Head of Discovery Operations, RNA Molecule Research (RMR)
Pharma Research and Early Discovery (pRED)
Roche Innovation Center Copenhagen (RICC)

As Head of Discovery Operations, RMR Christoph is responsible for leading the Oligonucleotides synthesis, Pharmacology, and Screening Operations teams and as a member of the RMR-LT he participates in defining and setting the strategy for RMR.

 Christoph holds a Master of Science and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Southern Denmark (the lab of Prof. Jesper Wengel - one of the inventors of LNA). After his PhD, Christoph worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Danish Technical Univerisity. In addition Christoph holds an executive MBA in Technology, Market and Organisation from Copenhagen Business School.

Christoph started his biotech career in Cureon as chemist with the task of synthesizing the LNA monomers. The company was later merged with Pantheco A/S to create Santaris Pharma A/S in 2003, where he become group leader for the chemistry team. Later the group was joined with CMC, Bioinformatics, PK and Pharmacolgy to form the Research Operation Department for which he became the director. A position he held until the acquisition by Roche in 2014.

Garry Pairaudeauis currently Head of Hit Discovery at AstraZeneca; the group comprising HTS, Comp Chem, Virtual screening and DEL is responsible for generating high quality starting points for AstraZeneca. In addition, the group works extensively with academic centres of excellence through open innovation and strategic collaborations with groups such as MRC, CRUK, Life Arc and many others to help support academic drug discovery.

Garry also chairs the Global Chemistry Leadership team in AstraZeneca responsible for chemistry strategy and has been particularly active in building Automation and Machine learning capabilities in addition to continuing to lead AZ Discovery chemistry outsourcing.

Garry obtained his PhD in chemistry from the University of Southampton in 1991, followed by post-doctoral work at UC Irvine California.  He joined AstraZeneca in 1994 as a medicinal chemist and was part of the chemistry team that discovered Brilinta. He has experience leading projects through all phases of Drug Discovery contributing to multiple clinical candidates in the respiratory, inflammation and CV areas. He has a long standing interest in lead generation, hit identification and diversity screening.  Prior to taking up his current position in 2012 he was Director of Chemistry for the cardiovascular group at Alderley Park.

PhD from Imperial College. Joined Glaxo in 1984 and stayed until 2009 worked on a variety of targets including ion channels, GPCRs, nuclear receptors and enzymes. During the GSK era worked in the Neurology area as a department head in Medicinal Chemistry largely focussed on pain programmes.

Left GSK in 2008 and joined Almirall in Barcelona as Head of Chemistry where the focus was on respiratory projects and inhaled delivery and in 2013 returned to the UK to join the Drug Discovery Group at the University of Sussex with the responsibility of developing collaborations with both academic groups and industry and raised 12.5M in funding to support the group’s activities.

Started working with Bicycle in 2016 as a consultant while still at Sussex and joined as Director of Chemistry in October 2018

Vicky carried out a PhD and post-doc in total synthesis of macrocyclic natural products at Cambridge University with Prof Ian Paterson and at U Penn with Prof Amos B. Smith, III. Her industrial career initiated at Merck (Terling’s Park) working on neuroscience targets. She then moved to GlaxoSmithKline (Harlow) focussing on anti-infectives and anti-inflammatories. Upon joining Selcia in 2008, she rose from Senior Scientist to Director of Discovery. Upon Selcia’s acquisition by Eurofins in 2017, she has become general manager of Eurofins Discovery and additionally taken on a global role as Business Line Leader of Integrated Drug Discovery Services at Eurofins Discovery. Vicky has a strong track record in innovative medicinal chemistry, and has delivered multiple pre-clinical candidates for customers. She is named on around 30 papers and patents and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Brice is a Director Drug Discovery at Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV). He leads drug discovery activities in the context of individual projects and pharmacology platforms. As Director Drug Discovery, Brice provides scientific advices and leadership to portfolio of drug discovery activities projects and pharmacology platforms. He works with partners from both academia and industry in order to deliver pertinent and optimal biological test cascades as well as safe and efficacious pre-clinical candidate which will be part of the next generation of anti-malarials. Brice has a particular interest in molecules and biological assays that tackle the liver stage of the parasite and more precisely the hypnozoites reservoir in order to find the new drugs that will help eradicate Malaria.

He joined MMV in November 2011, bringing with him more than 14 years of experience in drug discovery, gained primarily with the Genomic Institute of the Novartis Foundation (GNF) and Addex Pharmaceuticals S.A. He has broad experience in molecular pharmacology and drug discovery in several disease areas such as Neuroscience, Metabolic Disease and Inflammation, and has successfully led and contributed to teams at all stages of drug discovery. Brice holds a PhD in Neuroscience and Immunology from the University of Sheffield (UK) and has published a significant number of scientific papers and patent applications.

PhD from University of Barcelona and Post-doc at University of Sheffield with Prof V. Aggarwal.

Joined Almirall in 1998 as a member of the starting Combinatorial Chemistry Group. From 2000 to 2008 worked as chemistry program leader working on a variety of targets including GPCRs, enzymes, chemokines and ion channels in the Respiratory therapeutic area. Since 2009 promoted to Medicinal Chemistry Head of Section and Inhalation Team Leader of a multidisciplinary group devoted to the design of inhaled drugs. Since 2015 involved in Idea Generation Groups for developing incremental innovation and repositioning projects.

Worked in several strategic collaborative programs and in 2018 promoted to Head of Research Alliances of a group responsible for running collaborations with other Biotechs, CROs and academic groups, obtain public funding and coordinate open innovation initiatives.

Dr Dave Madge received his Ph.D in organic chemistry from Imperial College, London, and spent the early part of his career working at the Wellcome Foundation as a medicinal chemist. In 1995, Dave joined a new integrated biochemical research group at UCL in London as co-founder of the medicinal chemistry group. In this role Dave helped establish new drug discovery projects as collaborative and commercial ventures with other scientists at UCL, including a neuroscience company and an anti-infective company, both of which were acquired by pharma. In 2001 Dave and colleagues established a drug discovery services company, NCE discovery (now Domainex) which Dave joined as chief operating officer. In 2005 Dave joined the ion channel drug discovery company Xention, as VP, Chemistry and then VP, Research. Dave is now VP of the Research Services Division at WuXi AppTec, a leading global pharmaceutical and medical device open-access capability and technology platform company.

Inez is a pharmaceutical professional with extensive experience within the pharma and biotech industry. In-depth knowledge of the different elements of drug development and the interfaces between them. As partner and co-founder of 3D-PharmXchange she is responsible for the strategy and management of 3D-PharmXchange. In 2013 she was appointed as CEO for our client Treeway, a biotechnology company with a mission to develop therapies to cure ALS.

Her interests are in the strategic aspects and the valuation of drug and companion diagnostic development projects, as well as the potential for collaboration and synergy in this development space between big pharma and smaller biotech companies. She has a passion for driving results that truly impact critical decisions through leadership and/or participation in multidisciplinary efforts at the interface between science and business.

Prior to founding 3D-PharmXchange, she was Director Clinical Development and Chief Operating Officer of Kinesis Pharma. She also worked for several years as consultant and project manager on clinical and PK-PD projects in several therapeutic areas.

At Tibotec-Virco, she managed the clinical pharmacology program for their successfully approved HIV protease inhibitor Prezistra and follow-up compounds.  At Leiden Advanced Experts on PK and PD (LAP&P) she was responsible for modeling & simulation projects and project management.

Inez studied Medical Biology at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and obtained her PhD at the department of Pharmacology from the LACDR at Leiden University, The Netherlands. 

Dr Steve Collingwood obtained his first degree in chemistry from the University of Durham and his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Newcastle. After postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford, he joined the central research laboratories of Ciba Geigy, which later became Novartis. In 1997 he joined the Novartis respiratory disease team. During his time there, he led the chemistry on multiple respiratory projects, delivering several clinical candidates and contributing to two successful human proof of concept studies. In 2006 his contributions were recognised with a Novartis Leading Scientist award. He later became Director of Respiratory Medicinal Chemistry and a member of the Novartis Respiratory Disease Area Board. In 2014 he joined Janssen as Head of Chemistry for the respiratory research activities at its Respivert subsidiary, where he led a new research project and oversaw the inhaled DMPK strategy and Respivert IP portfolio. Throughout his time in respiratory research Steve has a particular interest in the design of novel inhaled medicines. He is an author of over 70 patents and publications.

