Our Board
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Meet Our Board

At Anaveon, our work is directed by a board of leading experts who share our passion for cutting-edge science and our dedication to finding solutions and developing life-saving treatments.

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Alice RENARD
Board Observer

Alice is a Partner of Syncona Investment Management Ltd. She is also Head of Operations at Purespring Therapeutics and works closely with Anaveon. Alice serves as an Observer on the Board of Purespring and Anaveon. Prior to Syncona, Alice was an Investment Banking Analyst within Barclays’ Healthcare M&A team, where she worked on transactions involving healthcare companies. Alice holds a Doctorate degree in Pharmacy from the University of Lille 2 (School of Pharmacy) and a Masters in International Health Policy & Health Economics from the London School of Economics.

Allison JEYNES-ELLIS
Non-Executive Director

Allison is Chief Executive Officer at Avillion LLP, a London-based drug development company focused on the co-development and financing of late-stage pharmaceuticals. A trained clinician with more than 30 years of senior leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry, an expert in oncology drug development, she is now responsible for identifying high-potential drug opportunities to fund and operationalize clinical development programs through to regulatory approval. Previously, she held senior R&D roles at Wyeth, BMS, and Novartis and has secured numerous US and EU drug approvals. Allison also serves as a Non-Executive Director of Agenus Inc. plus Chair of Oxsonics. She is a Senior Advisor to Blackstone Life Sciences and a Special Advisor to Abingworth.

Alex HAMILTON
Director

Alex is a Partner of Syncona Investment Management Ltd. He is a Director on the Board of SwanBio Therapeutics. Previously, he was a member of the Healthcare Investment Banking team at Jefferies, where he worked on a range of financings and mergers and acquisitions across the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. Alex has a PhD in Immunology from the University of Cambridge.

Andreas KATOPODIS
Executive Director and CEO

Andreas was a Director in the Autoimmunity, Transplantation & Inflammation group at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. In this position, he was involved in many aspects of early to late drug development for immune-mediated diseases, taking several modalities to clinical trial and late stage development. He also supported multiple deals with startups. Prior to this, he worked at the Central Research Laboratories at Ciba Geigy, doing research on immune cell trafficking. Andreas studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and started his career as a faculty member at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Anja KÖNIG
Observer

Anja is the Global Head of the Novartis Venture Fund (NVF) in Basel, Switzerland, overseeing global investment activities. Previously, she was a Managing Director at NVF investing in Europe, the UK and Asia Pacific. Prior to joining NVF, she was an Associate Partner at McKinsey and Company in New York, where she worked with healthcare companies in the US, Europe and emerging markets. Anja holds a PhD in physics from Cornell University. She is active in the Swiss startup ecosystem and is a member of the board of the University of Zurich Life Sciences Fund.

Audrey CACALY
Observer

Audrey is a Senior Associate at Forbion and joined the team in 2021. At Forbion, Audrey focuses on the firms’ Growth Opportunities Fund concentrating on private growth capital, European cross over financing and under-valued public companies. Audrey started her career with Kurma Partners, a well-known venture capital firm based in Paris, specialized in the financing of innovation in healthcare and biotechnology. Prior to joining Forbion, Audrey was an Associate with Bpifrance – Large Venture, the Growth fund managed by the French Sovereign Wealth Fund. Audrey received her MSc in Biology from Université de Technologie de Compiègne (France) and is a graduate of ESCP Europe with a major in Biopharmaceutical Management.

Denis PATRICK
Director

Denis is Vice President, WRDM, Head of Partnering Innovation, and Managing Partner of Pfizer Ventures. Denis capitalizes upon his experience in evaluating external opportunities to identify and manage equity investments. He currently has responsibility for Pfizer’s investments in AnTolRx, Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals, EvolveImmune Therapeutics, FoRx Therapeutics, Metabomed, MISSION Therapeutics and Palleon Pharma. His prior investment responsibilities include Bolt Biotherapeutics (BOLT), eFFECTOR Therapeutics (EFTR), and NextCure (NXTC). Previously, Denis served as Head of Oncology Licensing for Worldwide R&D at Pfizer from 2010 to 2018. Previously, Denis worked for Merck, DuPont Pharma, and GSK. He contributed to the approval of three marketed therapeutic agents including nelarabine, trametinib, and dabrafenib. Denis received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.

Eric PHAM
Observer

Eric is an Associate at Cowen Healthcare Investments. He currently serves as a Board Director or Observer for Escient Pharmaceuticals, Aro Biotherapeutics, and Arch Oncology. Before joining Cowen, he was most recently a Senior Analyst on the investment team at Roivant Sciences, where he evaluated business development opportunities to build the company’s therapeutics portfolio. Eric received his B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Houston.

Florian MUELLERSHAUSEN
Director

Florian is a Managing Director at the Novartis Venture Fund (NVF) in Basel, Switzerland. Previously, he worked as a Scientific Manager for the R&D Committee of the Novartis Board of Directors, and before that, he held various scientific and drug discovery roles at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, including as Laboratory Head in target discovery and in early clinical research as Translational Medicine Expert, Autoimmunity. Florian received his MSc degree in Biochemistry from Free University Berlin and his PhD with great distinction in Biochemistry from Ruhr University Bochum, and he completed his postdoctoral training at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.

Jasper BOS
Director

Jasper is a former Merck executive who joined Forbion as General Partner for its Growth Opportunities Fund. Before Forbion, Jasper was Senior Vice President and Managing Director at M Ventures (venture arm of Merck) which he joined in 2009. There he led a team of 21 investment professionals and with a fund size of €400 million invested in over 50 portfolio companies spanning biotech, life sciences tools, and tech companies across the investment spectrum. His track record includes the successful exits of Prexton Therapeutics, Epitherapeutics, Galecto, ObsEva, Translate Bio, and F-Star. Jasper holds a PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Martin MURPHY
Chairman

Martin is Chair of Syncona Investment Management Ltd. He co-founded Syncona with the Wellcome Trust in 2012. Since then, Martin has been closely involved in the foundation and development of seven Syncona companies: Achilles Therapeutics, Autolus, OMass Therapeutics, Quell Therapeutics, Anaveon and Azeria Therapeutics. He was previously Chairman of former Syncona company Blue Earth Diagnostics, and before that, he was a partner at venture capital company MVM Life Science Partners LLP, leading their European operations. Martin has also held roles with 3i Group plc and McKinsey & Company. He has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.

Ran NUSSBAUM
Observer

Ran is a managing partner and co-founder of The Pontifax Group. The fund runs more than 50 portfolio companies around the Globe. Ran’s work revolves around constant and active involvement in companies, providing them with strategic and business development oversight. In the past Ran served on Kite pharma BOD (sold to Gilead), cCAM Therapeutics (sold to Merck), and ArQule (ARQL) (sold to Merck) . he also chaired Ocon Medical, Nasvax, Spearhead and Biomedix. Currently, Ran sits on many of Pontifax’s portfolio companies including Eloxx Therapeutics (ELOX), UroGen (URGN), and Prevail Therapeutics. Ran also serves as Keros’ chairman of the board.

Tim ANDERSON
Director

Tim is a Partner, Head of Research and a co-founding member of Cowen Healthcare Investments. Tim focuses on investments in life science and digital medicine companies that have the potential to meaningfully address serious medical conditions. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Anaveon, Lycia Therapeutics, F2G and Autobahn Therapeutics. Tim previously served as a Board Member or Board Observer of Vectiv Bio Holdings AG, Therachon, Precision Biosciences, Livongo Health, Cadent Therapeutics, Cullinan Oncology and Compass Therapeutics. Tim holds a BA in economics from Bowdoin College.