Franck Faucher

Franck has 20 year experience in pharmaceutical industry. He held various position both at operational level and corporate level in large Pharma companies. He started his career in industrial operations at Merck & Co where he managed various product site transfer in Europe. He also brought to operation a brand new production workshop for sterile products for an FDA approval. When he joined Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2005, he participated to various global projects such as asset divestment and product portfolio rationalization programs. He was appointed Business Development Lead for UPSA four years ago. In his current role, he screens market opportunities, selects appropriate solutions, issues and negotiates terms sheet and business transaction with partners for both pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceutical products (Medical devices, Food Supplement). As education background, Franck owns a Ph.D in Pharmacy. He is MBA graduated from EM-Lyon. He followed various training program in Corporate Finances, M&A and Partnership/Alliance management at INSEAD.

Pierre-Marie Girod-Roux

Pierre-Marie Girod-Roux holds a biology master and a postgraduate degree respectively in electrophysiology specialty and in management of technology companies. Passionate about entrepreneurship, he created his first biotechnological start-up (diabetology) at 23 years old.

Pierre-Marie is the Chief Executive Officer of the start-up Sinnovial, which is a biotechnology company created in September 2015 in partnership with Grenoble Alpes Hospital and University of Sciences. It is specialized in the development of innovative personalized medicine devices to improve the Chronic Inflammatory Rheumatism (CIR) management in rheumatology (especially rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis).

Sinnovial works towards these ends by providing its expertise and SinnoTest® technology (based on the analysis of patients’ proteomic profile and the calculation of treatment response probabilities ) to rheumatologists to contribute to the improvement of living conditions of people with Chronic Inflammatory Disease (CID).

The aim of SinnoTest® is to enable the physician to improve his patient management by maximizing successful biotherapy treatment from the initiation of the medical procedure.

Antony Lebeau

PhD in Neuropharmacology (University Paris Descartes) and titular of a Master’s degree in Company Management (CNAM-International Institut of Management), Antony Lebeau has successively worked as research engineer (Inserm/Research Institut of Servier), project manager (GIS Prion-Ministry of Research, Inserm Transfert), communication manager (Inserm-Tranfert and Inserm-Transfert Initiative. He joined the French National Research Agency (ANR) as project manager in the of “Health Biology” department, working on Technology Transfer programs (RIB/Biotecs ,TecSan). He currently works as program officer in the ANR department of “Investments for the future and competitiveness”, working in the field of public-private partnerships. Antony Lebeau has been also expert for the European Commission and for the ERC in “Health and Biotechnology” and “Ethic and Governance” fields for the past 8 years.

Rafi Mardachti

Rafi Mardachti is a Pharmacist (Pharm.D) from the University of Paris XI (France). He has an MBA from the Albany College of Pharmacy of Union University (USA). He is a Master of Pharmaceutical Marketing from the University of Paris XI (France). He is the winner of the National Thesis prize in 1995: Mail Order Pharmacy.
His previous positions were: Regional District Manager at MEDCO (USA), Pharmacist Manager at Marionnaud (France), Health Manager Director at Quintiles (Europe). He is the founder and CEO of Universal Medica.
Rafi Mardachti has published various articles in specialized media and teaches at various schools and specialized Master’s degrees.

Rok Ocvirk

After graduating with a Ph.D in Experimental Medicine from McGill University (Canada), Rok joined the pharmaceutical industry and became a Chartered Global Management Accountant, specializing in opportunity valuation. He has ten years of experience in pharmaceutical business development, in search & evaluation and buy-side and sell-side licensing and M&A transactions. He joined Servier in November 2017 to lead licensing projects in the Central Nervous System. Having strong interest in innovation and entrepreneurship, Rok has acted as a mentor to young entrepreneurs in collaboration with Cambridge University (UK) and the Pitch@Palace (UK) initiative.

Corinne Venot

Biologist by training with a PhD from the University of Pierre & Marie Curie in Paris and a Master in biotech & pharma management from ESCP-EAP Paris. She has always been focused in the Oncology field, taking various positions from marketing, early drug discovery to scientific Business Development. Joining Aventis, she was team leader for 8 years in oncology drug discovery projects, moving forward projects from target identification until preclinical candidate, major accomplishment was towards IGF1R project developing small molecule as well as antibody. During 8 years within Sanofi Oncology Division, as director of oncology business opportunities, she was specialized in preclinical/discovery assets with an emphasis on oncobiologics including antibody drug conjugates. She has been playing a major role in building the following licenses and partnerships: in-licensing p53/mdm2, small molecule inhibitor from Ascenta/Univ of Michigan; Dana Farber/Belfer Institute, strategic research collaboration; in licensing of antibody products for ADCs from Oxford Biotherapeutics; Caprion Target identification license & research collaboration; Algeta research collaboration for Thorium RadioImmunoTherapy; several technology deals to build ADC next generation (Innate Pharma BTG technology, Catalent SMART Tag technology, Glykos new linkers, Avipep small format). Within the Immuno-Oncology space the license and research collaboration with Innate Pharma for NK Cell Engagers. She joined Servier, 2 years ago, to lead the oncology portfolio licensing activities within the BD&L department. Since here arrival at Servier, she has put in place the Pieris research collaboration and license agreement covering 8 imuno-oncology bispecific anticalins, 2 research collaboration and license agreements on undisclosed targets with Vernalis and the WEHI, as well as a technology license with Transgene for CART Cell therapy. More recently active contribution to the Shire Oncology portfolio acquisition.

Nader Yaghoubi

Nader Yaghoubi, M.D., Ph.D., is President and CEO of PathMaker Neurosystems, a clinical-stage neuromodulation company with operations in France and US. He has over 16 years of experience in the creation, operations and financing of life science companies. Prior to starting PathMaker, he was President and CEO of Symbiotix Biotherapies, a pioneering microbiome company emerging from Harvard Medical School. Before these, he was the first employee at Selecta Biosciences (Nasdaq:SELB) and BIND Therapeutics (Nasdaq:BIND), nanoparticle companies emerging from MIT. Previously, he was at Zero Stage Capital, a venture capital firm where he was responsible for investing in the life sciences sector, and was also an intern at Advent International. Dr. Yaghoubi received an M.D. and Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from the combined degree program at Boston University School of Medicine. His doctorate work on the development of high-throughput automated electrophysiological systems resulted in five issued US patents, received one of his University’s highest awards for dissertational research, and was the basis of a venture-backed neuroscience company. He is extensively involved in mentoring young companies, and has served/serves as a mentor, advisor and reviewer with Massachusett’s Biotechnology Council’s MassCONNECT program, Mass Life Sciences Center programs, Springboard Venture Capital Forum and numerous university business plan competitions.