Peter A. Pfister, Chairman
Peter Pfister holds a doctorate degree in economics from the University of Basel. While assistant at the university he co-founded BAK Basel Economics, a private economic research institute. In 1986 he moved to Kraft Jacobs Suchard where he held a number of different finance positions in Switzerland, the USA and France. In 1994 Peter joined Adia SA as CFO and after his instrumental role in the merger with Ecco, he was appointed CFO of Adecco SA, based in Redwood City, California. Subsequently he was President of Adecco North America and after the reorganization of Adecco’s professional specialist business CEO of Ajilon worldwide.
Having experienced the start-up business environment during the six years (1995-2000) he lived in Silicon Valley, Peter decided in 2001 to engage himself as a Business Angel. He is currently an investor and board member of several start-up and early stage companies in Switzerland. He also serves on the board of CTI Invest.
Gian-Luigi Berini
Gian-Luigi successfully started and sold a technology based start-up company, active in the Life Science Industry. In addition, he is member of the board of various start-ups and of FONGIT, Geneva’s hi-tech business incubator. In this capacity, he represents FSI, a Geneva based Seed-Money Fund. Gian-Luigi spent more than 10 years as line- and general manager in multinational companies and has been an entrepreneur for more than 8 years. Gian-Luigi holds a degree in economy and marketing (Zurich, Bern), his expertise is in the field of Sales & Marketing, Organization and General Management.
Erich Platzer
Dr. Erich Platzer is an industry partner, and in 2001was a co-founder of HBM Partners, advisor to HBM BioVentures. He focuses on Private Equity / Venture Capital investments, specifically in the areas of haematology/oncology, inflammatory diseases and CNS (AD). He also invests in start-up companies as an angel investor.
His board experience since 1999 includes public biotech companies in Europe (chairman Novuspharma, Monza) and the US (board member CTI, Seattle). Currently board member of private companies: Cylene (chair) and Nereus (both in San Diego), ProBiodrug (Halle), credentis ag (chair; Windisch CH), YouRehab (Zurich). Multiple board committee chairs or memberships (Compensation, Nomination, Financing, Audit, R&D), as well as, in the past, several chairmanships of biotech companies, including Micromet, Ingenium, others.
Until 1999, Platzer was Therapeutic Area Head Oncology at Roche, Basel. He started his career at Roche in 1991 as a Medical Director in oncology and served in various positions in development and marketing. In 1998, oncology was made a separate therapeutic area and he was promoted to Business Director. During his work at Roche, Platzer gained extensive experience in clinical trial management, commercial product launches and licensing. He was also responsible for managing strategic alliances in oncology.
During 1984 to 1991, Platzer was an Attending Physician for Hematology and Medical Oncology, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Erlangen. Prior to that he worked for several years as an experimental scientist at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. During that time he had a prime role in the team succeeding in the first purification of natural human G-CSF, which lead to the development of Neupogen® by Amgen, commercially launched in 1991.
Platzer graduated from the Medical School and the Institute of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology of the University of Erlangen in 1979, where he later also received the "Dr. med. habil." (~MD.PhD.). He also holds a "Vordiplom" (~B.Sc.) in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Regensburg.