About Your Speakers
Barbara Yanni is Vice President and Chief Licensing Officer of Merck & Co., Inc. She leads the Corporate Licensing group which is responsible for negotiating agreements to acquire compounds, programs and new technologies to complement Merck’s research programs and pipeline. Barbara works closely with her scientific and marketing colleagues at Merck to ensure that the company has access to discoveries that will enhance Merck’s ability to bring medicines to patients. Barbara and her team have played a major role in shaping a licensing strategy focused on building strong relationships with partners and potential partners.
Tony Rosenberg is Novartis Head of Business Development and Licensing. He joined Sandoz in 1980, holding leadership positions in sales, marketing, business development and strategic planning. In 1994 he moved to Basel and served in various positions, including Novartis Head Global Marketing Primary Care and Global Head of Transplant and Immunology.
Carlos de Sousa is Vice President Licensing at Nycomed and responsible for the company’s international in-licensing activities. He joined Nycomed February 2009 from Newron Pharmaceuticals SpA in Italy, where he was Chief Business Officer responsible for the company’s growth strategy, including its in- and out-licensing, and mergers & acquisitions activities. Previously, he was Global Head of Business Development and Licensing at Schwarz Pharma AG in Germany. Prior to that Carlos de Sousa served as Head of Global Negotiations Neuroscience and Region Europe Business Franchise Head Respiratory & Dermatology for Novartis Pharma AG, based inSwitzerland.
Dr Dan Zabrowski is a member of the Roche Pharma Executive Committee and has been Global Head of Pharma Partnering since July 2007, based at Roche’s headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. Since joining Roche in 1993, he has held a number of leadership roles including Global Head of Pharma Development Operations and Global Head of Pharma Development Regulatory. Prior to that he was Executive Director, Drug Regulatory Affairs at Syntex, which was integrated into the Roche Group in 1994. Dan was awarded his PhD in organic chemistry from Indiana University, USA, having gained his first degree in chemistry from St Louis University, USA.
John Goddard was appointed Senior Vice President and Head of Strategic Planning and Business Development for AstraZeneca in May 2006 and is based in London. In addition, John is Chairman of Aptium Healthcare Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary based in Los Angeles, which manages the provision of outpatient cancer care and Chairman of AstraTech another wholly owned subsidiary, which develops, manufactures and markets advanced healthcare devices for single use and dental implants. John is also a Non-Executive Director of Renovo Group Plc.
Prior to moving to London, John was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for AstraZeneca in the United States and was responsible for all AstraZeneca Group finance matters in North America.
John began his career with Bell and Howell Limited, Rank Xerox and Spicer and Pegler in the UK. He joined ICI in 1985 and worked in London until 1988, when he was appointed finance director for ICI Japan, based in Tokyo. In 1991, John became chief financial officer for ICI Asia Pacific based in Singapore, and was appointed finance director for Zeneca Pharmaceuticals in 1993 back in the UK, a position he held through 1998 when he moved to the US.
John graduated from Kent University, United Kingdom in 1972. He is a fellow of the U.K. Institute of Chartered Accountants and a member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.
Dr. Christoph Hüls studied Biology specializing in Genetics, Immunology, Biochemistry and Botany. He then gained a PhD in Immunology at Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz Germany.
He undertook different positions in R&D including Project Manager and Group Head at Hoechst AG (which is now Sanofi Aventis). Dr. Hüls became Head of project and portfolio management at Novartis Generics (now Sandoz) in 1999. In 2001, he took on the role as CEO and and President of Protagen AG.
Dr. Christoph Hüls joined Merck Serono in 2008 as Vice President Operational Excellence Research & Development and his current position there is Vice President Early Stage Licensing.
Onno van de Stolpe founded Galapagos 1999 and has grown the Company to its current level of 500 employees. Galapagos is an integrated drug discovery company with a number of internal programs and a large service division BioFocus. For its internal programs, Galapagos has Merck, GSK, Lily and J&J as alliance partners. In these programs Galapagos is responsible for delivering clinical molecules after which the partner has licensing options. Before Galapagos, Onno established the European operations for Molecular Probes Inc.
