Frank Kalkbrenner
Current role
Frank is the Global Head of the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and has been involved in several investments of the fund. He served as board member of STAT Diagnostica in Barcelona, which was sold to Qiagen in April 2018, Amal Therapeutics, which was sold to Boehringer Ingelheim in July 2019 and NBE Therapeutics, which was sold to Boehringer Ingelheim in 2020. Currently, he is on the Boards of Acousia Therapeutics in Tübingen, RinRi Therapeutics in Sheffield, Aelin Therapeutics in Leuven, eTheRNA in Niel, T3 Pharmaceuticals in Basel and Brainomix in Oxford and T-knife in Berlin. In addition, he is member of the Supervisory and the Advisory Board of Inserm Transfer Initiative, a French Seed Investment Fund based in Paris.
Professional Background
Frank studied Medicine, did his PhD in Pharmacology and specialized in Pharmacology and Toxicology. He spent more than 10 years in academic research in the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin and in the Institute of Pharmacology of the Freie Universität, Berlin. His academic research focused on gene regulation by transcription factors and signal transduction mediated by ion channels and G proteins.
In 1997, he began his industrial career by joining Schering AG as senior scientist in Experimental Dermatology. In 1999, Frank moved to Boehringer Ingelheim and joined the department of Pulmonary Research. In 2005, he took over the responsibility for the Licensing Department. In this function, he was responsible for the licensing activities of the German Boehringer Ingelheim organization in various indication areas. In addition, he built up the NBE Research unit at the German Research site in Biberach.
In 2010 - shortly after its initiation - Frank joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund.
Sebastian Kreuz
Current role
After joining the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in June 2019, Sebastian serves as a board member of Rewind Therapeutics in Leuven, Topas in Hamburg, Quantro in Vienna and Abalos Therapeutics in Essen, a recently founded company specialized on virus-based approaches for the treatment of cancer patients. In addition to contributing to the Venture Fund portfolio in the areas of immune oncology and regenerative medicine, Sebastian is focusing on strategic opportunities in the infectious diseases space.
Professional Background
Sebastian studied Technical Biology at the University of Stuttgart and holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and Immunology. In 2004, he started his career in Pharmaceutical Industry as a scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim. Since then, Sebastian held various positions in different functions within the BI research organization covering responsibilities as Laboratory Head and Project Leader ranging from early stage drug concept work to advanced drug discovery projects in various disease areas. From 2015 to 2019, before joining the BI Venture Fund, Sebastian was working in the Research Beyond Borders department to implement an integrated R&D strategy for virus-based Gene Therapy as a novel treatment modalitiy for BI.
Weiyi Zhang
Current role
Weiyi is currently the Managing Director of Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund China, and the Head of External Innovation Hub China at Boehringer Ingelheim, located in Beijing. Weiyi serves as a board member of Delonix Bioworks and RiboX Therapeutics in Shanghai and of Nuevocor in Singapore.
Professional Background
Weiyi gained her bachelor degree in Biology at Xiamen University in 2001. She joined international Max-Planck research school in chemical biology in 2003 and studied function of olfactory G-protein coupled receptor and ligand-gated ion channels in diseases. She obtained her Ph.D in cell biology from Ruhr-University Bochum in 2007. Since 2008, Weiyi started postdoc training in functional study of orphan GPCRs in central neural system at both National Institute of Biological Sciences and the University of Hong Kong.
In 2009, Weiyi started her industrial career by joining Bioduro-PPD in Beijing and led an HTS and assay development group focusing on HTS assays and integrated early drug discovery programs for various pharmaceutical companies. Then she has led the monoclonal antibody research group at Bio-Rad Laboratory in Shanghai from 2012. From 2013 to 2016, Weiyi joined Innovation Center China at Bayer Healthcare with increasing responsibilities and left Bayer as Associate Director of Innovation Partnering. In 2016, Weiyi joined Boehringer Ingelheim and started to build the external innovation function in China from scratch.
