Supervisory Board – invendo medical
- Gerald Möller, PhD
Chairman - Ulrich Abshagen, MD
- Sidney Braginsky
- Jürgen Dernbach
- Rainer Strohmenger, MD
- Axel Polack, MD
- Diana Saraceni
Gerald Moeller, PhD – Chairman
Dr. Gerald Moeller has 30 years of international experience in the pharmaceutical and medical diagnostics industry, with senior postings in Germany, the US and Japan.
Dr. Möller served as Deputy Chairman of the German Pharmaceutical Association (VFA). He is currently the Managing Director of HBM BioCapital Management GmbH in Germany and serves as a Non-Executive Director on the board of several companies in the healthcare sector. Amongst others he is also Chairman of the Bermuda-based HealthCare service company 4sigma Ltd, Pelikan Technologies Inc. (Palo Alto, USA), Morphosys AG (Munich, Germany), MTM AG (Heidelberg, Germany), BRAHMS AG (Berlin, Germany), FeBit GmbH (Heidelberg, Germany), FIND Foundation (Geneva, Switzerland).
Dr. Möller was also Chairman of Powderject PLC (acquired by Chiron Inc. in 2003) as well as a Board Member of Sugen (acquired for 650 Million US$ by Pharmacia & Upjohn in 2003).
From 1975-1995, Dr. Moeller held several senior and executive positions in Germany, Japan, USA, and the Netherlands with Boehringer Mannheim including Senior Vice President of R&D Diagnostics; President of Decentralized Diagnostics; CEO of Boehringer Mannheim Therapeutics; and Chief Technology Officer of Corange, the holding company of Boehringer Mannheim. In 1995, he became CEO of the worldwide Boehringer Mannheim Group, which generated sales of $4 billion in 1997 and had 18,000 employees. He managed the merger and integration of the group with Hoffmann-La Roche. Following the sale of the Boehringer Mannheim Group to Roche in 1998, Dr. Moeller was named Head of Global Development and Strategic Marketing for Pharmaceuticals, as well as a member of Roche’s Executive Committee. Dr. Moeller left Roche in December 1998. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Kiel, Germany.
Ulrich Abshagen, MD
Professor Abshagen is the founder of Heidelberg Innovation (1996) and has concentrated the last years on building Heidelberg Innovation to become a leading European venture firm. He brings to the firm a 20 year track record in building global pharmaceutical businesses. Professor Abshagen is a board certified internist and clinical pharmacologist and was instrumental in establishing clinical pharmacology as an academic and medical discipline in Germany.
He served as President & CEO with worldwide responsibility for the pharmaceutical business of Boehringer Mannheim (now Roche) and built its U.S. pharmaceutical business from scratch to a break-up value > $ 1bn. Already in the early 80ies he integrated molecular biology and genetic engineering into drug discovery and development. During his tenure, 10 novel drugs including 3 biologics were discovered, developed and launched into world markets. Among those therapeutics were 2 blockbusters (Carvedilol - >$ 2bn, EPO - $ 2bn).
Prof Abshagen currently holds supervisory board seats in Biofrontera (chairman), HBM (Verwaltungsrat), invendo medical and is honorary senator of the University of Heidelberg.
Sidney Braginsky
Sidney Braginsky has been President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Atropos Technology, LLC since July 2000. Atropos is the majority shareholder of Digilab LLC, the former molecular spectroscopy division of Bio-Rad acquired by Atropos in 2001. Atropos is also responsible for Double D (Devices and Diagnostics), a Venture Capital Fund. Double D has made 8 early stage investments in healthcare and life sciences companies who have proprietary technology platforms offering solutions for these markets. Mr. Braginsky serves as Chairman and Managing Director of Double D and Chairman and CEO of Digilab LLC.
Mr. Braginsky served as President of Olympus America, Inc. from October 1994 to December 1999. In this role, he built a billion dollar business focused on optical products including cameras and scientific instruments (microscopes, endoscopes and chemistry analyzers). Scientific devices represented approximately 60% of the business. Mr. Braginsky served in a number of leadership positions during his 27 year Olympus career, including Assistant Division Manager, Division Manager, Senior Vice President, Executive Vice President and President.
Mr. Braginsky is on invendo medical`s Supervisory Board since March 2006.
Jürgen Dernbach
Jürgen Dernbach is a specialist in tax law and he is a chartered accountant. He is partner of the Heidelberg-based law firm Tiefenbacher. Mr. Dernbach deals with all matters covering mercantile and corporate law. He provides legal support related to taxes, insolvency and reorganisation. He also worked as an insolvency administrator for many years. Mr. Dernbach studied at Heidelberg University. The first position in his career was at the Heidelberg Tax Office. During this period he obtained the additional degree of Diplom-Finanzwirt (FH).
Rainer Strohmenger, MD
With over 20 investments in start-up companies, Dr. Strohmenger is one of Europe’s most experienced venture capitalists in Life Sciences. Joining Wellington Partners in 1997, he became a Partner in December 2000. His ten years of investment activity involved financing some of the most successful European biotech companies.
In the late 1990s he co-managed Wellington’s investment in Swiss biotech player Actelion, today a listed company with a market cap of more than four billion euros. He was also responsible for the investments in Grandis (acquired by Novartis), Noema Life (Borsa Italiana:NOE), Wavelight (Deutsche Boerse:WLT), as well as immatics.
Prior to joining Wellington Partners, Dr. Strohmenger was involved in medical research with a primary focus on cardiovascular physiology and in research on health economics at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.
Rainer studied medicine and economics and holds a doctorate in medicine as well as a master's degree in economics.
Axel Polack, MD
Dr. Axel Polack joined TVM Capital in 2000, and is a General Partner for life sciences in the firm’s Munich office. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Noxxon Pharma AG (Berlin, Germany) and Genetix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Cambridge, MA). He also represents the interests of TVM Capital with f-star. Dr. Polack’s main scientific fields of expertise are molecular and viral oncology, oncogene activation, gene regulation and molecular immunology. He works intensively on the assessment of new investment opportunities in those areas, while also providing support to existing portfolio companies.
Before joining TVM Capital, Dr. Polack was General Manager of Innovative Technologies Neuherberg GmbH (ITN - now known as Ascenion). Ascenion acts as a marketing partner to research institutions of the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, for example, GSF - National Research Center for Environment and Health GmbH, which licenses patents and fosters start-up companies. In the eight years prior to Ascenion, Dr. Polack was the deputy head of the GSF – Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology. He holds a doctorate summa cum laude in medicine from the University of Freiburg and a Second Thesis (postdoctoral lecture qualification “Habilitation”) in the field of virology. Dr. Polack is also a member of the board of the German Vaccine Research Foundation (Hanover).
Dr. Polack’s doctoral thesis was honored with the Goedecke Research prize for outstanding fundamental research in medicine. In 1995 he was appointed assistant professor/private lecturer (“PD”) by the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. Since 1984 he has co-authored more than 50 publications in peer review journals.
Diana Saraceni
Before becoming a Venture Capitalist in 2001, Diana was Senior Advisor at Lazard Investment Banking. In Lazard she was part of the Technology Team and primarily worked on M&A transactions and IPOs. Prior to Lazard, Diana spent several years as strategic consultant with A.T.Kearney in Milan and London. Diana was/is part of several national and international start-up selection committees. Diana holds a degree in Engineering from the University of Rome and received an MBA from LUISS.
Caution: Investigational Device. Limited by U.S. federal law to investigational use. The invendoscopy™ System is not available for sale in the United States. Only for clinical investigational use and exhibition purposes.