Ian Nicholson joined Chroma Therapeutics Limited in September 2004. Prior to joining Chroma, he was Senior Vice President of Business Development for Celltech Group plc, responsible for all global licensing activities and additionally held the position of Acting CEO, Oxford GlycoSciences plc following its acquisition by Celltech in 2003.
Kees Lucas holds a PhD in medicine and has completed management training at IMD, Lausanne.
He worked as a scientist in immunological research (autoimmunity, vaccines, cancer immunotherapy, transplantation) at the research center of the Dutch Blood transfusion service (Now Sanquin). Later he was executive director for a contract research organization (TNO). In the over 200 FTE institute he was responsible for research in infectious diseases, immunotherapy, neurobiology and industrial molecular biology. In the executive team he was responsible for HR, Internal Organization, Corporate Development and PR.
For the Dutch government he was a member of the Health Council and he represented The Netherlands in UN conferences on de-armament and biological weapons. He was closely involved in worldwide activities around Childrens Vaccines Initiative (CVI, later GAVI)
In these periods he was a key opinion leader on Multiple Sclerosis.
From 1998 till 2004 he was part-time professor in Neuroimmunology at the Amsterdam University. He joined Biogen January 2000. For Biogen he created a large number of research alliances. He also was closely involved in, often responsible for, several high profile deals. After 5 years as senior director Corporate Development he left Biogen-Idec, to become an independent consultant for the biotech industry.
He is a non-executive director of several biotech companies. He works as a consultant - mainly in business development – for several European biotech companies. Client list includes Chiron, Norwood, Theraptosis, Faust, Imaxio, Erytech, Envivo, Pharmexa, DNAge, CMP pharma, HLA-G technologies, Synvolux, He also works for several VC’s and investment banks.
He coaches CEO’s of small biotech companies.
Dr. Simon Moroney is CEO of MorphoSys AG and one of the Company’s co-founders. Prior to co-founding MorphoSys, Dr Moroney held positions in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (1991- 1992); as Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (1989 - 1990) and as Associate in the Chemistry Department of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH), in Zurich, Switzerland (1986 - 1989), where he also held a position as Lecturer (1988 – 1989).
Gerd Zettlmeissl joined Intercell as Chief Operating Officer in 2001. After having been responsible for Business, R&D and Manufacturing Operations at Intercell for four years, Gerd Zettlmeissl was appointed Chief Executive Officer in the fall of 2005.
Dr. Yetunde Taiwo is currently Senior Director of Global External R&D at Eli Lilly and Company, supporting Lilly’s external innovation efforts. She leads a multidisciplinary team responsible for the identification and scientific evaluation of external innovation in the areas of Musculoskeletal and Auto-immune Diseases, Inflammation, Technologies, Biomarkers and new disease areas outside Lilly’s current Therapeutic areas.
Over the past five years Edwin has played an important role at Board level (primarily as Chairman) in over 15 European life science companies. During this time he has been involved in financing rounds totaling in excess of €200M, a series of M&A transactions and three IPO’s. In March 2006, Edwin accepted the offer by Ablynx’s Board to extend his role as Chairman to include that of Chief Executive Officer. Edwin has been Chairman of Ablynx since 2004.
Margaret Beer is one of the founding members of the team responsible for the development of Merck’s anti-migraine drug MAXALT and was involved in the project during the basic research stage through to the launch in 1997. Her other main areas of research interest include depression, anxiety and multiple sclerosis. Margaret joined the Worldwide Licensing and External Research, Europe, group, under the leadership of Dr Ray Hill, in 2003. This group was established in 2002 specifically in recognition of the scientific excellence in Europe and the wealth of potential licensing opportunities. Margaret assumed leadership of the group in 2008 following the retirement of Ray Hill.
Kate Bingham joined SVLS in 1991. Kate currently serves or has served on the boards of companies in the UK, US, Ireland, Sweden andGermany. She has been responsible for past investments in Alantos, Auxilium, Hexagen, Kinetix, KuDOS, Leukosite, Mednova, Micromet, PowderMed and current investments including ESBATech, EUSA and RespiVert.