In April 2020, Weiyi started to build the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund team in China.
Mia Hu
Current role
Mia is currently an Investment Manager of Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund. She joined Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2021 and is based in Hong Kong.
Professional Background
Mia recevied a B.Sc from University of Saskatchewan in Canada and her Ph.D. in the School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Hong Kong. Her academic research focused on cancer therapy, stem cell, gene therapy, aging, tumorigenesis, DNA damage repair, mitochondrial biogenesis, virology, protein structure and embryonic development.
In 2017, she began her industrial career by joining China Resources Capital Management as Senior Vice President, leading several healthcare investment, including biotech, pharmaceutical, medical devices and healthcare service.
Johannes Zanzinger
Current role
Johannes joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2019 with 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical R&D and Business Development, which he led for Cardiometabolic Diseases at Boehringer Ingelheim over more than ten years. He serves as board member of HepaRegenix in Tübingen, DiogenX in Marseille, Eyevensys in Paris, Metabomed in Tel Aviv and AgoMab in Ghent. In addition, he is member of the Supervisory and the Scientific Advisory Board of Advent France Biotechnology, a French Seed Investment Fund based in Paris as well as a member of the Strategic Committee of Innobio 2, a BPI fund based in Paris.
Professional Background
Johannes studied Animal Sciences and Biology, and earned a PhD in Animal Sciences (Dr. sc.agr.) at the University of Hohenheim in 1992, followed by postdoctoral positions at the Medical Faculties of the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg, where he completed a postdoctoral thesis (Habilitation) and was appointed Associate Professor (Privatdozent) for Physiology in 1998. Johannes then started his industrial career in 1999 as a Group Leader for in vivo Pharmacology at Pfizer Global Research & Development (Sandwich, UK). He joined Boehringer Ingelheim in Research Coordination in 2002, and became Global Head of Business Development and Licensing for Cardiometabolic Diseases in 2009. In this function, he identified, championed and negotiated multiple partnerships with pharma, biotech and academia, and served on the Therapeutic Area Leadership Committee for Cardiometabolic Diseases. In addition to his role at Boehringer Ingelheim, Johannes still continues to act as an adjunct (Apl) Professor of Physiology at the University of Ulm.
Kanad Das
Current role
Kanad joined Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2018 and is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. He serves as Board Member of Oncomyx in Phoenix, Actym Therapeutics in Berkeley, Sentien Biotechnologies in Lexington and Libra Therapeutics in San Diego.
Professional Background
Kanad joined Boehringer Ingelheim from Merck (MSD) where he was Director, Business Development and Licensing in their West Coast Innovation Hub. He evaluated assets in Immuno-Oncology, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases and Ophthalmology in the preclinical space up to human proof of concept. Kanad started his career at Genentech as a post-doctoral fellow. He then worked as a medicinal chemist at KAI Pharmaceuticals, where he was an inventor of Parsabiv, approved in 2017 for the treatment of Secondary Hyperparathyroidism. After KAI, Kanad worked at Stanford University’s SPARK program, an academic accelerator designed to take basic science discoveries and bring them to fundable assets. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a B.Sc. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley.
Fei Shen
Current role
Fei is currently the Managing Director of Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund USA. She joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2020 and is located in Boston, MA. Fei serves as Board Member of Rgenta Therapeutics in Cambridge, STRM. Bio in Cambridge and Abexxa Biologics in Arlington.
Professional Background
Fei received her Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and a B.Sc in Biochemistry from East China University Science & Technology. In 2007, she started her industrial career at Theravance Biopharma as an in vivo pharmacologist and led a lab in driving multiple research projects from exploratory, lead optimization to development candidate nomination, including TD-1473 in Ulcerative Colitis, Ampreloxetine in Fibromyalgia, Velusetrag in Gastroparesis, TD-8954 in Post-operative Gastrointestinal Dysfunction. In 2015, she joined Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. Global Immunology and Respiratory Disease Research in Ridgefield where she started as a Laboratory Head and became the Head of in vivo Pharmacology group in 2016. From 2015 to 2020, before joining the BI Venture Fund, Fei led a group of ~20 in vivo pharmacologists supporting the Immunology and Respiratory Portfolio for small molecule, antisense and antibody projects.
