Alcide Barberis was President and CEO of Humabs, a company spin-off of the Institute of Research in Biomedicine (IRB) located in Bellinzona. Prior to joining Humabs, he was Head of Research and Collaborations at Telormedix, a biotech company located at the Tecnopolo Lugano.
Dr. Barberis has been the scientific founder of two biotech companies, ESBATech AG and Oncalis AG, and brings over 14 years management experience in the biotechnology industry, as well as scientific experience in the public and corporate research sector.
As R&D and executive manager, he has initiated and successfully negotiated R&D deals with biotech and pharma companies.
Dr. Barberis has directed highly innovative research teams both as lecturer and group leader at the University of Zürich and as manager in his biotech companies.
He holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Zürich, has been scientist at Harvard University and at the San Raffaele Research Institute, and is author on more than 50 scientific publications and inventor on more than 10 patent families.

Roger Beerli serves as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at NBE Therapeutics since April 2013. Roger Beerli has over 10 years of experience in discovery, engineering and preclinical development of therapeutic antibodies. Previously he has led R&D activities related to therapeutic antibody development at Cytos, Switzerland, and later at Intercell, Austria. Roger is a renowned expert in mammalian cell based antibody expression and display for the discovery of fully human therapeutic antibodies. He was the main architect and inventor of Cytos' eMAB® mammalian cell antibody development platform, which, under Roger's leadership, was successfully used for the development of fully human therapeutic antibody candidates against numerous targets, including Nicotine and Influenza A, both at Cytos, and also later at Intercell, after the platform had been acquired by Intercell. Roger Beerli studied molecular biology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and obtained his PhD for work at the Novartis-associated Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland, for research on ErbB receptor tyrosine kinases. Afterwards he performed postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, USA, in the lab of Prof. Dr. Carlos F. Barbas III. Here he specialized in phage display for protein and antibody engineering and was among the first to demonstrate artificial regulation of endogenous genes using engineered transcription factors. Roger Beerli has published widely in the areas of protein discovery, protein engineering and antibody development, and he is co-inventor on numerous patents and patent applications.

Simona Berardi Vilei after graduating in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, she has worked for several years in basic research at the University Hospital in Bern and at the University Hospital in Zurich. Thereafter she started working for Zimmer (former Sulzer Medica) as a project manager in the pre-clinical development of biological knee implants and she was taking care of innovation evaluation in the biological field for the company.
In 2005 she joined the Company Allevia, a start-up company of the University of Bern, where she mainly focused in the pre-clinical research in the orthopedics field as Head of Laboratory Operations.
In 2010 she joined the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) as a Head of Clinical Project Management and since 2016 she is leading the new unit Innovation and Development.

Dr. H. Kaspar Binz is Vice President and co-founder of Molecular Partners (SIX: MOLN), a Swiss clinical stage biotech company developing designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins) for therapeutic applications, where he oversees proprietary technology development and intellectual property filing. Dr. Binz was instrumental in establishing Molecular Partners following post-doctoral training and PhD studies with Prof. Andreas Plückthun at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, during which he invented and developed the designed repeat protein technology including the DARPin technology. His seminal research on repeat proteins has been awarded with several prizes including the Swiss Technology Award 2005. Together with Molecular Partners, he won the Swiss Venture 2004 business plan competition, and the De Vigier Foundation award 2005. Dr. Binz was educated at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden (Prof. Mathias Uhlén) and holds a M.Sc. in biotechnology from the European school of biotechnology in Strasbourg, France. Besides business and applied science, his passion is in aviation.

Enrico Braglia, M.Sc (Economics), ONELIFE SA and SENEXTA THERAPEUTICS SA founder and CEO, received a degree from the Commercial University Bocconi in Milan (Italy).
He joined the Swiss pharmaceutical group Helsinn in 1991, from a previous tenure with Fininvest Financial Services, formerly a Mediaset company, where he was responsible for the International Treasury and Finance Office. In Helsinn, he served as Co-CEO and was responsible for all operations including the manufacturing, R&D, regulatory and finance. He also led the business development group in-licensing several new chemical entities.
The strategic design and project management of complex international scientific programs was also part of his responsibilities.