PhD from Imperial College. Joined Glaxo in 1984 and stayed until 2009 worked on a variety of targets including ion channels, GPCRs, nuclear receptors and enzymes. During the GSK era worked in the Neurology area as a department head in Medicinal Chemistry largely focussed on pain programmes.

Left GSK in 2008 and joined Almirall in Barcelona as Head of Chemistry where the focus was on respiratory projects and inhaled delivery and in 2013 returned to the UK to join the Drug Discovery Group at the University of Sussex with the responsibility of developing collaborations with both academic groups and industry and raised 12.5M in funding to support the group’s activities.

Started working with Bicycle in 2016 as a consultant while still at Sussex and joined as Director of Chemistry in October 2018

Chief Technology Officer at Nanoform Finland Ltd. since January 2019 leading the R&D and QC activities with a focus on further developing the company’s innovative manufacturing technology. Nanoform offers new technological and business advantages for the pharmaceutical industry. The company has developed a proprietary technology called Controlled Expansion of Supercritical Solutions (CESSTM) that allows nanonization of drug substances. Dr Sandler has a PhD from the University of Helsinki and he has worked in various roles both in the pharmaceutical industry and academia. He has more than 20-years of experience in pharmaceutical technology with the focus on manufacturing technologies, material science and process analytical technologies. He has run numerous academic and industrial R&D and commercialisation projects in the field successfully.  He has been invited speaker in various international conferences and published more than 100 peer reviewed articles in international high-quality journals throughout the years.

Dr Jonathan Loughrey, Head of Screening Services, is based in Edinburgh and oversees the Solid Form Screening group who provide high quality polymorph, salt, co-crystal, and early crystallisation screening studies for a global client base. Jonathan’s career started at Abbott Life Sciences (The Netherlands) where he was a process solid form specialist. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Chemistry (University of Leeds) and numerous postdoctoral positions within the UK and USA, he joined Solid Form Solutions (now Cambrex) as a crystallisation scientist to develop scaleable process crystallisations for small molecules and peptides. Over the past five years, Jonathan has moved to oversee the Solid Form Screening group and now provides clear advice on solid form control for a given API during drug substance and drug product development

Thomas studied chemistry in France (ENSC, Montpellier) and the UK (UMIST, Manchester) and obtained a PhD degree from the university of Nottingham, UK.

After research appointments at the School of Pharmacy in Nottingham and ETH Zürich, Thomas joined Lipideon Biotechnology AG in 2007. As Head of the Drug Discovery and Chemistry, he lead a multi-disciplinary team that discovered a candidate for pre-clinical investigation (Non-Systemic Cholesterol Absorption Inhibitor).

In 2011, Thomas co-founded SpiroChem AG, Swiss fine chemicals company and serves as CEO of the company.

Thomas has several years of experience in the management of R&D projects, including medicinal chemistry, design of innovative building blocks for drug discovery and development of new process routes.

Roelof de Wilde received his MSc degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He started his professional career as Study Director at SOLVO Biotechnology, Budapest, Hungary, where his main responsibilities were conducting contract-based research in the lab on drug - membrane transporter interactions. Following this, from 2012 to 2016 he served clients in North-American territory as Study Manager, during which he was responsible for close to 200 contract research studies. During this period he also designed a series of data analysis and interpretation templates, to streamline internal data processing as well as helped implementing new techniques to study transporter interactions in SOLVO’s labs (hepatocyte uptake and B-clear® assays). In 2016 his responsibilities increased in a new role as Head of the North-American team, moving into a more business oriented position. After a short transition period as Head of the European team he was promoted to Director of Sales in the end of 2017, becoming responsible for both the European and Asian-Pacific business development. Backed up by his strong technical background and experience working with clients in the pharmaceutical industry globally, he is currently managing a team of several Study- and Account Managers.

Professor Chris Frampton obtained his B.Sc in Chemistry and his Ph.D in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Essex in 1981 and 1985 respectively. After completion of his Ph.D research he took up a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Professors Tom Birchall and Ron Gillespie at McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, researching into the correlation of crystal structure data with Mössbauer spectroscopic parameters of high-oxidation state main-group compounds. He subsequently took up the management position of the single-crystal X-ray facility at McMaster University. Prior to his more recent academic positions, Professor Frampton was a cofounder and Chief Scientific Advisor of Nuformix (2009), a company devoted to the exploitation of cocrystal technology to improve the pharmaceutical characteristics and generate new IP for new and existing drug products. Cofounder and Director of Pharmorphix Ltd. (July 2003-May 2014), consultancy and solid-form research services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. He joined Pharmorphix full time in January 2005 as Chief Scientific Officer. Pharmorphix was acquired by SAFC Pharma, A Sigma-Aldrich Company Ltd. in August 2006 and more recently by Johnson Matthey PLC, October 2015.

He held the position of Director of Strategic Marketing at Bruker AXS where he was responsible for new technology in the bio-market. He joined Bruker AXS after 9 years at Roche Discovery Welwyn, a UK-based semi-autonomous research and development division of F. Hoffman La-Roche AG, with the primary responsibility for the establishment of a single crystal X-ray diffraction laboratory to support both medicinal chemistry and the pre-clinical Pharmaceutical Development Department. This included participating in research projects that led to the successful market launch of drugs such as the influenza neuraminidase inhibitor Tamiflu® (oseltamivir phosphate) and a first-generation HIV protease inhibitor Invirase® (saquinivir mesylate). He is the author and co-author of over 30+ patents and over 140 peer-reviewed research publications which have appeared in many high-impact journals. He is a member of the editorial board of for the IUCr journal Acta Crystallographica, Sect. C.

He has acted as an expert witness in a number of high profile legal cases, involving the solid form of pharmaceutical drug substances, in both the US and the UK. More recently, (November 2013- January 2018), he took a Chair in Structural Chemistry and Crystal Engineering within the Wolfson Centre for Materials Processing at Brunel University and currently holds the post of visiting Professor of Structural Chemistry within the ETC at Brunel University. In April 2015 he was named in the Global Top 100 Most Influential Medicine Makers Power List. He is currently the CEO of Rbar3 Ltd., a Solid-form and Crystallographic Consultancy service to the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industry sectors

Jane Escott is a Director in the Early RIA, R&D BioPharmaceuticals group in AstraZeneca leading licensing evaluations and collaborations in respiratory diseases.  Previously, Jane established a variety of ‘Open innovation’ initiatives and was the Alliance manager for the MRC ‘Asset Sharing’ initiative. Jane has a PhD in Pharmacology from King’s College, London and over 15 years of R&D experience in the pharmaceutical industry.  By following the science, Jane has progressed compounds from preclinical to early clinical development in a number of disease areas including respiratory, inflammatory and oncology. More recently, Jane has championed the repositioning of deprioritized compounds into new disease indications through the generation of novel biology internally and through external collaborations with disease experts. As a keen advocate for diversity and inclusivity in the workplace, Jane actively supports diversity initiatives in AstraZeneca.

Formerly, Head, External Innovation in the Innovative Medicines Unit, Grünenthal Innovation, Aachen, DE. He has over 30 years’ experience in pre- and early clinical drug discovery working in all aspects from target ID and validation, LO and translational studies in early clinical development, in several therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Grünenthal, he worked for Merck (formerly Organon/Schering-Plough) in senior project and line management roles, and previously at Pfizer, UK and Glaxo (now GSK) in the UK and CH.

