Board of directors

Chairman: 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: Karl Naegler PhD (Ventech)

Karl Naegler joined Ventech in 2009 and is a General Partner in the Life Sciences sector. Karl sits on the Boards of ActoGenix and Covagen.

Prior to joining Ventech he worked with Atlas Venture (London and Munich) for close to eight years, where he was instrumental for the formation and financing of several start ups across Europe. He notably worked closely with U3 Pharma, prior to its acquisition by Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd. in 2008 and served on the boards of Nitec Pharma and Lumavita.

Previously, he worked as a Scientific Fellow at the CNRS for Neurochemistry in Strasbourg, France.

Karl obtained his PhD for his work in the area of molecular neurobiology at the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine Berlin. Karl holds an MSc in Biology from the Free University of Berlin and prepared his thesis at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. During his successful academic career he contributed to several publications in highly respected scientific journals, including Science and FASEB.

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 founded and successfully built the biomedical company Crucell NV (The Netherlands), a NASDAQ-, Euronext- and SWX-listed company with a market capitalization of over €1 billion.

He was CEO of Crucell NV from its foundation in 1993 until 2004. In 1999, he also founded Galapagos Genomics NV (Belgium) as a spin-off from Crucell NV. Galapagos Genomics NV went public on the Euronext stock market in May 2005. Dr Valerio has held a professorship in Gene Therapy at the Leiden University (The Netherlands) since 1992. In 1985, he was a visiting scientific specialist at Genentech Inc. (USA). He was a post doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute (USA) from 1986 to 1987.

Dr Valerio received his Master of Science degree in Biology from the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and completed his PhD in Molecular Genetics with Honors at Leiden University in 1986. He has published over 100 scientific articles and is listed as an inventor on 80 patents (issued from 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.