Janette is Executive Director, Strategic Transactions at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Her recent collaboration was with Astra Zeneca for the co development and commercialization of Saxagliptin and Dapagliflozin. Other European deals include those with Medivir AB, Sweden, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Belgium and Nerviano Medical, Italy. Janette is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
Dr. Chris Hentschel, President and CEO, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), SwitzerlandA bio-pharmaceutical executive with more than 25 years’ international R&D and technology transfer management experience in both private and public sectors. Doctorate in biochemistry, King’s College, London. Early career focused on basic biomedical research, including as a Fogarty Fellow at NIH, USA. Chris has been CEO of MMV since 2000.
Ulrich Koch joined Schering AG in Berlin, Germany, in 1982 and had responsibilities within Sales, Marketing, Strategic Planning and Licensing. Prior to the acquisition by Bayer he was Head of Business Development at Schering. After the acquisition Ulrich had responsibility for licensing activities of BSP’s Business Units. Currently, he is responsible for Bayer Schering Pharma’s licensing activities in Emerging Markets. Ulrich worked and lived 4 years in the United Kingdom, and 4 years in the United States. He is member of the Board of the German Pharma Licensing Club and a regular presenter at partnering conferences. His university background is in economics.
Patrick Lee has been an investor since 1999 as a general partner with Advent Venture Partners where he led investments in health care companies. Before that, he held various executive positions in marketing, product development and business development at Rhone Poulenc. As Group Vice President, Mergers and Acquisitions, he was actively involved in the creation of Aventis through Rhone Poulenc’s merger with Hoechst. He also worked at Baxter and Booz Allen and Hamilton.
Denise has been responsible for leading Nomura’s life science investment activities since joining in 1999 and has over 12 years experience as a venture capitalist. Prior to joining Nomura she was an investment manager in the Bioscience Unit of Rothschild Asset Management, managing investments in private and public biotechnology companies. Denise has held senior management positions in pharmaceutical R&D and in strategic consulting. Denise holds a PhD and BSc (Hons) from Birmingham University and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also actively involved in US and European investments most recently Proteolix and OncoMed. She is currently a Director of Albireo, Cerimon, Idenix, Nabriva, and OncoMed. Denise is a member of the Board of Trustees and Council of the British Heart Foundation and in 2008 she was the winner of the Women in the City Awards for Financial Services.
Kees is President and CEO of EnVivo Pharmaceuticals, which is pursuing a diversified portfolio of five clinical and pre-clinical programs in the field of cognitive and neuro-degenerative disorders, with a main focus on Alzheimer’s disease and Schizophrenia. Prior to joining EnVivo, Kees was CEO of Bionaut Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company using a proprietary cell-based discovery platform to advance drug candidates for cancer and inflammation. Before that, Kees spent four years at Biogen where he directed the Oncology Business Unit which was sold to Idec, and, as Senior Vice President of Business Development, led all of Biogen’s deal-making efforts and portfolio management activities, most importantly the collaboration with Elan on Antegren (now Tysabri)
Roel Bulthuis is Head of Merck Serono Ventures, the strategic venture capital group of Merck Serono. Through the ventures group, Merck Serono is committed to actively invest in emerging biotech companies which have the potential to provide innovative products in Merck Serono’s core therapeutic areas, or access to innovative technologies. In addition to the venture fund, Roel is also responsible for all ‘externalization’ transactions at Merck Serono, including ‘fostering’ deals, spin-offs and other alternative financing models. Roel joined Merck Serono in 2006 and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. Previously, Roel was a Director in the Biotech Investment Banking Team at Fortis Bank, where he was responsible for the origination and execution of a wide range of financing and strategic transactions in the biotech sector based out of Amsterdam and New York. Before joining Fortis Bank, Roel worked at Devgen NV in Gent, Belgium, as a business analyst. Roel holds a Msc. in Biopharmaceutical Sciences from Leiden University, the Netherlands, and an MBA in Finance from the Helsinki School of Economics, Finland.