Dr. Riccardo Braglia,

has a degree in Business Economics with specialization in Industrial Business Management at Bocconi University of Milan. He is the Entrepreneur and CEO of the HELSINN GROUP and a member of the Board of Directors of the HELSINN HOLDING SA, Switzerland. He is also the Managing Director of Helsinn Healthcare SA, Lugano, Managing Director of Helsinn Advanced Synthesis SA, Biasca, member of the Board of Helsinn Birex Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Dublin, Ireland and Chairman of Helsinn Therapeutics (US) Inc., Iselin NJ, USA. He is board member of Thorne Research Inc. USA, WellnessFX Inc. USA, Lyfebulb Inc. USA, Sinomedica SA Switzerland and member of the avisory board of Windham Healthcare fund. He is also board member of the Ticino Chamber of Commerce and Swiss American Chamber of Commerce. He won the 2012 Best Entrepreneur of Ticino and the 2013 E&Y Swiss Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Giorgio Calderari is President of Farma Industria Ticino, the association of chemical and pharmaceutical industries in the Swiss canton of Ticino that counts 27 member companies, with a combined workforce of 2’400 employees and which generates a total annual turnover of approximately 2 Billion Swiss Francs. After graduating in chemistry Giorgio Calderari obtained a PhD, with a thesis in organic synthesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. In 1985 he joined Helsinn Group as head of the chemical R&D and subsequently held several other technical and managerial functions in the manufacturing and quality assurance areas. Since 1998 he has been working at the headquarter based in Lugano and led several development projects, including new drugs, and the establishment of an integrated supply and distribution chain in more than 90 countries all over the world. He is currently General Manager of the Group, which now counts 600 employees among its subsidiaries in Switzerland, Ireland, US and China, and a turnover of approximately 300 million Swiss Francs, and he is responsible for business development, R&D, manufacturing and commercial operations.

After graduating in Biology at the University of Milan, Riccardo Cervini worked for several years in fundamental research in Italian and French laboratories. During this time, he obtained a PhD at CNRS in neurosciences and carried out a EU research programme in gene therapy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris. During his studies, he was awarded the IPSEN Prize for neurosciences. He has authored several papers in international scientific reviews. In 2000, Riccardo Cervini moved to Business Development Positions, responsible for selling services to pharmaceutical companies at different levels of the pharmaceutical added-value chain. Meanwhile, he earned an MBA at the Schiller International University, Strasbourg. Since 2005, Riccardo Cervini has been working as Business Development Manager Europe with key-account functions for several pharmaceutical accounts at Helsinn Advanced Synthesis SA, a contract manufacturing organization owned by the Swiss pharmaceutical group Helsinn Healthcare SA.

Ruggero G. Fariello is a Physician Neurologist and Neuroscientist. After obtaining his MD with honors at the University of Turin Medical School he underwent postgraduate training at the same University, at the University of Aix-Marseille and University of Toronto, this last as Canadian Medical Research Council Fellow, obtaining specialty qualification  in Clinical Electrophysiology and Neurology  by the American Boards, among others. In his Academic career Ruggero has been tenured Professor at the Universities of Wisconsin (Madison) Texas (San Antonio) and Jefferson (Philadelphia), prior to becoming Professor and Chairman of the Dept of Neurological Sciences at Rush University in  Chicago. His work was dedicated to the understanding of the physiological and pharmacological phenomena underlying epilepsy and neurodegenerative disorders. He was also actively involved in leading clinical experimentation of new treatments particularly for Parkinson Disease and Epilepsy. In 1990 Ruggero joined the pharmaceutical Industry as an executive manager responsible for R&D in the CNS area.  In this capacity he developed drugs for treatment of Parkinson disease, depression and epilepsy. In 1998 he founded Newron Pharmaceuticals S.p.A., of which he has been Chief Scientific Officer, and Member of the Board of Directors. In 2005 he became CSO & CMO of Brane Discovery srl and then CMO of Neurotune AG. Ruggero also runs BioNeuroFar a consultation firm advising private and public Entities with biotechnological, scientific, industrial and educational interest in the area of brain sciences. Ruggero has authored over 150  peer reviewed scientific papers and several books on epilepsy and Neurodegenerative diseases.