Mark Ralph
Current role
Mark Ralph is an Executive Director in the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund focusing on Digital Health Investments. Mark serves as Board Member of xCures in Oakland, Wellth in New York City and Optina in Montréal.
Professional Background
Most recently, Mark was Global Head of the Contract Negotiations and Alliance Management (CAM) team, responsible for enabling collaborations with academic partners and platform technology companies. In addition, he was the US Head of Business Development & Licensing and acted as the lead business development professional supporting the Research Beyond Borders (RBB) organization. Mark has over 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with roles spanning small molecule drug discovery research, operations, finance and business development.
Debbie Lin
Current role
Debbie joined Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2018 and is based in Boston.
Professional Background
Debbie is a trained scientist with a PhD in Pharmacogenomics and Bioinformatics from University of California San Francisco. She also has a Masters in Health Policy from UCLA and a Masters in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
In 1999, Debbie began her career as a health policy consultant working to implement US State Medicaid Policy. After her graduate studies, she joined Boehringer Ingelheim in a variety of roles. She worked as field based Medical Affairs with key opinion leaders in Women’s Health. She then joined field based Health Economics and Outcomes Research working with the sales account teams and various payer and provider systems on the West Coast. She ran the US Making More Health program for Boehringer Ingelheim’s initiative with Ashoka, a social entrepreneurship organization. In 2015, she joined Corporate Strategy and Development in Germany where she lead a large stroke rehabilitation clinic development project. In 2018, Debbie joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, leading the US Digital Healthcare efforts.
Oliver Reuß
Current role
Right after his start in 2018, he has been involved in the first two digital healthcare investments, Brainomix and Wellth. Oliver is responsible for the Digital Healthcare investments in Europe and Israel. He serves as Board Member of Dopavision in Berlin and Perfood in Lübeck.
Professional Background
Oliver is a trained biologist and did his PhD in Molecular Biology with a focus on Infectious Diseases. Oliver spent 5 years in academic research at the Institute for Molecular Infection Biology at the University of Würzburg, where he focused on the characterization of oligopeptide transporters in pathogens.
After some time in business consulting, Oliver joined Boehringer Ingelheim in 2008. After various roles in business analytics, business development, in-licensing and strategy, Oliver built the Business Model and Healthcare Innovation group in 2014. The team was solely dedicated to scout, identify and pilot digital healthcare solutions for Boehringer Ingelheim’s pill business globally. In 2018, Oliver joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in the newly created Digital Healthcare investment arm.
Alexander Ehlgen
Current role
Alexander joined Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2019. He is responsible for Digital Healthcare investments in Europe and Israel. He serves as Board Member of AIgnostics in Berlin and Tacalyx in Berlin. In addition, he is member of the Investment Committee of the High Tech Gründer Fund (HTGF III), the largest publicly backed Seed Investment Fund in Germany based in Bonn.
Professional Background
Alexander is a physician, who received his medical degree from the University of Bonn, Germany. He also conducted academic research on myocardial perfusion and stress echocardiography at the University of Oxford, UK.
Alexander worked at a biotech start-up and major pharmaceutical companies in a variety of roles in clinical drug development. His focus was on novel imaging tracers and drugs in the cardiovascular and metabolic diseases areas. Alexander joined Boehringer Ingelheim in 2012 in Translational Medicine and in 2014 was appointed global head of the Translational Medicine and Biomarker Experts group responsible for translational medicine and biomarker aspects of novel pharmaceutical compounds at Boehringer Ingelheim. Together with the Boehringer Ingelheim Digital Lab he also developed a novel digital product that enables precision medicine concepts with biomarker data.