Mark Sheehan studied for his undergraduate degree in Industrial Chemistry in the University of Limerick. For the following 11 years, Mark proceeded to work in various roles in both the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry, choosing to focus specifically on analytics and instrumentation. Later, Mark studied for his Master’s in Biopharmaceutical Engineering from University College Dublin, which led to the start of his PhD research using process analytical technology and data analytics for process improvements. As part of this programme, Mark focuses on the development of in-house capabilities for APC Ltd. to be provided to client companies as a solution for process refinement and troubleshooting

Dr. Delgado joined BaseLaunch in 2018 as Manager Innovation & Sourcing. He is responsible for scouting early-stage therapeutic innovation across continental Europe and also for supporting portfolio companies in important operational activities such as: de-risking science, team building, fundraising and connecting to Pharma and Venture Capital investors.

Dr Robert Kirby, Head of CRO Services, will be substituting Andy Southan.

Andy has over 25 years’ experience in life science research, including 14 years in the CRO sector.  In 1991 he received his PhD in Pharmacology from the University of London (UK), investigating the effects of anaesthetics and high pressure on CNS potassium channels.  Following a move to industry Andy worked as a brain slice electrophysiologist supporting ion channel-based CNS programmes at Wyeth (UK), before moving to Imperial College London where he published the first patch-clamp recordings from cerebellar inhibitory nerve terminals.  At CeNeS Pharmaceuticals he performed CRO services (hERG, nAChR) and internal research on HCN and two-pore channels.  He subsequently established the electrophysiology laboratory for Ionix Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on identifying novel pain therapeutics, where he worked on Na_v, Ca_v and mechanosenstive ion channels.  Before joining Metrion, Andy spent 12 years in leadership roles at BioFocus and Charles River managing stand-alone projects, multi-year collaborations and fully integrated drug discovery programmes.

Tammy Ladduwahetty is a Group Leader in Medicinal Chemistry at the Charles River Early Discovery site in the UK. During her >10 years at Charles River she has led medicinal chemistry and library design teams and worked on a number of target classes including GPCRs, ion channels, kinases and nuclear hormone receptors. She has experience in a range of therapeutic areas from CNS disease to antimalarials. After obtaining her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and spending a post-doctoral year at Cambridge University, Tammy joined Merck Sharp and Dohme in the UK. During her eighteen year career there she was a key contributor to a number of clinical candidates, including the NK1 antagonist Emend which is on the market for CINV. She is the co-author of over 60 patents and papers.

Carole Delauney has 18+ years expertise in the field of Contract (Development) Manufacturing Organizations in which she is acting as a highly technically skilled commercial person looking for specific solutions adapted to the outsourcing needs of pharmaceutical and biotechnology.

Dynamic business developer, with a strong entrepreneurship spirit, management skills and a particular interest in STEM disciplines. Experience in various sectors (Life Sciences, IT, Oil & Gas, Energy, Automotive, Food), fluently quadrilingual (English, Dutch, Italian and French). Always looking for opportunities to create added value and develop business in a sales & marketing environment: my dream is to disruptively innovate an industry, always whilst meeting and exceeding customer needs and expectations.

Dr. Fred Jordan is co-founder of AlpVision and has served as CEO since June 2001. He is the author of numerous scientific publications and patents. Dr. Jordan has work experience in the United States and in France. In 1999, he received his PhD from the Swiss Technology Institute (EPFL) - Signal Processing Institute (ITS) in Lausanne.

Tom has spent 20 years in strategic procurement roles in various large corporations. He has been with Scientist.com since 2017, but his connection to the company goes back more than 5 years, when he was leading the AstraZeneca Global Research Procurement team. At AstraZeneca, Tom led the strategic development and successful implementation of digitalisation strategy involving the Scientist.com marketplace across the global business. His current role is to develop new customer relationships and support partners in their strategic program development by leveraging his years of industry experience. Tom holds a MSc in Global Supply Chain Management from Southampton University.

Dr. Florian Guignard has an education in Chemical and Bio Engineering from EPFL (Bsc.) and ETHZ (MSc.), followed by a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg. His academic work focused on atypical colloidal suspension and self-assembly.

He now works as a R&D Associate Scientist for AgroSustain, where he is in charge of the product development and formulation.

Filipe Duarte joined Novo Nordisk in 2017 as Senior Category Manager in Strategic Sourcing. His background in organic chemistry (PhD from Nova University of Lisbon) and R&D experience supports him on the selection and management of CMOs for commercial production of biologic APIs, intermediates and complex materials. He is also responsible for implementing ethical sourcing standards in the supply chain.

Dr. Eberhard Krauß is Group Leader in the In Vitro Biology department at the Evotec site in Toulouse, France, overseeing a number of internal and external projects in oncology as well as various technology platforms such as ex vivo culture, single cell RNAseq, CRISPR and high-content imaging. One of his current responsibilities is leadership of several target identification and validation activities. In 2014, Eberhard co-founded and implemented VIB Discovery Sciences enabling to translate basic research outcomes into early drug discovery programmes. Previously, he has been supporting scientists and teams during various positions in industry (Tibotec/Janssen) and academia in technology selection, target identification & validation, development particularly of physiologically more relevant cell-based assays, screening, and drug discovery (oncology, infectious diseases, CNS). In 2003-2008, he was setting-up and heading the central high-content screening labs at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany. Before, he held responsible positions for 6 years in biotech industry at Cenix BioScience (Germany) and Cyclacel (Scotland, UK) dealing with RNA interference (RNAi) and drug discovery, respectively.

Dr Hitscherich has been working in industry for close to 20 years.  He is currently the Head of Clinical Supply Chain & External Manufacturing at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals.  Prior to joining Alnylam he had positions at Biogen, Bristol Myers and Wyeth.   He has participated in the development and commercialization of numerous parenteral products.  Dr Hitscherich received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Penn State University, MBA from Northeastern University, and his PhD in Biochemical Engineering from the University of Iowa.

Rudolf Hausmann, originally from Kiel Germany, studied Pharmacy before his Ph.D. in Immunology. He has also a degree in Pharmaceutical Medicine from Basel University.

His career in the Pharmaceutical Industry started at Hoffmann La-Roche in Basel/Switzerland and he held different positions in Galenical Production, Formulation Development and Project Leadership. He worked on numerous development projects from pre-Phase-I up to launch.

2005 he started at Santhera Pharmaceuticals, a Biotech company near Basel, Switzerland, which is focussed on Development and Commercialization of new medicines against Neuromuscular Diseases. In his position as Head Technical Development & Operations he is responsible for Technical Development from Phase-I to Phase-III and commercial manufacturing & supply. He is also involved BD&L activities and has additional responsibilities as Project Leader.

Head of External Development - Small Molecules / Oral Delivery Platform

Expert in Pharmaceutical development with more than 15 years of experience in pharmaceutical sciences in a broad business area covering generic, OTC, veterinary and Rx with missions all along the value chain (from preclinical to launch). From 1999 to 2007 progressing from pharmaceutical research at Pierre Fabre (Consumer Health Care and prescription medicines), Ethypharm (Drug Delivery company) and Virbac (Animal Health).

Joined Sanofi in 2007 and since then have had increasing responsibilities within the pharmaceutical sciences department and recently moved in the Business Excellence organization of CMC in charge of the External Development department for Small Molecules / Oral Delivery Platform.

Craig currently leads the discovery and development synthesis for Galderma, the pharmaceutical branch of Nestlé Skin Health, operating out of the offices of the Entre-Deux-Villes site, Switzerland. During his 6 years at Galderma, Craig drove both internal and external synthesis (CRO) teams to deliver 10 development candidates on a variety of targets linked to skin diseases such as psoriasis, acne, skin cancer, atopic dermatitis and in the aesthetic and corrective field on the Sophia Antipolis site in France. Prior to joining Galderma, Craig held a similar role at AstraZeneca, driving the synthesis for the Oncology iMed in Reims, France where he contributed to many discovery programs including 3 clinical candidates as well as to several continuous improvement projects.