Peter Felder is registered as a European Patent Attorney and interacts with the Swiss and the European Patent Office. He is the managing partner of Schmauder & Partner AG, Patent- und Markenanwälte VSP, a private IP consultancy firm located in Zurich, Switzerland. His principal activities comprise developing and implementing client-specific patent strategies and consultancy concerning technology transfer. His technical expertise primarily covers chemistry, materials technology and analytics, but also medicine, pharmaceutics and medical device technology.
Originally a physical chemist with a Ph.D. from ETH Zurich, he spent twelve years in research, first at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory of the University of California and then at the University of Zurich, where he was an Appointed Lecturer. He currently lectures on the protection of intellectual property in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine.

Dr. Antonia Fettelschoss is inventor and founder of Evax, she studied human biology at the University of Zurich and did a PhD in Immunology at the ETH Zurich, she graduated in 2011. During her PhD she worked part time at the Clinical Trials Center Zurich and did internships at the Swiss Institute for Allergy and Asthma (SIAF) and the Swiss Tropical Institute (THP). After the PhD she worked for Vifor Pharma, currently she works as scientist at the University of Zurich in the group of Martin Bachmann and for Saiba GmbH on the development of new vaccines. She started horseback riding at the age of 5 years and met Icelandic horses at the age of 12. She remains true to them until today. Her family owned since that time Icelandic horses, all imports from Iceland, all affected by sweet itch.

Dr. Heidrun Flaadt studied Biology at the University of Constance where she also completed her PhD.
After her postdoctoral studies at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris she attended Management Education in Zurich. She then served as COO of Diagene, a spin-off company at University of Basel. During that time the company completed the first capital round. Driven by her interest for Technology Transfer she took over a position at the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) at the University of Basel. In 2005 she started to build up a new OTT at EMPA in Duebendorf which she headed until end of 2007. In 2008 she moved to Ticino to join her husband and received a mandate from the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano to create new Executive Programs in the field of Bio- and MedTech Entrepreneurship. Among others, she developed and implemented both BioBusiness and MedTech Business program. Heidrun Flaadt is now the director of CASE BioMed, Center of Advanced Studies on Entrepreneurship in Biomedicine at USI.

Roman Fleck is currently serving as the CEO of Janpix, Ltd., an oncology focused start- up company, as well as a Venture Advisor/Partner to Medicxi Ventures (formerly Index Ventures Life Sciences). Prior to his current role, he was a Principal at Index Ventures where among others he invested in and represented Index on the boards of GlycoVaxyn (sold to GSK), Versartis (NASDQ: VSAS), and Novocure (NASDQ: NVCR). Earlier he was also involved in Funxional Therapeutics (sold to Boehringer Ingelheim) and Micromet (sold to Amgen). Leading up to his venture career he worked at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in Connecticut where he led drug development projects in oncology, inflammation and cardiovascular disease, advancing several compounds from pre‐clinical to clinical stage.
Roman received a PhD from MIT as well as an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business. He has authored or co‐authored numerous publications in prestigious journals as well as many issued patents.

In 1989 Ulrich Granzer joined Glaxo/Glaxo Wellcome Regulatory Affairs where he was appointed Director of Regulatory Affairs in 1993. Since then, he served as a member of Glaxo's and then Glaxo Wellcome's Global Regulatory Board. During this time he was also the project leader for a company wide re-engineering at Glaxo Germany.
In 1998 Dr. Granzer joined BASF Pharma as Vice President of Global Regulatory Centres, comprising global responsibility for Regulatory Affairs, Drug Safety, and GXP in development.
Three years later he joined Bayer as Vice President Global Regulatory Affairs taking over responsibility for all regulatory aspects of development and submission projects worldwide.
At the beginning of 2002 Ulrich Granzer decided to start his own business and became an independent consultant.