Yvonne Richter
Current role
supporting Sebastian Kreuz, Philipp Müller, Johannes Zanzinger, Niklas Czeloth
Kathrin Rohschürmann
Current role
supporting Frank Kalkbrenner, Oliver Reuß, Alexander Ehlgen
Cathy Sylvain
Current role
supporting Kanad Das, Debbie Lin, Stefan Pflanz, Mark Ralph, Fei Shen
Lindsay Wang
Current role
Supporting Weiyi Zhang
Dragan Djuric
Current role
As member of the Corporate Finance/M&A department at Boehringer Ingelheim, Dragan is involved in financial due diligence, company valuation, and deal structuring activities of the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund.
Professional Background
Dragan holds 4 degrees in Management and Strategy (B.Sc., Dipl.-Kfm., PhD, MBA) from universities in Germany and the US.
He previously worked as Inhouse Consultant at Boehringer Ingelheim’s Corporate Division Strategy & Consulting gaining project experience in strategy development, digital healthcare, and organizational restructuring. Dragan joined Boehringer Ingelheim from PwC Strategy Group (Munich office) where he worked on commercial due diligence projects (both buy-side and sell-side) analyzing targets from a wide range of industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals, industrial goods, automotive, professional services) for private equity funds. In his role as Business Development Manager at a leading generics company he worked on pan-European in-licensing projects.
Timothy Arnheim
Current role
Tim is Legal Counsel of the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and covers all legal aspects of the investments of the Venture Fund. Tim joined Corporate Legal Strategy & Governance as Senior Legal Counsel Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in the group Corporate Legal Governance and M&A in February 2019. Within Corporate Legal Governance and M&A, Tim will be fully dedicated to the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund.
Professional Background
Tim is a fully qualified English attorney (Solicitor) and obtained his LL.M from University College London. Following his graduation from Cambridge University and the College of Law, London, he joined the international law firm, Allen & Overy, in London and was a partner for 20 years. His experience covers international legal work across a range of sectors and continents, including acting for funds, project/acquisition companies, banks, bond arrangers, development finance institutions and export credit agencies. In addition, Tim worked for Allen & Overy in Germany for seven years and is a fluent German speaker.
Maximilian Stöhr
Current role
Max is a legal counsel advising the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in all legal aspects of its investments. Max joined Corporate Legal Strategy & Governance as Senior Legal Counsel in the group Corporate Legal Governance and M&A in April 2019. Within Corporate Legal Governance and M&A, Max is fully dedicated to the BI Venture Fund.
Professional Background
Max is a fully qualified German attorney (Rechtsanwalt) who studied law at the Universities of Bayreuth and Bordeaux. Following his graduation in 2012, he joined the international law firm, Hogan Lovells, in Frankfurt. Before working for Boehringer Ingelheim, Max was a legal counsel at Armacell in Luxembourg. His experience covers international legal work with a focus on corporate law, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures and other cooperations.
Stefan Pflanz
Current role
Stefan joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2020 and is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. He serves as Board Member of TigaTX in Utrecht and Bodyport, in San Francisco.
Professional Background
Stefan accomplished his PhD in 1999 at the University of Aachen, Germany, and then completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto, California. He has since headed immunology research labs or groups at Micromet (2003-2006), Schering-Plough Biopharma (2006-2010), Gilead Sciences (2011-2016), and most recently at Boehringer-Ingelheim (2016-2020), across different indication areas including immune-oncology, infectious diseases, inflammatory conditions, and fibrosis.
Niklas Czeloth
Current role
Niklas joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2020 and will take over responsibilities in scouting and evaluation of new opportunities in the field of pharmaceuticals. He serves as Board Member of Anagenesis in Strasbourg.