Bianca Matthee holds a PharmD degree from the University of Utrecht. She started her career as formulation scientist at Organon BioSciences and has developed into a manufacturing leader in biotech/pharmaceutical R&D. She has >12 yrs of experience in Chemistry, Manufacturing & Control (CMC) of adenoviral vaccine products and oligonucleotide products, having worked for Merck (Schering Plough, Organon BioSciences) and Johnson & Johnson (Crucell) in different roles including formulation scientist, production manager and CMC Director. Since 2013 she heads up the CMC department at ProQR Therapeutics where she has built the CMC team and manufacturing capabilities from scratch including vendor management, in house facilities, interacting with regulatory authorities and delivering supplies for clinical programs. All of the clinical products she is involved developing are based on oligonucleotides developed for (ultra)orphan indications mainly in ophthalmology and dermatology and are in preclinical, early stage and late stage clinical trials.

Ronald is one of the founders of 3D-PharmXchange. Next to his role as general partner, he holds roles as CDO and is Treeway’s CDO since 2013. He is an advisor for various regional and strategic development programs in the life sciences and involved in the establishment of a number of early start-up companies. Ronald led the development of Glybera™ for uniQure, the 1st approved genetherapy product in the western world and holds strategic knowledge in the areas of translational development, orphan drugs, individualized medicines and biomarker-based development. Prior to co-founding 3D-PharmXchange Ronald was COO and CDO at Kinesis Pharma, responsible for business development and multidisciplinary drug development, leading the team project leaders. During this time he held advisory board positions and interim management positions for clients, supporting them in fund raising, drug development and corporate strategy. Prior to that he worked for various companies, including Tibotec where he was, amongst others, Compound Development Leader for Prezista®. 

He is a PhD-level clinical pharmacologist and drug delivery expert by training (Leiden University and UC San Francisco) and started his career in this area at  Johnson & Johnson, Belgium.

Head of Process R&D, WuXi STA Changzhou Site

Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, expert in Chemical Development with more than 18 years of experience in Pharmaceutical Industry

Youchu is an organic chemist by training. He started his career in Chemical Development at Wyeth (now Pfizer) in 2002 after postdoctoral research in the synthesis of a Natural Product-Bisbenzylisoquinoline.  From 2002 to 2008, worked in Chemical Development at Wyeth (now Pfizer) as Process Chemist. In August 2008, joined WuXi STA, a global leading outsourcing company. Currently responsible for Process R&D, WuXi STA Changzhou site, a new integrated CDMO site that includes R&D, Pilot Plant and Commercial Plant  in small molecules, peptides and oligonucleotides areas, with a team of more than 400 process chemists.

Dr. Wuitschik is a senior scientist in Process Chemistry at Roche. He has worked on a number of early- as well as late-stage small molecule projects after joining Roche in 2011. His work, through external as well as internal resources, cover API process R&D, drug substance manufacturing, and support of regulatory filings.

Dr. Wuitschik received his diploma from Technical University of Munich with a master thesis under supervision of Prof. Barry M. Trost, and Ph.D. from ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Erick M. Carreira under the title Oxetanes in Medicinal Chemistry, followed by a postdoc in the group of Prof. Steve V. Ley at Cambridge University.

Katrine is a Key Account Director with Externalisation Centre of Excellence for Pharmaceutical Development & Supply at GSK.  She has 25 years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry, starting as Formulation Scientist at GSK, working within Project Management and Business Development roles for Contract Development Organisations providing small molecule Formulation, Analytical and Clinical trial supplies services.  As well as a supplier of speciality excipients for modified release technologies and film coating where building and maintaining customer-supplier relationships and working as a product development partner was key to both customer and supplier business success.   Returning to GSK in 2016 and leading the Technical team supporting the production of ViiV HIV and Novartis Oncology product portfolios at the Ware site for Global Product Supply before coming back to the realms of R&D outsourcing.

Christian Miksch is currently Director Sales API at Fareva; the group is a top 5 CDMO globally with 35 production sites around the world focusing on drug substance and drug product development and manufacturing. 4 API sites in Germany & France and 13 DP sites in Europe & USA can offer a wide range of capabilities. Special expertise has been developed in the field of HPAPIs, sterile APIs and steroids. Christian obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Munich (LMU) in 2001. His career started with his own Biotech company, which developed anti-cancer APIs. 2005 Christian has joined DSM as lab head and developed API manufacturing processes. Starting in 2006 he worked for Pfizer Center Source in Germany as Project and Validation manager. He has joined the Sales team in 2011, when the production site has been sold to Fareva. Since then he is responsible for exclusive business and generic API business for all API manufacturing sites in the EMEA region.

Felix Faupel has been working with Acino for over 2 years, starting as Global Key Account Manager for Acino’s Contract Manufacturing business he was appointed as Associate Director of Contract Manufacturing in June 2018 and as Head of Contract Manufacturing in January 2019. In his role within Acino, Felix aims at reviving Acino’s Contract Manufacturing with new projects and customers, but also to shape the business with internal structural and process optimizations. Prior to his role at Acino, Felix was working as Business Development Manager in the pharma and medtech segment for the French consultancy Altran and as Business Development Manager for the API CMO Bachem. With his educational background in chemistry and business studies (University of Zurich), Felix developed a passion to reduce complexities that emerge within the interfaces of technical and commercial relationships in a B2B environment. With this goal in mind, flexibility as a CMO is only one aspect in a range of optimization possibilities a CMO can work on to develop their business further, but it is one of the most visible attributes pharma companies can detect easily. Felix will share his experience of the last two years with Acino and how an organization can be sharpened to work agile, flexible and thus customer satisfying.

Simone Manzini Joint Procos in 2016 and currently works as Business Development Manager, Custom Synthesis, taking care more than 15 projects as project manager, expanding company business and collaborations in US and Europe area and evaluating new technological opportunities to expand Procos capability portfolio. Graduated at University of Pavia in 2010, Simone obtained his PhD in organometallic chemistry and catalysis in 2014 at the University of Saint Andrews where, during that time, he has been awarded to JSPS fellowship for short time experience at University of Tokyo, followed by post-doctoral work in process chemistry at CaRLa, BASF and University of Heidelberg joint laboratory, before start working at Procos as process chemist and then, move to into the current role.

Dr Poechlauer joined the Thermo Fisher Scientific Linz site in 1990 and has more than 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development. He has developed several large- scale biocatalytic processes for fine chemicals and led European research projects on biocatalysis and sustainable oxidation chemistry. In addition, he led process technology and introduced process intensification and microreactor technology in the company.

Dr Dan Stark completed a PhD in organic chemistry and synthetic methodology, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Smith, at the University of St Andrews. Dan then moved into industry with roles at Almac and Syngenta, working on projects ranging from lead generation discovery to kilo-scale manufacture. In 2017, Dan took up his current position at Sterling Pharma Solutions’ UK-based headquarters as a development chemist working in process R&D.

Dr Poechlauer joined the Thermo Fisher Scientific Linz site in 1990 and has more than 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and development. He has developed several large- scale biocatalytic processes for fine chemicals and led European research projects on biocatalysis and sustainable oxidation chemistry. In addition, he led process technology and introduced process intensification and microreactor technology in the company.

Colm Duffy R&D Products Portfolio Manager SK biotek Ireland Colm joined the Swords Campus in 2013 as an R&D, progressing to R&D Team Lead in 2015 and Products Portfolio Manager in 2017. Colm has a PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from University College Dublin and previously carried out post-Doctoral research for the Medical Research Council at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. In his current role, Colm leads a team of chemists responsible for supporting commercial manufacture of existing products and supports the Marketing team by assessing new opportunities.

Paulo Lino has a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences by Universidade Lusófona, has completed a Ph.D in Pharmaceutical Technology at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Universidade de Lisboa and subsequently a Post-Doc between the same institution and Dr. von Hauner Children's Hospital at Ludwig-Maximilians-University spanning complex biopharmaceutical formulation/engineering, freeze-drying and particulate polymeric drug delivery systems. In 2017 Paulo joined Hovione at the Drug Product Development group as a Scientist and has been involved in projects that range Multivariate Formulation Screening and Development up to the Tech-transfer and Scale up of Solubility Enhancement and Particle Engineering projects aimed at developing Science Driven solutions towards the Drug Development challenge at hand.

