Board of directors
Graham K Dixon
Chairman
Phd
Graham Dixon is CSO/Head R&D of Mithra Pharmaceutical SA In his 27 year career in the pharmaceutical industry, he has worked in a range of R&D management positions at AstraZeneca and in C-level management positions in several biotech companies: COO at Galapagos; F2G; Entomed; Addex; Sensorion and Onxeo SA and CEO at Neem Biotech.
Dr Dixon has played leadership roles in the successful regulatory clearance of three compounds: Meropenem® (AstraZeneca), Belinostat® (Onxeo) and Nextellis® (Mithra); 12 proof-of-concept studies; two successful IPOs (Galapagos & Sensorion) and 10 clinical stage licensing deals.
He is an experienced non-executive director and board chairman as well as an advisor to several venture capital organisations and their portfolio companies.
Bart Wuurman
Chief Executive Officer
Bart is a biotech CEO with over 30 years’ experience in innovative drug development, biotech financing, business development and licensing. He has experience in working with research and development based companies in pharmaceutical product development in several therapeutic areas, including cancer, inflammatory diseases and cardiovascular diseases.
He has been instrumental to successful biotech company exits in the UK and in the Netherlands. He was responsible for pharma licensing deals worth over $700 million.
Bart was CEO of De Novo pharmaceuticals (UK), AM-Pharma, Lanthio Pharma and Lyramid (Australia) and is Director of Hercules Pharmaceuticals.
Before joining Apaxen, Bart was also Managing Director of DDF Ventures, a life-science focused venture fund with a portfolio of start-up companies in The Netherlands.
Enrico Bastianelli
Founder
MD, MBA – Strategic Advisor
Dr Bastianelli has acquired a broad pharma/biotech industry experience in fields such as research & development, production, business development, marketing and strategy. He started his career in the Pathology Department of the Erasmus University Hospital in Brussels, Belgium, before joining Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals in Marketing in 1996.
In 1999, he went on to become a Consultant for McKinsey & Co, where he spent most of his time on strategic and organizational missions for major pharmaceutical as well as for biotechnology companies all over Europe. From its creation in 2002 until mid-2006, Dr Bastianelli has worked as VP Corporate Development for ProSkelia, the Aventis spin-out focused on bone diseases and hormone disorders, who became ProStrakan, after the merger with Strakan, a Scottish specialty pharma company.
Between June 2006 to October 2016, Enrico Bastianelli has been the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bone Therapeutics, a Belgian-based cell therapy company specialized in bone diseases. Started with 3 employees, Enrico Bastianelli turned Bone Therapeutics into a late (phase III) clinical stage publicly listed company employing over 100 highly qualified people.
Since 2017, he has been the Chief Executive Officer of Graftys, one of the world leaders in resorbable bone cements.
Pierre Detrixhe
Pierre Detrixhe is Managing Partner at Financière spin-off Luxembourgeoise and Venture Director at Newton Biocapital. He brings more than 10 years of experience in the field of venture capital and has accompanied many companies in the start-up phase. Previously, he held positions of scientist and technology transfer officer in the biotechnology field. Pierre Detrixhe is Director at the Board of some promising Belgian start-up companies. He holds a Master in Bioengineering from the University of Liège (Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech), Belgium and a Master in Management from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
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Andre Ostachkov
Andre Ostachkov is Member of the Executive Committee of the Innovation Fund. Created in February 2015, Innovation Fund invests in innovative startups and companies active in the field of chemistry and life sciences. The fund has a capital of EUR 36 million, financed for more than 50% by major companies in the sector, bringing unique industrial support value to the investment projects. Other shareholders are national and regional investment funds, universities, banks and individuals. To date, the Innovation Fund has already invested in 40 companies.
Prior to this, he worked 17 years within BNP Paribas Corporate Finance at various positions in BeLux, France, Russia and Germany where he advised on a number of M&A and capital market transactions. Andre is graduated from Louvain School of Management (Belgium) and ESADE (Barcelona, Spain) in 2001.
Helena Pozios
Helena Pozios serves as Investment Manager for Biotechnology companies, start-up and investment fund opportunities at Sambrinvest.
Before joining SambrInvest, Ms. Pozios worked for 8 years at HSBC France as Associate Director in the “Leveraged and Acquisition Finance” team (Mid Cap/Large companies with an enterprise value ranging from €100M to €1bn) and as Analyst in Venture Capital in CDC Capital Investment. Ms. Pozios brings expertise in financial analysis, financing, scientific analysis, pitching & market presentation, and acquisition due diligence.
In addition to these activities, Ms. Pozios launched Bouche B in 2015, a new brand specialized in organic chocolate free from gluten and soy. Ms. Pozios has an engineering degree in biotechnology and chemistry from ESIEE in Paris, as well as a Master’s degree in Finance from ESSEC Business School, Paris.
Lotfi Yelles
Lotfi Yelles Chaouche is a partner with Theodorus, the spin-off investment fund of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where he is responsible for the Lifesciences investments. Lotfi has a background in consulting at Mckinsey & Company where he primarily served the Pharma, Biotech & Medtech industries on a wide range of topics. He holds a Master degree in Aerospace Engineering (M.Eng.) and Business Engineering from ISAE-Supaero, in France.