Ulf Grawunder is an experienced Swiss Life-Science entrepreneur with over 10 years’ experience in the therapeutic antibody development industry. With NBE-Therapeutics, he has recently founded his second Swiss Biotech company and is leading NBE-Therapeutics as its CEO since June 2012. Ulf Grawunder has invented two new patent-pending technologies at NBE-Therapeutics that allow the company to develop most highly innovative antibody-based drugs, including next-generation antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) for the therapy of cancer. Before that, Ulf Grawunder co-founded the Swiss Biotech company 4-Antibody, recently sold to U.S.-based Agenus (AGEN), where since 2004 he served as founding CEO and after 2006 assumed the role of CSO. During his tenure at 4-Antibody, Ulf Grawunder raised about CHF 50 million capital for the company, secured two pharma/biotech collaborations with Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany, and Human Genome Sciences, U.S.A. and grew the company to 50 employees. Ulf Grawunder is serving on various Boards of non-profit and for-profit life-science organizations and is vice-president and Board member of the Swiss Biotech Association. Ulf Grawunder holds a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Basel, for work on early B cell development performed at the Basel Institute for Immunology. In addition, Ulf Grawunder holds a Diploma in Technology Entrepreneurship from the Entrepreneur and Business School in St. Gallen, Switzerland (HSG=Hochschule St. Gallen).

Peter Harboe-Schmidt, MSc, MBA (IMD) brings a wealth of start-up and industry experience from small and large biotech companies. He was co-founder and acting CEO of Xigen Pharma. He was previously head of Business Development at Modex Therapeutics, playing a key role for its IPO on the Swiss Stock exchange. Prior to this, he was Head of Market Research and Business Planning with Amgen Europe where he led a pan-European market research organization. Before that he worked in various managerial positions with DuPont de Nemours in manufacturing, sales and Business Development. As a CTI Startup coach, he has coached the founders and CEOs of over 15 Swiss life science companies.

Dr. Daniela Marino was born in Agrigento, Sicily (Italy) in 1981. She studied biotechnology in Milan (Italy) and obtained her PhD at the institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the ETH in Zurich in 2009. Research topics were stem cell, skin and vascular biology.  After graduation, she started her post doc at the Tissue Biology Research Unit of the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich and performed research on tissue engineering of skin. Soon in parallel, Dr Marino started performing project management and scientific coordination for a FP7 European consortium (www.euroskigraft.eu) that supports the clinical application of the engineered skin grafts on patients with skin defects. Since 2014, she has been developing the business for the start-up CUTISS, a spin-off of the University of Zurich that will bring the engineered skin grafts to the market. Dr. Marino will be the future CEO of CUTISS.

Building from a robust scientific and technical background, Shreefal Mehta has successfully translated science into commercial products.
Shreefal's skills in commercializing technology have led to success in various projects—from the market planning and launch of a multimillion dollar analytical product for the petrochemical industry to the founding of a drug discovery company and its merger with a public biotech in Australia.
His skills in managing advanced technologies led to his appointment as Executive Director of the radical innovation research program at the Lally School of Management, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also led a consultancy project for technology-based economic development planning.
He has lectured at international conferences, been quoted in business and trade magazines (Economist, The Scientist, etc), been widely published in leading journals like Nature Biotechnology, and has taught executive management and multi-disciplinary classes on commercializing biotechnology.
He currently consults on new ventures, strategic commercialization planning for hi-tech products, analyses of product development and value propositions over the healthcare value chain, integration of company operations across time zones, and global sourcing of technology, capital, and services.
He was awarded the New York capital region’s Future Business Leaders '40 under 40' Award.
He is author of the book "Commercializing successful Biomedical Technologies". Nature Biotechnology calls it "The Bioentrepreneur’s Road map" that develops a seven-stage framework and does an excellent job of identifying and organizing the major issues.

