JESUS MARTIN-GARCIA, MBA
Jesús Martin-Garcia has a BS in Businesses Administration and a BA in Law from University of Geneva. In 1989, he graduated with an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Jesús Martin-Garcia started a consulting career at McKinsey & Co., where he led strategy and organizational studies with teams of client executives and McKinsey consultants. Studies under direct responsibility included international restructurings, corporate process re-design and operational turn-arounds in the Food and Pharma industries.

In 1993, Jesús became a Founding Partner of Value Management Group (VMG), a consulting and investment boutique focused on telecoms and new technologies. Jesús advises medium-size European Telcos on key strategic issues related to fixed and mobile business development, M&A and regulatory policy. Since 1995, Jesús has co-founded, invested seed capital and supported the development of several technology-focused start-ups in the Lake Geneva region. In 1997, he was for example the co-Founder of Le Shop, Switzerland’s largest e-commerce company and one of the few European survivors in this field. This participation was sold in 2001.

Contact > jmg@eclosion.com

BENOIT DUBUIS, PHD
Having graduated from the EPFL in Chemistry, Dr. Dubuis post graduated at the ETH Zurich in 1994, having presented a PhD thesis on biotechnology. He then did a post-doc in the BHR Group, Cranfield University (GB) and subsequently complemented his education with management studies (INSEAD Executive Management course on advanced finance and marketing), Human Resources, Quality Management (ISO, GMP) and Intellectual Property.

In 1995, Dr. Dubuis joined Ciba-Geigy AG (now Novartis) in Basel with responsibilities in project development, project transfers and WW new facility set-ups. In parallel in 1993, he became a consultant with the ETH Military Security Institute in chemical and biological security. He joined Lonza AG in 1997 as Business Development Manager of the Biotechnology Division. Dr. Dubuis also co-founded several companies in the field of biotechnology and is a respected adviser for different leading pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Dubuis has been working at EPFL since 2000, where he is the Dean a.i. of the School of Life Sciences. He also published different papers and books in the field of biotechnology and science communication.

Contact > benoit.dubuis@eclosion.com

FABRICE PARADIES, PHD, MoT
He graduated in biology, Lyon1-University (France) in 1997 and successively held an MSc and a PhD in life science from Bari University (Italy). In 2004, he post-graduated in the Executive Master program in Management of Technology (MoT) EPFL/HEC, Lausanne.

In 2003, Fabrice Paradies joined Apoxis SA where he held a project manager position. In 2004, the company was awarded the Swiss Technology Award and was selected by Red Herring among the 100 top private companies in Europe. Dr. Paradies was successful in leading his pre-clinical project development in the top 3 projects of the company.

At end 2005 Fabrice Paradies joined the Eclosion incubator.

Contact > fp@eclosion.com

ADVISORY BOARD


ROBIN OFFORD, PHD, Chairman
Prof. Offord has made his PHD and postgrade within the molecular biology lab of Cambridge University, UK. After having worked with three Nobel Price winners (Sanger, Milstein and Klug), he has taught at Oxford University for 14 years. In 1980, he became the President of the Fundamental Medical Research Section at University of Geneva, then the Director of the Department of Biochemistry. Prof. Offord has been a consultant and scientific advisor to large pharma and biotech companies for over 25 years. He has co-founded several start-ups, including GeneProt, of which he was the first Chairman, Ciphergen in California and the Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics.

STEPHEN BURLEY, MD, PHD
Stephen Burley is the chief scientific officer of Structural GenomiX, Inc. (SGX), San Diego, USA. Prior to joining SGX, he was the Richard M. and Isabel P. Furlaud professor at The Rockefeller University and a full investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Burley was also the principal investigator of the New York Structural Genomics Research Consortium NIH-funded Center for Structural Genomics. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the New York Academy of Sciences. Burley received an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School and as a Rhodes Scholar, he received a D.Phil. in Molecular Biophysics from Oxford University. He received a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Western Ontario.

JEAN-YVES LE COTONNEC, MD, PHD
Dr. Jean-Yves le Cotonnec is Founder and President of Triskel Integrated Services S.A., Geneva, Switzerland, a company providing integrated strategic services to the pharmaceutical and device industry. Before he held several management positions in clinical development at Serono, Geneva, Switzerland, at the “Institut des Technologies pour la Santé”, Geneva, Switzerland and at Zyma S.A. (now Novartis Healthcare), Nyon, Switzerland. He has worked extensively towards the development and registration of more than 10 pharmaceutical products, most of which are today successfully marketed with worldwide annual sales in excess of $1.5 billion.