Professional Background
Niklas studied Biochemistry at the University of Hannover and specialized in Immunology during his PhD and Post-Doc. In 2008, he started his pharmaceutical career at Biotest in Dreieich and was responsible for preclinical and translational aspects of biotherapeutic projects. Niklas joined BI in 2013 as project manager DMPK in the Biosimilars Business Unit. In 2014, he took over the role as Head of Biosciences Biosimilars and steered the pharmacology, toxicology and DMPK activities for the biosimilar portfolio. The last 2 years Niklas was responsible for leading international development projects in oncology, CNS and retinopathy indications in BI´s IPM department.
Philipp Müller
Current role
After joining the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in October 2020, Philipp serves as a board member of ImCheck Therapeutics in Marseilles and Asgard Therapeutics in Lund. In addition to contributing to the Venture Fund´s portfolio in the areas of immuno-oncology and immuno-modulation, Philipp engages in identifying cutting edge investment opportunities with groundbreaking therapeutic potential in the file of anti-infectives.
Professional Background
Philipp studied Molecular Biology at the Biozentrum in Basel (Switzerland), holds a PhD in Biochemistry (2009) and has a long track record of working in translational immuno-oncology research, the infectious disease area as well as drug discovery within the pharmaceutical industry.
Philipp spent multiple years of translational immuno-oncology research in an academic environment (studying, amongst others, targeted agents, ADCs, CPIs, cancer vaccines, bispecific T-cell engager, immuno-cytokines, CD40 and CD137 agonists), during which he built and managed an extensive, global collaboration network with academic, biotech and pharma partners as well as published in high ranking scientific journals. He joined Boehringer Ingelheim in 2015 as a research team and project lead within the newly formed department of Cancer Immunology and Immune Modulation in Biberach an der Riss, where he specifically engaged in integration of outside innovation into the BI discovery strategy.
During his time within Boehringer Ingelheim´s R&D Philipp was leading multidisciplinary research teams, successfully moving two cargo armed oncolytic virus-based projects into development. He effectively managed stakeholders including both internal and alliance governance bodies and delivered IO research strategy for innovative novel platforms and new areas of biology. Contributing to Boehringer Ingelheim´s external innovation strategy he further identified, evaluated, initiated and managed alliances with multiple external partners.
In October 2020, he joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund investing in clinical translation of pioneering therapeutic approaches, i.e. in the field of immuno-oncology, immuno-modulation and anti-infectives with a novel mode of action.
Hongmei Li
Current role
Hongmei is the Investment Senior Director at Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund. She joined Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in September 2021 and is based in Shanghai.
Professional Background
Hongmei received a Bachler of Clinical Medicine then a M.D. of Internal Medicine from Tongji University Medical School and a Ph.D. in Genetics from Fudan University in China. During her Ph.D. training, she joined a 3-year exchange program to study in Duke University in the United States.
Hongmei joined BI TCM Medicine as Head of Clinical Development in February 2019. In her past two and half years, she has successfully expanded and driven TCM clinical development team making great contributions to China-Key implementation. Under her leadership, the clinical science capability has been strengthened in company focused therapeutic areas. She also supported to build an effective governance model in shaping and accelerating TCM pipeline development strategy. Before joining BI, Hongmei worked as a Clinical Development Physician, Met/Imm TA Head in BMS China then Infectious Disease and Vaccine TA Head, Early Development Head in J&J Asia for 11 years. Before joining industry, she was an assistant professor of pharmacology in China Academy of Science. In her new role at Venture Fund, Hongmei will be responsible for scouting, investing, and managing investment portfolio projects in China/Asia.
George Pothoulakis
Current role
George joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund as Director and Senior Legal Counsel in October 2021. Among other things, he is responsible for supporting all legal aspects of BIVF’s investment activity in the United States.
Professional Background
Prior to joining the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, George spent approximately 8 years in private practice as a venture capital attorney representing numerous start-up companies in the life sciences industry as well as several leading venture funds. Because his practice spanned the entire life cycle of a company, George also has in-depth experience advising not only new start-ups but also maturing companies in public offerings, mergers and acquisitions. He obtained an undergraduate degree in Economics from Rollins College, in addition to a law degree from the Washington University School of Law where he served as Executive Editor of the law review.