Giorgio Bertolini studied chemistry at University of Milan with a thesis on Stereoselective Electrophilic amination and Aldol condensation in the Labs of Prof. Cesare Gennari. Then he moved to Polytechnic of Milan to complete his education at the Specialization School of Organic Synthetic Chemistry. He subsequently undertook postdoctoral research with Professor Barry M Trost at the Stanford University. Here he worked on a selective modification of steroids.

In 1987 Giorgio joined the research laboratories of Zambon where he started is industrial carrier as Medicinal Chemist in lead generation, hit identification and optimization. After 12 years in Med Chem he moved as Process Chemistry Director of the Italian sites of Clariant Life Science Molecules Business Unit. After 20 years of experience in Process Chemistry in different Companies he is currently Senior Vice President Research & Development in Olon Group. Giorgio is now responsible of all the innovation activities of the group for both fermentative and chemical processes with particular focus on recombinant peptides, high potent API, continuous processes and hazardous chemical. He is author of more than 100 of patents and publications.

Dr. Rümenapp is based in Wuppertal, Germany and working within the Biological Development organization of Bayer AG, where he is responsible for the transfer of Bayer’s pipeline candidates (antibodies and antibody-drug-conjugates) to external manufacturing partners and regulatory submission and launch preparations.

Prior to working in Development, Dr. Rümenapp was Head of Biotech Projects in Product Supply Biotech at Bayer, where he was responsible for contract manufacturing partnerships in the field of biotechnological drug substances and drug products and interdisciplinary project management with the goal to ensure market supply.

Before it was acquired by Bayer, Dr. Rümenapp hold a similar position at Schering AG, and before that, he worked in the Production & Logistics department of Schering, where he was responsible for production aspects of in- and out-licensing deals, due diligences, and product acquisitions of small molecule products and biologics.

Dr. Rümenapp studied chemistry and holds a Ph.D. in biosciences. He worked several years in academic research in the field of signal transduction and as an assistant teacher in the field of general pharmacology.

Today, Dr. Rümenapp area of expertise is the set-up and management of external relationships for the development and supply of bio-pharmaceutical products. He has more than 15 years of experience in the bio-pharmaceutical industry.

To correspond with Dr. Rümenapp, please contact him at [email protected].

Dr. Firelli Alonso is Senior Director, External Supply at Pfizer, Inc.  She heads the BioTherapeutics and Vaccines Outsourcing group in Worldwide Research and Development.  Fi has more than 31 years of combined experience in research, development, and cGMP production of biological products and vaccines, and more than 11 years of experience in outsourcing, project / contract management, and technology transfer to qualified third parties.  Her areas of expertise include viral vectors and vaccine development, biotherapeutics and vaccine process development and cGMP production, project management, technology transfer, outsourcing, and budgets and operations.

She obtained her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, followed by postdoctoral research at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, and Rutgers University Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine.  Prior to working for Wyeth / Pfizer in 1996, Fi was at The Salk Institute (Government Services Division), a vaccine contract manufacturer for the U.S. Army.

Andreas Aspöck is Head of External Manufacturing at Hookipa Biotech in Vienna, Austria. Hookipa Biotech is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing prophylactic and therapeutic treatments based on viral vector platforms. These arenavirus-based treatments are novel treatments (ATMP) and  there are some challenges around the manufacturing process, as every biotechnology company experiences.

As Head of External Manufacturing Andreas is responsible for the aligning all aspects of the manufacturing strategy with the company pipeline. This includes the supplier selection, scheduling and supervising the manufacturing campaigns.

Andreas started at Hookipa Biotech in 2012 as a Scientist in the Up-Stream Department (UPS), and later became Head of UPS to drive the development of the upstream processes.

From 2008 to 2012 Andreas worked at AVIR Green Hills Biotech, a biopharmaceutical company focusing in developing an attenuated Influenza vaccine. At AVIR Green Hills Biotech he assisted the Head of Manufacturing and PD in the manufacturing campaign and led later the Up-Stream Development.

Andreas finished his studies in life science with a master degree at the University of Applied Life Sciences in Vienna.

Dr Thomas Wegge has been working in biotech and pharmaceutical industry for close to 20 years and is currently Senior Director of Analytical Sciences at Ascendis Pharma where his department is developing bioanalytical and CMC methods. Prior to Ascendis Pharma he hold positions at Roche and Complex Biosystems. He was part of the team that created the TransCon technology and has participitated in the development of several TransCon products. Thomas has a diploma degree in chemistry from the University of Dortmund and a PhD from the Philipps University of Marburg.

Dr Karlheinz Landauer is an expert in Biotechnology with a PhD and MSc title in Applied Microbiology and 18+ years of work experience. He has specialized on cell line engineering, up-stream process development, scale-up and tech transfer strategies, GMP operations and was a program manager of an NBE.

After his PhD in animal cell culture medium development, he took several jobs in the above-mentioned fields with increasing responsibilities, when in 2011 he eventually was Head Manufacturing and COO at Celonic AG in Basel.

In 2016, he has founded his own company QBDC, with its core focus on consultancy for biotech companies in CMC matters, process development, tech transfer & scale-up, facility layout & design, project management, and QM & QA.

At QBDC, he is driving the company towards high quality standards and problem-solving communication strategies. For QBDC’s customers, he is an easily accessible, goal-oriented technical solution provider.

Chief Technical Officer

Arjan Roozen joined Zelluna Immunotherapy in April 2018 and is responsible Zelluna’s Manufacturing and Development strategy. Arjan has extensive experience in GMP manufacturing in the EU and US. The supply chain management from raw materials, GMP cell manufacturing for clinical and commercial supplies. Prior to joining Zelluna, Arjan served as VP GMP Solutions & Manufacturing at Cellectis, where he headed up the team responsible for the sourcing of the critical raw materials as well as the manufacturing of the gene modified cell therapy products. Additionally, he has previous valuable experience from the CDMO Pharmacell, recently acquired by Lonza, responsible for its operational activities. Arjan has a degree in microbiology with specialization in molecular microbiology.

Sebastian joined Univercells (Belgium, Germany) in 2017 as a Program Manager for recombinant proteins and was leading multidisciplinary project teams to ensure successful delivery of the project’s objectives. Today, Sebastian is responsible of science and innovation. He is in charge of evaluating technologies across all Univercells businesses covering all aspects of manufacturing technologies for producing drug substance, drug product of therapeutic proteins and vaccines as well as analytical and equipment development.

Sebastian Püngel graduated with a Bachelor degree from University of Applied Sciences Emden (Emden, Germany) followed by a Master degree from Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin (Berlin, Germany) with a focus on cell culture technology and recombinant protein production.

Kyle began his career in Discovery Chemistry at Pfizer working on all the major classes of antibacterial agents.  During his time at Pfizer Kyle earned a Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Connecticut. 

Beginning in 2002, Kyle joined the outsourcing arm of Pharmaceutical Development at Pfizer. After several years managing FTE collaborations in support of Discovery programs, he joined the late stage development group to manage contract manufacturing relationships in support of key late stage assets, notably Xeljanz and Xalkori.

Since 2011 Kyle has been part of the AstraZeneca Operations Procurement organization supporting external manufacture of biologics drug substance and drug product.  In addition to Antibody-Drug Conjugates, Kyle currently supports external partnerships covering a broad spectrum of biopharmaceuticals including oncolytic virus, plasmid DNA, messenger RNA, monoclonal antibodies and fragments, microbial expression products, and peptides. 

Dr Husbyn completed her PhD at University of Oslo, Norway within the area of peptide synthesis and the testing of complex peptide domains and derivatives as anticoagulants.

She has worked within R&D of the Pharmaceutical and Biotech industry for over 20 years and has extensive experience within CMC from early discovery until filing of NDA/MAA.

She held a variety of positions at GEHC ranging from scientist, project manager and department manager, before she joined a small Norwegian Immunotherapy company in 2012 and took on the role as Head of CMC.