DENIS HOCHSTRASSER, MD
Dr. Hochstrasser, a practicing internist and clinical chemist, is the President of the Clinical Medicine Section and the Director of the Clinical Pathology Department at the Geneva University Hospitals. He oversees all computing activities in Geneva University's Faculty of Medicine, as well as running an internationally renowned proteomics research group. Dr. Hochstrasser had the foresight, over 15 years ago, to initiate work on software development for what is now called proteomics. He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of numerous protein-science firms and has consulted for several major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in Europe and the US. Dr. Hochstrasser was also a co-founder of GeneBio SA, Geneprot Inc and of the Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics.

HERVÉ DE KERGROHEN, MD, MBA
Hervé de Kergrohen is a medical doctor with broad industry knowledge. After taking his MBA degree from Insead, Fontainebleau, he held several positions in R&D and marketing areas for international pharmaceutical groups. Coming back to Switzerland in 1995, he has managed large global healthcare funds since then. Since 2002, he has joined the management of CDC-Ixis-Innovation in the area of life sciences, and seats on the board of several companies in the biotech field. Dr. de Kergrohen is also the Chairman and head of the organizing committee of BioData, an international forum dedicated to Life sciences that is held once a year in Geneva.

ROLLAND-YVES MAUVERNAY, PHD
Dr Rolland-Yves Mauvernay is founder and President of the private held Debio pharmaceutical corporate, based in Lausanne Switzerland.
Dr. Mauvernay has obtained several PhDs in biology, bacteriology and pharmacy from the University of Strasbourg. In 1953, he founded the pharmaceutical laboratories in Riom that he successively sold to Akzo Nobel. In 1979, in order to be fully dedicated to the finding of innovative therapeutics, Dr Mauvernay founded Debiopharm. He also created the new company Debio R.P. (Debio Pharmaceutical Research), specialized in the development and making of delayed formulation drugs, Debioclinic, a CRO based in Paris and Debioinnnovation to finance and support start-ups, completing the corporate objectives in the matter of licensing-in of innovative products.

ANDRÉ MUELLER
With degrees in Chemical Engineering from Geneva University and Business Administration from INSEAD, Andre J. Mueller started his career with CIBA Ltd and Sandoz (now Novartis) where he held a number of managerial positions in the strategic planning and finance divisions both at headquarters and in the US. After seven years with Sandoz, he moved to Biogen, becoming VP of Finance and Administration and then CFO, and was responsible for the company’s IPO. Four years later, he became a Founding Partner and Director of Investments for Genevest, the first Swiss venture capital organization. Over the last 2 decades, he has been involved in the financing and management of a substantial number of start-up companies, the most recent of which was FotoWire Development SA. He joined Actelion's four-member management team shortly after its founding, directing the two rounds of venture capital financing and helping to bring Actelion to the public with its IPO in April 2000. Andre is a member of Actelion's Business Executive Board and a member of Actelion's Board of Directors.

TIMOTHY WELLS, PHD
Dr. Wells is Senior Executive Vice President of Research at Serono since March 2003. Before then, he was the Head of Discovery at Serono, with worldwide responsibility for the discovery organization, with sites in Geneva, Boston and Ivrea, Italy. Dr. Wells has a successful scientific career in biotechnology and is well known in the field of cytokine biology. Prior to joining Serono in 1998, Dr. Wells worked for Glaxo Welcome for several years, rising to Head of Biochemistry and Immunology. Between 1987 and 1990 he worked at SmithKline Beecham in the UK on the molecular enzymology of arteriosclerosis. He obtained a PhD in the chemistry of enzyme action and protein engineering from Imperial College, London, and holds a BA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, UK.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MARKUS G. SCHRIBER
Former General Manager of DuPont de Nemours International in Geneva, M. Schriber is the Founder and President of the "Réseau", a non profit organisation with the objective of promoting and facilitating the creation of start-up companies in the field of high technology. He is Administrator of ETeCH, Zurich, member of the Board of "UNITEC" (Intellectual property and technology transfer at the University of Geneva), a former member of the Academic Council of the University of Geneva and the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of Geneva Airport. M. Schriber is President of the Board of Directors of Eclosion SA.

WERNER SCHLEGEL, PHD
Prof. Schlegel obtained his Ph.D. at the Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich (EPFZ) and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH Bethesda USA with the Nobel Prize winner Martin Rodbell. Since 1980 he has led his own research group on intracellular signalling at the University of Geneva. Director of the Foundation for Medical Research since 1994, he engaged this institution in the transfer of biotechnologies by the assimilation of several start-ups, among them NovImmune SA. Werner Schlegel has many international collaborations, in particular in Japan where he was an invited Professor of Kobe University in 1997 and of Osaka University in 2004. A graduate of the course for entrepreneurs ‘CREATE’, Prof Schlegel has co-founded start-ups, including Europroteome AG, of which he was the Chairman of the Board.

