Board of directors
Chairman: Staf Van Reet, PhD
Dr. Van Reet is founder and managing director of Viziphar Biosciences BVBA, a start-up bio-pharma research and development company, and of its subsidiary Viziphar Biosciences PVT Ltd (Bangalore, India). He is Chairman of the Board of Okapi Sciences and serves on the boards of Thrombogenics NV, the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) and FlandersBio vzw. Most recently, Dr. Van Reet was co-founder and chairman of the Board of Movetis NV from 2006 till the acquisition of Movetis by Shire in 2010.
Before, Dr. Van Reet had a long track record with Janssen Pharmaceutica and Johnson & Johnson, among others as Managing Director of Janssen Pharmaceutica NV and President of the Janssen Research Foundation, the worldwide research and development organisation of the Janssen Group of companies. Additionally, Dr. Van Reet gained solid experience in venture capital, having been responsible for corporate venturing in Europe as a Vice President of the Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation.
Dr. Van Reet holds a degree of engineering in Applied Biological Sciences and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Leuven, Belgium and studied law at the University of Antwerp. He is a qualified Belgian and European Patent Attorney.
Director: Patrick Van Beneden (Gimv)
Patrick Van Beneden heads up the Life Sciences business unit at Gimv (Belgium).
He is a board member of various listed and non-listed companies, including Devgen (Belgium), Avalon Pharmaceuticals (USA) and the Biotech Fonds Vlaanderen (Belgium).
Patrick Van Beneden has a degree in Financial Sciences from VLEKHO in Brussels, Belgium.
Director: Pol Bamelis, PhD
Pol Bamelis is currently a board member of Medigene (Germany), Oleon (Belgium), the University of Leuven (Belgium) and several publicly listed Belgian companies including Recticel (Belgium) and Sioen (Belgium).
From 2002 untill 2005, Pol Bamelis was Chairman of the Agfa Gevaert Group (Belgium). From 2002, he was also Chairman of CropDesign (Belgium), until its integration in BASF last year. In 2001, Pol Bamelis retired from Bayer (Germany), after a distinguished career of 36 years, including 10 years as a Member of the Board of Management (Vorstand). He was one of the main architects of Bayer’s biotechnology strategy.
Pol Bamelis obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Leuven.
Director: Rudy Dekeyser, PhD (VIB)
Rudy Dekeyser is currently Managing Director of VIB (Belgium).
He has been board member at Devgen (Belgium), CropDesign (Belgium) and Ablynx (Belgium) and is currently board member at Pronota (Belgium), Solucel OY (Finland), Cardio3 (Belgium), Bio-Incubator Leuven (Belgium), EMBLEM (Germany) and FlandersBio vzw (Belgium). He is also a founding board member of the Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals (ASTP) and guest professor in innovation management at the University of Ghent (Belgium).
Rudy Dekeyser obtained his PhD in biology at the University of Ghent.
Director: Laurent Assaraf PhD (Ventech)
Laurent joined Ventech in 2002 and is Principal in the Life Sciences sector. He sits on the board of Graftys, Eyegate Pharmaceuticals, Prosonix, and ActoGenix.
Before joining Ventech, Laurent was a financial analyst at Oddo securities, a leading French broker. He was working on the analysis of pharmaceutical product portfolio well as on the assessment of their potential.
Laurent holds a Pharm-D and a MBA from IAE, Paris.
Director: Anne Portwich, PhD (LSP)
Anne Portwich is an investment manager at LSP (The Netherlands).
She joined LSP in 2001 as a scientific analyst. Before Anne Portwich came to LSP, she was a project leader at OctoPlus, a Dutch contract research organization specializing in drug delivery.
A biochemist by training, Anne Portwich received her PhD from the Max Planck-Institute of Marine Microbiology in Bremen (Germany), where she worked on the biosynthesis of UV-absorbing compounds in cyanobacteria.
Director: Bernard Coulie, MD PhD MBA (ActoGeniX)
Bernard Coulie joined ActoGeniX as Vice President Research and Development in September 2006. In 2009, he was appointed Chief Medical Officer and in 2010, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer.
Bernard Coulie joined ActoGeniX as Vice President Research and Development in September 2006. In 2009, he was appointed Chief Medical Officer and in 2010, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer.
Between 1997 and 2000, he was staff Gastroenterologist at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the Mayo Clinic (USA).
Bernard holds an MD and a PhD from the University of Leuven. He is a Board-certified Internist and he received his MBA from the Vlerick Management School.
Director: Domenico (Dinko) Valerio, PhD (Aescap)
Dinko Valerio is a scientist and entrepreneur who founded the biotechnology company Crucell N.V. He was CEO of the company from the start in 1993 until 2004. In March 2011 Johnson and Johnson acquired Crucell for an aggregate value of € 2.2 Billion.
In 1999 Dinko co-founded Galapagos Genomics N.V. as a joint Venture between Crucell and Tibotec/Virco.
In 2005 Dinko co-founded Aescap Venture Management together with Michiel de Haan, the founder and previous Managing Partner of Atlas Venture. Aescap Venture Fund I manages € 103 million and is dedicated to investments in European Biomedical Companies
Dinko’s career started in Academia. He completed his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics with Honors at Leiden University, The Netherlands in 1986. He was a ‘visiting scientific specialist’ at Genentech Inc., San Francisco, USA and a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, San Diego, USA from 1986 to 1987. In 1992 he was appointed Professor in Gene Therapy at Leiden University.
Dinko published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed Journals and is an inventor on 11 patent-families.
Director: Jim Van heusden, PhD (Gimv)
Jim Van heusden is an executive investment manager at Gimv and focuses on investments in Life Sciences.
He currently serves on the board of Pronota (Belgium) and has been a board member at CropDesign (acquired by BASF). Prior to joining Gimv in 2001, he was working as a senior scientist at the department of Oncology Drug Discovery at Janssen Pharmaceutica, a Johnson & Johnson company, where he also served on the research management committee of the collaboration with Rigel Pharmaceuticals (US).
Jim Van heusden holds BSc and MSc degrees in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and a PhD in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Maastricht (The Netherlands).
Director: Rudi Mariën (Biovest)
Rudi Mariën was co-founder, reference shareholder and Chairman of Innogenetics, and has been the founder, shareholder and Managing Director of several clinical reference laboratories.
Currently, he is Managing Director of Barc NV, a leading international centralized clinical laboratory exclusively dedicated to pharmaceutical studies. He has different mandates as CEO and Director at Barc USA, Barc Inc, Barc RSA and Laboraco BVBA. Rudi Mariën is Vice President of Cerba European Lab and President and CEO of Gengest Bvba and Biovest ComVa. Through his management company, Gengest BVBA, he has Board mandates in different public and private biotech companies.
Rudi Mariën holds a degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Ghent.
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15/09/2011
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18/02/2011
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01/02/2011
ActoGeniX receives IWT grant for treatment of Clostridium difficile-associated enteric disease