In October 2017 she started at Vaccibody as CTO and was introduced to the world of individualized therapeutic DNA cancer vaccines and the logistics challenges associated with this concept.

Dr Sexton is a Biopharma Sales manager at the Swiss Analytical Laboratory, Solvias AG, specialising in the analysis of Biotherapeutics, Monoclonal antibodies and Biosimilars. Based in the UK, Ray has over 20 years’ experience in Biopharmaceuticals, spending many years at BioReliance (now Merck KGa) in Key Account roles throughout the UK, Ireland & Scandinavia. Our aim is to provide the complete analytical CMC service from characterisation to QC release and to differentiate based on unrivalled expertise, capabilities & service within a single hub.

Biotech engineer by training (National Institute for Applied Sciences, INSA Toulouse, France) and received his PhD in chemical engineering from Polytechnique Montréal, Canada in 2000. Yves has worked 8 years as academic researcher in Montpellier, France, leading to the foundation of his first start-up company in 2010, which was taken over by a European group in 2015. He co-founded INOFEA in Basel back in 2014, was the CEO for 5 years, and is now the Lead Director.

Dr Naylor works as R&D Director for Upperton Pharma Solutions. He has over 17 years’ experience in the field of formulation development, characterisation & processing. He was appointed as R&D Director for Upperton Ltd in August 2015 and is responsible for directing all of the company’s research and development activities. Before joining Upperton Dr Naylor worked for Critical Pharmaceuticals for 9 years as Head of Process Development. He completed his PhD in 2006 at the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Professor Steve Howdle studying the reactive blending of polymers using supercritical carbon dioxide. He has also sat on several Royal Society of Chemistry special interest group committees supporting the areas polymer and materials.

Giorgio Bertolini studied chemistry at University of Milan with a thesis on Stereoselective Electrophilic amination and Aldol condensation in the Labs of Prof. Cesare Gennari. Then he moved to Polytechnic of Milan to complete his education at the Specialization School of Organic Synthetic Chemistry. He subsequently undertook postdoctoral research with Professor Barry M Trost at the Stanford University. Here he worked on a selective modification of steroids.

In 1987 Giorgio joined the research laboratories of Zambon where he started is industrial carrier as Medicinal Chemist in lead generation, hit identification and optimization. After 12 years in Med Chem he moved as Process Chemistry Director of the Italian sites of Clariant Life Science Molecules Business Unit. After 20 years of experience in Process Chemistry in different Companies he is currently Senior Vice President Research & Development in Olon Group. Giorgio is now responsible of all the innovation activities of the group for both fermentative and chemical processes with particular focus on recombinant peptides, high potent API, continuous processes and hazardous chemical. He is author of more than 100 of patents and publications.

Benedikt acts as the first point of contact for pharmaceutical companies planning the outsourcing of manufacturing of sterile pharmaceuticals at Fresenius Kabi’s manufacturing sites in Europe and Asia. Benedikt joined Fresenius Kabi as a Management Trainee after completing his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, Austria in 2014. He afterwards covered the role of executive assistant at Fresenius Kabi focusing on pharmaceutical manufacturing, global investments, strategy roll-out, capacity and supply chain management.

Dr. Barison completed his Bacherlor’s degree in pharmaceutical biotechnologya and subsequent PhD in protein crystallography at the University of Padua in Italy. Following this, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin for 3 years before joining Cobra Biologics. During his 5 years at Cobra Biologics, Dr. Barison progressed from a Senior Downstream Development Scientist role to becoming Principal Downstream Development Scientist. Dr. Barison currently holds the position of Biologics Technical Lead at APC Ltd. in Dublin where he utilizes his experience in process development of a large range of Biologics (Proteins, Viral Vectors, Plasmid DNA, Phages) to solve complex process-related issues affecting the global market.

Iris went to the University of Lausanne where she achieved a bachelor degree in Biology. Iris then went to study Applied Sciences (major in Biotechnologies) at the engineer school HESSO Valais (Sion) where she achieved an additional bachelor degree. Iris then started to work at Selexis and has been there since 2015. Iris started in the CLD department, became in charge of the cloning team, then moved to the R&D team and became in charge of the Beacon evaluation and implementation at Selexis.

Werngard Czechtizky obtained her PhD at ETH Zürich. After a postdoctoral stay at Harvard University, she worked on GPCR lead generation in a global Chemical Biology platform at Aventis. At Sanofi, from 2005, she moved into a parallel synthesis team working in the fields of CNS and CV diseases. In 2010, she became leader of a Medicinal Chemistry section working on Diabetes programs. In 2014, she was appointed Head of Chemistry at Sanofi R&D Germany, with therapeutic focus on Diabetes, pain and inflammatory indications. Since 2017, she is Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Respiratory, Inflammation and Autoimmunity, at AstraZeneca in Sweden.

Dr. Frederik Beck has more than 20 years of experience from pharmaceutical and biotech companies. He is the CMC Senior Outsourcing Manager at Zealand Pharma and has held this position for the past four years and has successfully completed 2 IMPD’s for two new chemical entities. As CMC outsourcing manager Dr. Beck is responsible for the outsourcing of all activities relating to clinical trials, both DS and DP. Prior to joining Zealand Pharma Dr. Beck worked for CMC Biologics as Project Director and as scientist/ project manager at Hexal. Dr. Beck received a Master of Chemical Engineering in 1992 from the Technical University of Denmark and an industrial Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with DAKO A/S in 1999.

Brian has had a highly successful career in drug discovery in industry with GSK and Novartis. Brian has a BSc in Pharmacy and PhD from the University of Manchester where he worked on novel antifungal agents. This was followed by Post Doctoral study at the University looking at novel opioid-like analgesics, then a two-year industrial Post Doctoral position at Schering Plough in New Jersey focussed on the total synthesis of the marine natural products Pseudopterosins.

Brian then spent 12 years at Glaxo/GlaxoWellcome/GSK working in many different disease areas (CNS, respiratory, cardiovascular, GI and antibacterials). Moving to Novartis (Horsham) in 2002 he became Head of Chemistry with the site specialising in respiratory and GI research, as well as acting as an expertise hub for automated synthesis for the Novartis chemistry organisation (Global Discovery Chemistry). He developed a keen interest in the modulation of ion channels as a target class and the design of inhaled medicines, which he is now a recognised expert in.

Brian moved to the University of Sussex (November 2014), where he is now Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry growing a medicinal chemistry platform underpinned by extensive automated synthesis capability. His group’s focus is the application of high throughput automated synthesis in hit and lead optimisation and the synthesis of novel archive diversity enhancement libraries. Along with Professor Kevin Booker-Milburn, he is co-founder and co-director of Photodiversity Ltd, a start-up company from the Universities of Sussex and Bristol which specialises in the use of Photochemistry to produce novel sp3 rich fragment and diversity libraries for screening against Pharmaceutical and agrochemical biological targets.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and registered pharmacist, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, chartered Chemist and chartered scientist. He is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Chemistry organic and Medicinal Chemistry Sector committee. He is associated with a number of marketed compounds and multiple late stage clinical candidates and is a champion of diversity and inclusion (D&I).

PhD, MBA, CA-AM

AMC is a British/Italian national based in France. She has worked in international leadership roles for the pharmaceutical industry over the last 25+ years working for Eli Lilly (Erl Wood, UK), Allergan (Sophia Antipolis, France), Galderma (Sophia Antipolis, France) & at Ipsen Innovation (Paris, France). She has also worked in Baden-Baden, Germany.

She started her consultancy practice in 2016. She provides business strategy to operations support to pharma/biotech/CROs/academia in alliance management, B2B matchmaking, outsourcing/ procurement, contract management and operational excellence. She also provides group and/or 1:1 training/coaching in effective communication, leadership, management of cultural diversity, effective negotiations, how to manage the risk in your service contracts, vendor quality management and how to optimize the Sponsor/Partner/Supplier relationship. These are conducted in English and French (and some Italian when needed!). She is a part-time lecturer at several business schools.