STEFAN CATSICAS, PHD
Prof. Catsicas received a PhD in Neurosciences from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and did postdoctoral work at the Research institute of Scripps Clinic (San Diego, USA). He was Department Head and managed research and preclinical programs in Neurosciences at the Glaxo Institute for Molecular Biology (Geneva, Switzerland) and served as Professor and Chairman of Cellular Biology at the School of Medicine in Lausanne. He was then appointed Vice-President and Research Director at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) where he still holds the Chair of Cellular Engineering. In addition to his academic activities Prof. Catsicas has promoted and advised biotechnology companies in Europe and in the United States and has been an advisor for investment funds such as the Pictet Biotech Fund. He is a founder of Tilocor Life Science.

ANDRE BENDER
Professor André Bender holds a PhD in Business Administration, a first degree from the University of Geneva and the degree of Master of Science in Business (Finance) from the University of Kansas, USA. Throughout his professional career, he has authored numerous academic and professional publications. He was a member of many specialized associations, including the Swiss Financial Analysts Association SFAA, for which he played a key role in the creation of the training centre for investment professionals CFPI/AZEK. Prof. Bender is also the co-founder of Gesplan in 1971, a consulting firm in the fields of management and venture capital and a co-founder of the Centre d’Information et de formation Immobilières CIFI/IAZI in 1995, a firm that valuates property portfolios and regularly publishes property indices. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the Rentes genevoises, an institution that offers secured investment solutions for the retirement period. He is also a member of the Board of Banque de Patrimoines Privés Genève BPG and of Renaissance-PME, a venture capital investment trust created by Swiss pension funds.

JAN LANGLO
After studying law in Geneva, Vienna and New York, Jan Langlo was employed by law firms such as Lenz & Staehelin, and is currently with Oberson & Partners in Geneva. An Attorney-at-law and certified Tax Expert, Jan Langlo is the Secretary of Eclosion’s Board of Directors, though not a Director himself. He advises Eclosion’s Management on various legal and tax issues.

BERTRAND REICH
Bertrand Reich holds a Master in Law degree at the University of Geneva. A lawyer at the Bar in Geneva, he rapidly created his own practice, before becoming an associate of Grosjean Didisheim Manfrini Reich, a well established legal practice in Geneva; he also sits as judge-assessor at the Court of Appeals for Leases and Rents.
He is closely involved in Geneva’s political life, and an enthusiast for the creation of companies; from 1996 to 2006 he sat on the Council of “Genilem” (centre of competences offering coaching and tools to entrepreneurs), and was a member of its Steering Committee. He has taken part, on a purely private basis, in the creation of several companies in Switzerland. He is a member of the committee of the “Chambre Genevoise Immobilière”, and is also a Director and Vice-President of the Foundation HBM Jean Dutoit, a Member of the Administrative Commission of the “Fondations Immobilières” and member of the Committee of the Civil-Service Pension Fund of the Canton of Geneva (CIA).

PATRICK SEGAL
Patrick Segal holds a Master’s degree in advanced commercial studies from the « Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris ». He was analyst of American securities for the « Caisse Centrale des Banques Populaires et Gestionnaire » of the SICAV Valorem. He then took a leading position at the Stock and Financial Management Department of the National Bank of Paris (BNP). From 1972 to 1979 he was a Managing Vice President of the French-American Capital Corporation (BNP Group) in New York. Back in Paris, M. Segal held the post of Managing Director of the SICAV - Savings Growth Investment Company and was responsible for Private Investment Advisors of the bank BNP Paribas for real-goods investments. Since 1981, Patrick Segal has been Director and member of the Board of Directors of the Edmond de Rothschild Private Bank in Geneva.

ROBERT KUSTER
After graduating from Geneva’s Faculty of Economics (Business administration), Robert Kuster was Assistant and Associate Professor at the same Faculty (Marketing, Business organization, applied statistics). Then, after 3 years at Capelin Associates Ltd, he was from 1973 to 1992 Managing Director of Gesplan SA and Gesplan Finanz Holding. He was co-founder of the "Swiss Equity Capital Association" (SECA). Until 2002 he was the Chief Officer at the Economic Promotion Office of the Department of Economy, Employment and External Affairs of the State of Geneva. He has since held various responsible positions. M. Kuster is Associate Secretary at the Direction of Economic Affairs and Chief Advisor for Economic Development at the Department of Economy and Health. He is Vice-President of the BioAlps and the Swiss Biotech associations, a member of the Board of Directors of Eclosion SA nominated by the Geneva Government, and member of the Board of the Geneva Foundation for Technological Innovation (FONGIT). M. Kuster is member of the Security Council (Conseil de surveillance), designated by the Geneva State Council, of the “Société d'Economie Mixte d'Archamps et du Genevois” (SEMAG). He is a member of the Board of the French-Swiss Foundation for research and technology (in the course of being constituted) and co-President of the Economic Board of the Franco-Genevan Regional Committee CRFG.

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        Board of Directors

 

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