Meet Our Team
Our expertise, curiosity and drive to deliver tangible results set us apart. Our dedicated team of scientists have decades of experience in drug development; we have a focus on the science and a thirst for the solution.
We are a group of motivated immunologists committed to delivering the power of cytokines to patients. We are driven by the urgency of patients’ needs combined with our curiosity and desire for knowledge. We work along converging tracks and leverage our lean structure to develop novel treatments that will save lives.
Andreas KATOPODIS
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
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.
Christine WURZ
Quality Assurance Director
Christine has more than 40 years of experience in QA, QM and QC. She spent over 25 years at Roche Pharma/Vitamins with microbiological/pre-clinical analytics. She built up the GLP Test Facility, the ISO QM framework and computerized systems validations (CSV). As Head of Quality Management at Livec, she worked for several pharma companies worldwide. At Actelion she implemented QM to qualify the IT infrastructure and services hosting GXP validated systems, and therefore she supported all GXP businesses as Global IT Quality Manager. In the leadership of a biotech startup, she recovered the studies from potential clinical hold, assured the GCP re-inspection without critical findings, and elevated the company to a state of the art GXP level.
Christoph BUCHER
Chief Medical Officer
Christoph joined Anaveon from Roche pRED Immunology, where he led the transition to the late-stage development of Crovalimab, a complement C5 inhibitor. Before that, Christoph was at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where he led programs in the stem cell transplant and complement system spaces and conducted trials in cell therapy. He obtained his medical degree and training in stem cell transplantation and internal medicine in Basel, and he completed his postdoc in the immunobiology of graft versus host and graft versus leukemia effects in Bruce Blazar’s group at the University of Minnesota. Christoph continues to practice hematology part-time at the University Hospital Basel.
Christoph HUBER
Chief Scientific Officer
Christoph has over 10 years of experience in drug discovery and preclinical development in the areas of cancer immunotherapy and cancer vaccines, inflammation and asthma, and immuno-safety. Before joining Anaveon, he held leadership positions at Roche, Pfizer and COI Pharmaceuticals. Christoph obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Zurich and did his postdoctoral training in B cell immunology and innate immune receptor signaling at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
Kirsten RICHTER
Laboratory Head
Our Laboratory Head Kirsten joined Anaveon in June 2021, from Roche pRED where she led preclinical drug discovery projects using locked nucleic acids, small or large molecules to modulate the immune response in the fields of antibiotics, virology, and autoimmunity. Before that, Kirsten was Oberassistentin/senior scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich focusing on the immune response in chronic viral infection. She obtained her PhD in Freiburg, Germany. Kirsten has broad immunology expertise and especially likes T cells.
Laetitia PETERSEN
Senior Scientist
Laetitia started her carrier in 1999 in academic research at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, and later at the Institute for Immunology of the LMU in Munich, working on DC and B cells fundamental research with transgenic mice. She joined Micromet (acquired by Amgen) to take part of the development on Bi-Specific T cell engager (BITE) technology and gained experience in toxicology studies. Laetitia spent the last 13 years at Roche, developing in vitro immunosafety assays, investigating the immunogenicity and pharmacodynamic properties of new bi-specific monoclonal antibodies in mice. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biotechnologies from Lyon Catholic University, France.
Laure AUDIDIERE
Office Manager
After 16 years working in the film industry in France, Spain and Australia, Laure moved to Switzerland ready to be part of fascinating projects she could be proud of. With an academic background in history, journalism and languages, Laure is excited to bring her versatile skills and international experience to Anaveon.
Nicole EGLI
Senior Scientist
Nicole joined the Anaveon team in October 2020, bringing with her more than ten years’ experience in pharmaceutical research. Previous to Anaveon, she held a position as Senior Scientist at Novartis, where she gained expertise in various aspects of drug discovery research. She was involved in several preclinical and early clinical projects, mainly in the field of autoimmunity, transplantation and inflammation. Nicole holds a Master’s degree in Biology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.
Patrizia MURER
Senior Scientist
Patrizia joined Anaveon after obtaining her PhD degree from ETH Zürich. Her doctoral thesis focused on the generation of novel tumor-specific antibodies and antibody-fusion proteins for the immunotherapy of various cancer types. Before that, Patrizia spent one year at UCSF in the USA as a Junior Scientist, studying the antitumoral effects of oncolytic viruses in combination with immunecheckpoint inhibitors. She holds a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences and a Swiss federal diploma as Pharmacist.
Pius GUTZWILLER
I.T.
As a digital native, Pius is happy to use his influence to ensure that Anaveon remains modern, digital and open to cooperation with third parties. Pius previously worked on research and development in energy harvesting technologies and wireless communication at the Institute of Embedded Systems in Winterthur. He then held positions in which he was responsible for technology or was project manager of digitalization projects for various Swiss food companies. In addition to his part-time employment with Anaveon, Pius is currently working as an application developer.
Silvio COSTANZO
Clinical Trial Leader
With more than 12 years of clinical operations experience, Silvio joined the Anaveon team in April 2021 as Clinical Trial Leader. Previously, he had the opportunity to work for large pharmaceutical companies but also as consultant acting as project manager supporting mainly small and mid-sized biotechnology companies across Europe. Through his involvement in several early immunology and cell therapy drugs development clinical studies, Silvio has decided to continue learning and boosting his clinical research knowledge through post-graduate education programmes.
Stephanie FERNANDO
Head of Corporate Affairs & HR
Stephanie joined the Anaveon team from a Swiss clinical stage oncology start up, where she was the Head of Corporate Affairs & Human Resources. Previously, she held management positions with increasing responsibilities in investment advisory, strategy development and sales & marketing. She has experience across various industries and geographic regions and is passionate about entrepreneurship and organizational development. Stephanie holds an MBA from IE Business School, Madrid.
Additional experts working with Anaveon:
• Carlo Lanza, Clinical Sciences
• Kaspar Kunz, Chief Financial Officer
• Christian Wyss, Corporate Counsel