Bio

As Head of Operations (COO) I am responsible for the start-up, implementation and leading the operations leadership team of BioAtrium´s 20kL large scale facility, which is co-located on the Lonza IBEX site in Visp, CH. The first phase of BioAtrium´s facility, which is embedded in a joint venture between Lonza and Sanofi, is staffed with approximately 200 FTE. Currently I am focusing on tech transfer and scaling up manufacturing of the first commercial product in our GMP facility. At Rentschler Biopharma I directed Bioprocess Technology & Innovation as CSO, focusing on transformative manufacturing approaches like process intensification, being heavily involved in the strategic orientation of the business. As Senior Vice President I was responsible for >250 FTE in process development and production at 11 bioreactor lines with scales from 250L to 3000L both in stainless steel and disposables, delivering biologics drug substance for tox studies, clinical trials (PI-III) and commercial supply. I am an expert in protein biochemistry, with in depth knowledge of drug discovery up to late preclinical stage and the transition to development. Furthermore, I have >2 decades experience in protein design/engineering, expression, purification, manufacture and characterization. My academic background is Biochemistry, Human Genetics and Biotechnology. So far I have worked in the Diagnostics, Biotech, Pharmaceutical and CDMO Industry in various leadership positions. Previously I managed the scientific and strategic efforts of a biotech company as CSO to broaden the technology platform and to develop own therapeutic protein products as vaccines and anti-cancer peptides. Prior to that I have been leading a section for Protein Science, supporting global discovery functions at AZ in small molecule lead generation and preclinical biopharma applications. At GPC Biotech I was involved in profiling kinases for anti-cancer compounds and working with protein arrays and protein libraries. I started my industrial career at Connex, working on a rapid immunological test system detecting infections.