

Dominik obtained his PhD from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany and studied Chemistry and Economics at the Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf.

Dr. Simon Sonntag holds a doctorate in medical engineering and has over 10 years of experience in the field of computer-aided simulation for medical device development and regulatory approval. In 2019, he co-founded Virtonomy as CEO with the mission to replace animals and humans in clinical trials through the use of data-driven virtual patients and simulation. In early 2021, Virtonomy raised a seven-figure seed funding round along with additional seven-figure public funding grants. In addition, Dr. Sonntag is a board member of various societies and associations, including the European Society of Artificial Organs and the Avicenna Alliance.

Ingo is president of EGNATON since 2017. EGNATON is a non-profit organization and makes itself the goal of providing for sustainable European laboratory technologies international Leadership. The initiative promotes the location Europe as high-efficient science place with excellent and sustainable laboratory buildings, which represent a maximum attractiveness for high end scientists.

Ingo is by profession the Global Business Manager for Scientific Surface Solutions at Trespa International. The focus is on the applications of Trespa® TopLab® products in laboratories, clean rooms and the healthcare sector. Trespa International is a leading innovator in the field of architectural materials. Thanks to 60 years of global experience and product innovation, Trespa is recognised internationally as a premier developer of high-quality panels for scientific surface solutions.

Pierre is founder and CEO of the biotech startup Interherence based in Erlangen.  He has long standing expertise in the fields of optical biotechnology, quantum optics and spin physics.

Pierre studied Chemistry at the Philipps University Marburg and the RWTH Aachen University where he graduated with honors and as top of his class. He holds a PhD in quantum physics (summa cum laude) that he obtained from the Max-Planck Institute of the Science of Light in Erlangen. Pierre is passionate about technology that helps to quantify and better understand complex biological processes.

Gerald Unden, MBA, is the Managing Director, Vice President and country lead Germany at Galapagos, a Belgium-based biopharmaceutical company. He directs and leads the German affiliate with special focus on the development and execution of product launches and strategic plans in the therapeutic fields of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Gerald Unden ensures the organizational readiness of Galapagos’ inflammation business unit in Germany and serves as a core member of its global rheumatology leadership team.

Before joining Galapagos in April 2021, Gerald held executive positions at Gilead Sciences GmbH and AbbVie Deutschland GmbH & Co KG. Before that, he gained more than 14 years of experience in business and management consultancy.

Marielle van de Pol leads a Global Informatics department in Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED), the R&D organization of Roche. With a team of technical architects, engineers and scientists, she delivers healthcare solutions at the forefront of science and the leading edge of technology to address an unmet patient need.

Marielle is the Head of the Roche pRED Quantum Computing Taskforce, a team of scientists and technical experts who explore Quantum Computing for drug development, collaborating with academia, industry, and start-ups.

Marielle has a business and computer science background and a decade of experience leading teams in various countries and industries, including several international assignments. These diverse experiences shaped her personally and professionally and made her a strong believer in diversity and inclusion. 

Dr. Bálint Várkuti is the founder and CEO of Munich deep-tech neuroscience venture CereGate.

He started CereGate in 2019 after serving as the Business Unit Director for Functional Neurosurgery at Brainlab and a career in the neurosurgery medical-device and neuromodulation industries.

Originally born in Hungary, he studied Psychology and holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Max-Planck Graduate School of Neural & Behavioural Sciences. 

Dr. Angelika Vlachou has been investing venture capital in biotech, pharma and life science start-ups for over 10 years. Over the course of her career, she has managed many transactions ranging from seed-stage venture capital and growth financing to licensing agreements, trade sale transactions and IPOs.

Angelika has actively manages investments in bio-pharma, despecially drug development in neurodegenerative, chronic inflammatory, oncology, autoimmune diseases, delivery technologies. Prior strategy manager with biopharmaceutical company. Her expertise is also based on her virology-molecular biology research experience. One of her strengths is to combine scientific innovation with commercial potential. She is a valued sparring partner for founders, investors and stakeholders. With a doctorate in biology, she started her professional career in investment banking.

Dr. Moritz Völker-Albert is co-founder and managing director of EpiQMAx GmbH. Since his Bachelor in BioMedicine in Marburg, Mr. Völker-Albert has been working on chromatin, i.e. the interplay between DNA, RNA and proteins in the cell. Mr. Völker-Albert then got to know the technology of mass spectrometry with great passion during his master’s degree in Leiden, the Netherlands, and combined both topics during his doctorate at the LMU in Munich.

Together with Dr. Victor Solis and Prof. Dr. Axel Imhof, he founded EpiQMAx GmbH in 2018 with the aim to decode epigenetics for improving personalized medicine and diagnostics.

Eckhardt Weber is Managing Director and Managing Partner at HealthTech VC Heal Capital. In 2017, he founded the digital health platform Heartbeat Labs, where he was responsible for business development, investments and investor relations as Managing Director and operationally helped build several companies.

Previously, the lawyer was Managing Director at Europe's leading fintech ecosystem finleap and started his professional career as a lawyer in the field of venture capital and M&A.

Stefanie is part of the LBBW VC Life Science Team since August 2019. At LBBW VC, she is in charge of dealflow, due diligence and deal making as well as management of portfolio companies. She has led the recent LBBW VC life science investments in ActiTrexx GmbH and Exciva GmbH.

Prior to working as investment manager, she gained over 5 years of professional experience in biomedical innovation in academia and industry in various positions as project management (EU-funded project), business development (public-private partnerships and in-licensing) and consulting (non-dilutive funding) with Global Care Initiative consortium, at MedDay Pharmaceuticals and EY.

Stefanie obtained a PhD in Pharmacology and Molecular and Cellular Biology from Université Paris Saclay and holds a Diploma in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena.

Caroline Man Xu has extensive experience leading global and regional cross-functional teams including 10 years at Novartis where she had global responsibilities for new products in the neuroscience, ophthalmology, and oncology fields.

Prior to Novartis, she was senior management consultant at McKinsey & Company where she focused on Pharma/Biotech strategy, R&D, M&A, marketing, and operations.

Caroline trained as a pharmacologist with over five years scientific drug research at the Medical Center of Columbia University in New York, Technical University Munich (TUM) and Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Caroline has a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from TUM Munich and an MBA from Cornell University.

Inna Zaimenko is a founder of A-LabInsider/Deepli GmbH. She did her Master's studies in Heidelberg at Heidelberg University and DKFZ, and her PhD in Berlin at Charite University Medicine Berlin, BSIO graduate school.

During her Master's she was frustrated with the information discovery on the right participants of life science research and after her PhD decided to solve this for the good of others affected by the same problem.

She founded A-LabInsider once submitted her PhD thesis and since then keeps pushing the limits. Since recently the company is renamed to Deepli to symbolize the depth and breadth of problems that get solved with it in life science. The company launched several products and aims to introduce an infrastructural network to create a tighter life science world.