In-House counsel

Schmidt-Brandt is currently the Managing Director of Wilex's subsidiary Heidelberg Pharma GmbH. He was the CEO of Heidelberg Pharma AG until the company was acquired by Wilex. From 1997 to 2001, he was Managing Director of the Austrian BASF-Pharma subsidiary, EBEWE Arzneimittel GmbH, where his responsibilities included finance and controlling. Prior to this, he held several positions at the BASF Group for a total of eight years, most recently as an executive in the central tax department. Schmidt-Brand is a member of the Board of BioDeutschland and Head of the Finance and Tax working group. Llewellyn-Davies will pursue new activities but continues to act as an advisor for the company. He will fully manage and complete the capital measure announced by Wilex on August 3. “Mr Llewellyn-Davies has made important contributions to the development of Wilex since joining the company prior to its IPO in 2006. We would like to thank him very much for his collaboration, which was both constructive and successful, and wish him great success in realizing his objectives”, said Professor Christof Hettich, Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

Van Geffen brings nearly 25 years international management experience in pharmaceutical development to Amakem, a kinase platform company focusing on ophthalmology. Previously, he was Director of Product Development at Shire-Movetis NV and responsible for the pharmaceutical development of the GI early and late phase products and was the CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing & Controls) lead for due diligence of early phase and late phase small and large molecule products. Prior to working at Shire-Movetis NV, van Geffen held several positions as Director of CMC Regulatory Affairs at Barrier Therapeutic NV, Centocor BV, and Janssen Research Foundation.

Van Berkel brings in more than 20 years of experience in the biotech industry, in particular in developing antibody-based drugs. He served with Genmab for more than nine years in different divisions. Prior to Genmab, Dr van Berkel worked for both Crucell and Pharming Technologies. He authors nine antibody patents and has published more than 30 scientific papers during his industry career. Van Berkel predicts an „explosion in ADC therapies  in the coming decade“.

Before de Potocki moved to DiaGenic, he was CEO of Aerocrine AB, a Swedish medical device and diagnostic company. Prior to joining Aerocrine, he served as Senior Vice President, Commercial and Strategic Development at Biovitrum AB. He has also served as Executive Vice President, Strategic Marketing at the German company Fresenius Kabi, as well as Divisional Vice President, Global Sales and Strategic Marketing with Pharmacia. Before this, he held various international commercial management positions within the Unilever group. Henrik Lund will resume his former position as chairman of DiaGenic.

Since joining the Board in April of this year, he has focused on the development of Ark's viral development and manufacturing capabilities based in Kuopio, Finland. Martyn Williams, who joined the Company in October 1998 as Finance Director and became CEO in mid 2010, will hand over to Venables and leave the Company at the End of July.

 From 2004, Placet was CFO of the clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapeutics for indications with under-served needs in neurology and cardiology. She has over 25 years' experience in a variety of areas of finance and business management. Prior to joining Trophos, she was CFO in a number of growing companies and start-ups in various industries, and worked as an auditor for eight years for Ernst & Young. She has a graduate diploma in financial accounting (DESCF) and a business school diploma from Sup de Co Marseille (DESCAF). Damian Marron, previously CEO, has moved to the biopharmaceutical Company Cytheris SA.

Pedersen joined Lundbeck in 1992 as CBO, and was selected to join its corporate senior management in 1998. There he served as Executive Vice President from 2003-2011. Pedersen is a partner at Executive Capital A/S and also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Chemo-metec A/S and Nuevolution A/S.

His main task will be to prepare the commercial launch of Medivir's Phase III product TMC435, which is being co-developed with Janssen Pharma-ceuticals for hepatitis C. 

As Programme Director Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food at DG Research of the European Commission, Patermann drafted the EU's knowledge-based bioeconomy plans.

She will be heading up all clinical activities at Molecular Partners. Prior to her post as Vice President and Head of Clinical Development at Morphosys, she held a variety of senior positions in clinical development and medical affairs at Novartis and Novo Nordisk.