She holds a PhD in microbiology (from Bristol University) and an MBA in general management/finance (from Henley Management College) and has obtained certification in alliance management (from ASAP). She has strong experience in alliance/relationship management, leadership, project management, procurement/negotiation, training, and performance management. AMC is an alumni member at the universities of Trent, Bristol and Henley management college as well as a member of SIETAR. She is a regular industry speaker at pharma conferences.

Dr. Yogeshwar Bachhav is associated with AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH Wuppertal (Germany) for around 4 years. AiCuris (name derived from 'anti-infective cures') is focused exclusively on the discovery, research and development of novel antiviral and antibacterial drugs.

Yogeshwar has around 12 years of experience in Pharmaceutical development (CMC) of poorly soluble/stable drugs for oral, parenteral and topical route from the start-up and mid-size Pharmaceutical companies in Europe. In his current role at AiCuris, he is responsible for the outsourcing of drug product for preclinical and clinical trials up to phase II. His experience involves both in house and external Pharmaceutical development of poorly soluble/labile APIs for oral parenteral and topical route.

Dr Press studied undergraduate chemistry at Imperial College, London, staying on to complete his PhD research on ‘macrocyclic stereocontrol’ in the labs of Prof Don Craig. He subsequently undertook postdoctoral research with Professor Phil Magnus at the University of Texas in Austin. Here he worked on a total synthesis of calicheamicinone, a potent anti-tumour compound with a particularly elegant mode of action.

In 1995 Neil joined the central research laboratories of Ciba-Geigy, Macclesfield, and subsequently moved to the Novartis Horsham research centre after the merger with Sandoz. Neil has worked as a medicinal chemist for 23 years, having led multiple projects from early phase through to clinical compounds. He is currently a Director in Novartis global discovery chemistry and is based in Basel where he leads a medicinal chemistry team. Neil’s current interests are in finding new, inventive ways to enable and expedite the target and drug discovery process through chemistry, computation and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Hayley Binch is Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Basel at Hoffman-La Roche. Prior to her current role, Hayley worked Vertex Pharmaceuticals at both the San Diego and Oxford sites, where she worked on a number of kinases and pain targets as well as Cystic Fibrosis. Hayley completed her her PhD at the University of Bristol with Professor Tim Gallagher, followed by postdoctoral research positions at the University of Hamburg in the area of synthetic and enzymatic methodology for complex carbohydrate assembly and at Kings College London in the area of nucleophilic additions to asymmetric vinylphosphonamidates.

In August 2014, I founded and lead Strekin as CEO. Strekin is a Biotech company developing drugs in the area of stress related pathways after a scientific cross disease area assessment in new indications.

Since January 2013 I am working as independent consultant supporting Venture Capital Funds in investment decisions as well as small biotech companies in strategic drug development/business plan questions. I can build on more 20 years experience in pharmaceutical research, development, and strategic marketing with more than 10 years as cross functional project leader. In this time I successfully led projects from phase 00 to phase 3 in several indications. 

Prior to this role I gained 10 years experience in technical research and technical project leadership finally as head of solid dosage Form development at Hoffmann La Roche in Basel. I have expertise in formulation research, aerosol development, as well as powder technology.

Duncan is an enthusiastic and accomplished medicinal chemist with extensive outsourcing experience, a 40-year proven track record with a Blue-Chip Pharmaceutical Company, and is the founder of Awridian Ltd.

Duncan has made significant contributions to numerous drug discovery projects, and is cited on many patents and publications including research areas such as prostaglandin agonists, histamine H2, opioids, angiotensin II and CCR3 receptor antagonists. He has been pivotal numerous lead generation projects gaining a unique insight into project and compound tractability. He has extensive outsourcing experience including projects to enhance screening collections, where he engaged with external partners to design, and synthesise appropriate compounds in a cost effective and timely manner. Duncan has recently published and presented on Open Innovation in Drug Discovery for which he is a strong advocate. He was a founder member of the DiscoverAssist™ Panel at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst.

Duncan formed his consultancy company (Awridian Ltd) in 2012, and is currently working with a range of international companies and UK academics.

Dr Elder studied chemistry at Newcastle upon Tyne (BSc, MSc), before moving to Edinburgh to study for a PhD in Crystallography. He is a visiting professor (King’s College, London). Dr Elder has 40-years experience at a variety of different pharmaceutical companies (Sterling, Syntex and GSK).  He is currently an independent CMC consultant.  
 
Dr Elder is a member of the British Pharmacapoeia (Expert Advisory Group PCY: Pharmacy) and a past chairman of the Joint Pharmaceutical Analysis Group, UK.  He is a fellow of the RSC (FRSC). 
 
He has presented regularly on drug development and drug delivery. He has authored 17 book chapters, 133 publications, 14 posters, 18 webinars and given 138 national/international presentations. He has co-edited two books on the Analytical Characterisation and Separation of Oligonucleotides and their Impurities and on ICH Quality Guidelines.

Paul Madeley, Ph.D., is an organic chemist with over thirty years’ experience of chemical synthesis. He has worked for three large companies (Boots, Courtaulds and Abbott Laboratories) and two biotech companies (British Biotech and OSI Pharmaceuticals) before setting up his consultancy company, Synth-Isis Ltd. Dr. Madeley has worked on over one hundred projects, comprising more than six hundred individual reaction steps; at scales ranging from a few grams to several metric tonnes.

In 1995, having worked as a pilot plant manager for five years with Abbott Laboratories, Dr. Madeley moved to virtual pharma and has been responsible for outsourcing more than two hundred manufacturing contracts. This involved development of template agreements and site visits for technical appraisal of potential manufacturers. He has visited more than fifty manufacturing sites in Europe and the US. He has acted as the CMC technical lead for a number of due diligence meetings on behalf of clients on more than twenty occasions; in which he presented the technical package for the API to potential investors. He has also undertaken due diligence examinations of potential in-licensing opportunities. Since setting up Synth-Isis Ltd in 2004, Dr. Madeley has worked with over twenty small biotech and emerging pharma companies, together with a number of service companies, and has prepared the chemistry sections of seventeen IMPDs and three INDs. This has included technical oversight of manufacture of the APIs.

Tudor Arvinte studied physics at University of Jassy, Romania, and received his Ph.D. in biophysics from University of Düsseldorf, Germany. He held numerous research positions in Europe and the USA at: Max-Planck Institute, Germany; C.N.R.S., France; Cornell University, New York; Texas A&M University; Ciba-Geigy U.K., Novartis, Switzerland. T. Arvinte worked with more than 200 biopharmaceuticals, three of his formulations reached the market, has over 90 publications and 15 patents. He is Titular Professor at Geneva University and CEO of Therapeomic, Inc. Basel Switzerland, a contract research biotech company focused on the characterization and formulation of biopharmaceuticals.

Simon Cruwys is Director of Pharmacology, TherapeutAix UG. Prior to the founding of TherapeutAix in 2018, Simon was Head of the Innovative Medicines Unit, Grünenthal Innovation. In this role, Simon led a team responsible for in-licensing molecules and delivering them to Clinical proof of concept. He has over 30 years experience in academic and industry research. As a project leader, he has a track record of delivery from Lead Identification  through to clinical validation. Prior to Grünenthal, Simon worked for AstraZeneca where he was lead for both small molecule and antibody projects.

Graeme Wilkinson is Head of Virtual R&D at the Medicines Discovery Catapult and leads a team responsible for helping UK drug discovery innovators develop and deliver their projects to Clinical proof of concept. He has 30 years’ experience in drug discovery and early development research in both academia and industry with a track record of delivery from Lead Identification through to clinical validation. Prior to MDC, Graeme has worked in start up and spin out as well as large pharma and across a number of therapy areas.

Dr Laura Millichamp is the Founder of InsideReg, a Swiss Regulatory Affairs Consultancy specialising in CMC and regulatory strategy.