Dr. Vincent Mutel, is co-founder, CEO and member of the BoD of Inflamalps SA. He was co-founder, CEO and vice chairman of the board of Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a public Swiss biotech, and prior was Research Area Head in the CNS division at the Swiss pharmaceutical company F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd where he worked for 13 years. In his role at Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd he led the growth of the organization to up to 140 staff, completed three rounds of venture financing, an IPO and a PIPE, totaling CHF263 million.

Before joining Venture Valuation as business analyst, Aitana Peire worked as Pharma equity research analyst for Kepler Cheuvreux, covering Valneva, Basilea and Lonza. Prior to that, she worked as consultant for Stratas Partners, based in Basel, focusing on projects on market access, pricing and reimbursement, and budget impact modeling. Finally, she started her career in Finance with a position as investment analyst for London-based hedge fund Carval Investors, as part of the NPL team, where she assisted in the pricing and performance analysis of investments across several geographies. Aitana holds a PhD in Evolutionary Genetics from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and is a CFA Level II candidate.

Alberto Plazzi is the Assistant Professor of Finance in the Swiss Finance Institute at the University of Lugano since September 2010. Prof. Plazzi received a Master of Finance from Coripe, Piemonte in 2002. In 2005, he obtained his Ph.D. in Economics and Finance from the University of Bergamo. He completed his Ph.D. in Finance from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2010 with a dissertation on real estate and empirical asset pricing. His research interests include empirical asset pricing, real estate, term structure modeling, and financial econometrics. His research has been published in various international journals. Prof. Plazzi has taught classes in asset pricing, corporate finance, and risk management at various universities. At UCLA, he has been Teaching Assistant for the courses in corporate finance for the MBA and Fully-Employed MBA programs.

Jean-Philippe Tripet, CFA, is a Managing Partner and founder of Aravis Venture a Swiss based venture capital firm focusing on investments in biotechnology and energy companies. During his career Jean Philippe has performed over 90 investments in private companies in the USA, Europe and Asia, many as lead investor. He has developed experience as international bank executive, private equity investor, portfolio manager and as financial analyst since 1988. He was in particular active in seeding and a founder of some of the most successful Swiss companies such as Glycart, Cytos, Isotis, Esbatech, Evolva and Novimmune.
Jean-Philippe sits on the board of directors of seven companies in Europe (Telormedix, Evolva, Symetis, Synosia), Asia (S Bio, Merlion) and USA (Omeros). He is also a director of the Fondation Fournier Majoie pour l’Innovation in Bruxelles.
Prior to founding Aravis he was a Senior Executive Vice-President and Global head of Sector asset management and research at Lombard Odier & Cie, Geneva and a member of the Group Executive Committee of the bank. He was awarded the best European fund manager’s 5 years performance award, all categories equity, in 2001.
He has a degree in business administration from the University of Geneva, did graduates studies in finance in San Diego, California and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Juerg Zuercher’s 22-year career with Ernst & Young has involved extensive audit and corporate finance experience with local and international health sciences clients.
His experience of having worked with Ernst & Young in the United States has helped him to also successfully transition clients to International Reporting Standards (IFRS or U.S. GAAP).
He is now the partner responsible for the Ernst & Young biotech practice in EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) and a member of the Ernst & Young Global Biotechnology Advisory Panel.
In addition to serving as an audit partner to several venture capital companies, Juerg Zuercher is also active in the VC community, advising clients on fundraising opportunities and facilitating mergers.
His rich understanding of the biotech market in the region was instrumental in providing the Swiss federal government with an in-depth analysis of the state of biotechnology in Switzerland and the launch of the 1st Swiss Biotechnology Report in March 2004.
Juerg Zuercher studied at the University of St. Gallen, where he obtained a degree in Business Administration, with focus on auditing.