Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals

Debra is Chief Medical Officer of Polyneuron. She brings a 25 years successful track record from executive committee and leadership positions in the Pharma and Biotech sectors as well as fund raising & IPO experience in the Biotech sector. Debra worked at Novartis, Roche, GSK (then SmithKline Beecham) & Polyphor. She is currently on the board of Destiny Pharma a UK company specializing in anti infectives and BerGenBio, an immuno-oncology company. She originally trained in Clinical Immunology and Microbiology and received her MD from Cambridge University, England

Aled Williams is Chief Business Officer of Polyneuron. Aled brings more than twenty-five years of leadership experience across pharma and biotech sectors. Most recently, he served as Chief Commercial Officer at VectivBio. VectivBio was spun-out of Therachon (following the acquisition by Pfizer), where Aled also served as Chief Commercial Officer. Aled’s prior experience includes more than seven years at Shire, where he was Vice President and Global Strategy Head and led three of the rare disease therapeutic areas in Short Bowel Syndrome (SBS), Gaucher Disease and Hereditary Angioedema (HAE). Prior to Shire, Aled held leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and Roche. Aled originally trained in microbiology and started his career working in Public Health.

Ruben is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Polyneuron. His drug discovery expertise, including chemical synthesis, assay development, compound screening, profiling and in vivo pharmacology led him to co-develop the anti-MAG neuropathy drug candidate PN-1007. He is an expert in the underlying core technology Antibody-Catch™. Ruben holds an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Basel.

Pascal is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Polyneuron. Since the company’s foundation, Pascal has been instrumental in delivering on key company milestones in preclinical drug development, the management of contract research activities, and the interaction with health authorities. He holds a M.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Basel and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Zürich in Molecular Medicine.

Ben Machielse has served as a Chairman of Polyneuron's Board since June 2019. He has more than 25 years of experience in the biotech industry. Ben has been involved with the successful development of multiple drugs, including the first H1N1 vaccine available to the public in the United States. Most recently, Ben served as Chief Executive Officer of Vtesse, a company developing treatments for Niemann Pick Disease. After completion of its pivotal clinical study, the company was acquired in April 2017 by Sucampo Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Vtesse, Ben served as Chief Operating Officer of Omthera Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for the development and approval of a drug for the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia. He was integral in the IPO and subsequent acquisition of Omthera by AstraZeneca. Ben also served as Executive Vice President of Operations for MedImmune, spending 11 years there. In this role, he led the worldwide development and operations of MedImmune’s therapeutic antibodies, small molecules and vaccine products. Previously, Ben held executive roles within product development, quality and operations at Xoma Corporation and Centocor BV. He has served on the boards of Xencor, Inc. and Tetragenetics, Inc., and is currently a member of the board member of Comet Therapeutics and Complexa Therapeutics. Ben holds a Bachelor of Science in Medical Biology and a Master’s in Biochemistry from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Graziano Seghezzi joined Polyneuron's Board in March 2019 after the company's Series A Financing. He is Managing Partner at Sofinnova Partners which he joined in 2006. He seed funded and was on the Board of GlycoVaxyn which was sold to GlaxoSmithKline in 2015 and Omthera Pharmaceuticals which went public on Nasdaq in 2013, then was sold to AstraZeneca later that year. Graziano also seed funded and is on the Board of Mission Therapeutics (United Kingdom), Crescendo Biologics (United Kingdom) and Hookipa Biotech (Austria). He promoted and is on the Board of BiovelocITA, Italy’s first biotech accelerator. Graziano started his career in venture capital in 2001 at Sofinnova Partners and then joined Index Venture in 2003. Prior to that, Graziano spent five years working in academic research at New York University’s School of Medicine, studying oncology and cardiovascular diseases. Graziano holds a degree in genetics and microbiology from the University of Pavia (Italy) and an MBA from RSM-Erasmus University (Netherlands).

Over ten years of experience in venture capital and medicinal research. Prior experience as a registered pharmacist, and in antibody technology research at Philogen. Holds a PhD and an MSc in Medicinal and Industrial Pharmaceutical Sciences from ETH Zurich and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) since 2019.

Matt joined NEA in 2018 and is currently a Partner on the healthcare team. He focuses on biopharma investments.
Prior to NEA, Matt was a Principal at F-Prime Capital Partners. During his five years at F-Prime, he was responsible for closing investments in more than 20 private biopharma companies, and served on the board of more than 10 portfolio companies. Prior to F-Prime, he was a management consultant in the health and life sciences practice at Oliver Wyman, a biotech equity research analyst at Robert W. Baird, and a healthcare investment banker at JP Morgan. He also conducted lipid metabolism research at the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disorders.
Matt received a BA with Honors in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago, an MD from the University of Illinois, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Dr. Michael Wacker is a General Partner at BioMed Partners and currently represents BioMed Partners on the board of directors of Tubulis GmbH (D) and Topas Therapeutics GmbH (D). Dr. Michael Wacker successfully built up various start-up companies. In addition, he coaches start-up companies in Switzerland for Innosuisse, the governmental commission of technology and innovation. Currently he is cofounder and member of the board of directors of LimmaTech Biologics AG, Inura Medical AG and chairman of the board of Inositec AG. Previously he was board member and Chief Business Officer of POLYNEURON PHAMACEUTICALS AG; Before joining POLYNEURON PHAMACEUTICALS AG, he was founder, board member and CSO of GlycoVaxyn AG, a vaccine development company that was acquired by GSK in 2015 and which valued the company at $212
million. Dr. Michael Wacker co-founded GlycoVaxyn AG in 2004 as a spin-off company from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ). Dr. Michael Wacker holds a M.Sc. in biochemistry and completed his Ph.D. and post-doctoral fellowship in microbiology at ETHZ. He is the author of several publications in international scientific journals, including Science and PNAS, as well as inventor of various patent applications.

Ruben is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Polyneuron. In March 2019, after the Series A financing, he joined Polyneuron's Board.