Laura has a PhD in hydrogels, and started her career with over 7 years experience as a Pharmaceutical Assessor at the MHRA. This position gives her a unique insight into the workings of the European Regulatory Authorities, gained through her assessment of Marketing Authorisation and variation applications submitted through all procedures (Centralised, DCP, MRP, National). She worked on all product types, across many therapeutic areas, and has provided scientific advice on behalf of the MHRA and CHMP. Laura also has direct experience of presentation at UK Expert Committees (CHM and CPS), and successful influencing within both Regulatory Agencies and the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Following the MHRA, Laura moved to PAREXEL International as a Senior Consultant, and later VCLS as a Director of CMC, where she advised companies of all sizes: from start ups to top ten pharma, and at all stages of product development: from proof of concept to post-marketing activities.

Dr. Lee Smith’s experience spans biopharmaceutical CMC, process, analytical, formulation pre-clinical and clinical assay development as well as experience in product characterisation and regulatory submissions and interactions. He is regularly involved in applying QbD and advising on the use of DoE and data analysis for processes, formulation and assays, with a particular expertise in bioassays. This includes the development, optimisation and validation of both biopharmaceutical processes and methods.

Employed as Senior Manager External Manufacturing at Biogen International, Andrea is supplier relationship manager for the outsourced manufacture of injectable products (Biologicals and Oligonucleotides).

Over the past 15 years Andrea worked in multiple QA and External Manufacturing roles for CSL Behring, Bayer Healthcare and Biogen, managing a relevant number of manufacturing sites and a product portfolio including plasma derivatives, biologicals, as well as non-sterile pharmaceuticals distributed globally.

Starting his career in Corporate Quality Management within a Japanese automotive company (Bridgestone), Andrea developed his professional identity in an environment where outsourcing is key to product compliance as well as to the performance of the supply  process.

Andrea holds a M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from University La Sapienza in Rome, after graduation he completed a Master in Intellectual Property at the Italian Patent and Trade Mark Office. Andrea speaks Italian, English, French, Spanish and German.

Born 1972 in Rome (Italy) Andrea lives in Switzerland with his family since 2005. Andrea is Italian and Swiss national.

Alessandro Fazio works as R&D Outsourcing Manager (Non-Clinical) at Chiesi Farmaceutici Spa since 2017 (Parma, Italy). He is mainly responsible for managing the outsourcing activities within the Preclinical area (drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, toxicology, pharmacology and DMPK) and the CMC area for biologics (protein, enzyme and cell culture).

Alessandro holds a PhD in Systems Biology from the Technical University of Denmark and he worked as Optimization Scientist for enzyme production at Novozymes A/S and as Innovation Project Manager for Commercial Development at Chr Hansen A/S (both positions in Copenhagen, Denmark).

Gabriele Sassi joined Chiesi Farmaceutici in 2010 and currently works as Non Clinical Outsourcing Manager in R&D Outsourcing Management, responsible for outsourcing R&D core activities for CMC such as Analytical Development, Clinical Trial Supplies and Drug Product / Drug Substance Manufacturing activities. Gabriele is mostly involved in establishing and managing the relationship with CROs and CMOs and the consequential contract management: this implies an intense knowledge of Procurement and Outsourcing processes that mainly refer to Supplier Selection and Qualification, Contract Awarding & Contract Management and Supplier Relationship Management. Gabriele has 9 years’ experience with procurement / outsourcing areas, starting his career in Procurement Department for Indirect Spend Categories (IT software, Laboratory Chemicals & Equipment).

I joined MMV in 2009 when I saw a unique opportunity to apply novel and exciting science to solve some real problems which will not only stop people from dying or becoming sick but can also turn their lives around and enable them to escape from poverty. I have almost nineteen years of experience in drug discovery and development gained in the  biotechnology and contract research sectors and  including six years at MMV.    Prior to joining MMV, I held positions in business development with  Paragon Biomedical, Synarc Inc., and PPD in Cambridge, UK and before that I  worked as a research and senior scientist at Cambridge Antibody Technology.   I have a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of London and a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Glasgow. In 2014, I enrolled for a master’s degree in biomedical ethics and healthcare with the University of Leeds.

Tudor Arvinte studied physics at University of Jassy, Romania, and received his Ph.D. in biophysics from University of Düsseldorf, Germany. He held numerous research positions in Europe and the USA at: Max-Planck Institute, Germany; C.N.R.S., France; Cornell University, New York; Texas A&M University; Ciba-Geigy U.K., Novartis, Switzerland. T. Arvinte worked with more than 200 biopharmaceuticals, three of his formulations reached the market, has over 90 publications and 15 patents. He is Titular Professor at Geneva University and CEO of Therapeomic, Inc. Basel Switzerland, a contract research biotech company focused on the characterization and formulation of biopharmaceuticals.

Dr. Lee Smith’s experience spans biopharmaceutical CMC, process, analytical, formulation pre-clinical and clinical assay development as well as experience in product characterisation and regulatory submissions and interactions. He is regularly involved in applying QbD and advising on the use of DoE and data analysis for processes, formulation and assays, with a particular expertise in bioassays. This includes the development, optimisation and validation of both biopharmaceutical processes and methods.

Dr. Kamal Azzaoui received his PhD in computational chemistry from the University of Orléans (France) followed by 2 postdocs at McGill University (Montréal) and Georgetown University (Washington DC).

Dr. Azzaoui worked for 2 years for a flavor and fragrance mid-size company as a senior computational chemist (Givaudan, Zurich, CH) and 15 years at Novartis as a laboratory head in charge of data analysis, data modeling and drug design using machine learning, cheminformatics and molecular modeling tools. He left Novartis in 2017 to co-found Saverna Therapeutics AG (www.saverna.com). He is finishing a master for advanced science (MAS) program of the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine (sitem-insel) at the University of Bern. He has contributed to many drug discovery projects in term of data analysis, machine learning, medicinal chemistry and cheminformatics support. He also pioneered in developing machine learning models for the prediction of adverse effects and safety of novel drugs. He was a partner in the European Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI OpenPhact) consortium. He is a consultant for Axxelis and co-founder/ CSO for VentureFlow (www.ventureflow.ch).

Norbert comes with Diploma degree in chemistry gained at the university of Freiburg and 25 years of experience at Quintiles (1993), Novartis (1998), Hoffmann-La Roche (2008), and Boehringer Ingelheim (2017).

He had leading positions in Pharma Development and Corporate functions, which included heading functions like Global Services implementing R&D hubs in Japan, China, and India, medical writing including document and submission management with responsibility for more than 200 Development projects and 10 NME submissions during this period, and portfolio governance for both the Clinical portfolio as well as Innovation and Efficiency in Development, and Portfolio Management of the Merial Animal Health integration into Boehringer Ingelheim.

As a successful entrepreneur, Norbert recently (co)-founded Versameb AG, a regenerative medicine start-up, kicking off the company as CEO.

Petra Dieterich is Vice President, Business Development at Evotec.  Petra completed both an honours degree (Biochemistry) and doctorate (Organic Chemistry) at the University of Sussex and spent 3 years at Cyanamid working as a Scientist in both the medical and agrochemical divisions and published several patent applications.  After joining Oxford Asymmetry in 1995 she gained extensive experience in working in a CRO environment as a Senior Scientist and Project Leader, working with leading European and US based biotech companies in both the development and manufacture of API’s.  She is experienced in delivering products for use in both clinical trials and commercial manufacture.  After joining Aptuit in 2007, Petra became part of the project management team under which she worked as a Senior Manager, leading client communication and ensuring that projects were delivered to customers worldwide.  In 2015, Petra became the head of site for the Aptuit Oxford business unit and in 2018 was awarded an MBA and DIC from Imperial College London.  Petra is currently Vice President, Business Development, leading CMC aspects for the Evotec global Business Development team.

Bob Humphries, BSc

A pharmacologist with 30+ years of pharma experience, including partnered early development projects and successful out-licensing, Bob led teams in discovery and early progression of the anti-thrombotics, Brilinta and Cangrelor.  As VP Inhaled Projects, AstraZeneca, he led strategic and delivery activities for in-house and partnered projects. Bob is co-founder of the inhalation consultancy, Adhale, a Director of VisionRealisation, Oncotherics and Platelet Solutions, and Scientific Advisor to a number of companies and academic groups.