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BaseLaunch team

We are happy to meet you.

The BaseLaunch team works for Basel Area Business & Innovation.

virginia ballotta

Virginia Ballotta, PhD

Position: Manager New Ventures
Email: virginia.ballotta@baselaunch.ch

Before joining Basel Area Business & Innovation Virginia Ballotta was the Country Manager Switzerland for Catalyze, where she helped biotech entrepreneurs and researchers acquire funding and shape their business strategy. She holds a Master`s degree in Bioengineering from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands), where her main research interests were tissue engineering and immunology.

virginia ballotta

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Virginia Ballotta, PhD

Manager New Ventures
Stephan Emmerth BaseLaunch

Stephan Emmerth, PhD

Position: Director Business Development & Operations
Email: stephan.emmerth@baselaunch.ch

Stephan is Director of Business Development & Operations and also heads Therapeutics Innovation at Basel Area Business and Innovation. He has been deeply involved in establishing and building out BaseLaunch, and was involved in the sourcing, launch, growth, and successful financing of numerous biotech ventures. Stephan joined the organization from brief stints in medical affairs at Lipomed and research at Roche. He gained his Ph.D. in RNAi and epigenetics from Novartis`s Friedrich Miescher Institute, which also affiliated with the University of Basel. Stephan holds a Master’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from ETH Zurich.

Stephan Emmerth BaseLaunch

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Stephan Emmerth, PhD

Director Business Development & Operations
Neil Goldsmith

Neil Goldsmith

Position: Director Strategy
Email: neil.goldsmith@baselaunch.ch

Neil is a serial entrepreneur with broad experience of the life science sector. He has founded, or otherwise been instrumental in the early development of multiple biotech ventures over the last 35 years, including Evolva (synthetic biology, founder & CEO, IPO Zurich), TopoTarget (oncology, founder, IPO Copenhagen), Biotage (microwave chemistry, founder, IPO Stockholm), PNAD (DNA diagnostics, CEO, trade sale), BIAcore (biosensors, VP Bus Dev, IPO NASDAQ) and Scientific Generics (head of marketing, IPO LSE).

In addition to BaseLaunch, Neil is currently a board member of Alentis Therapeutics (anti-fibrotic therapeutics), Unibio plc (protein from methane) and Sundew ApS (treating water transmitted diseases). Neil has a first-class degree in Zoology from the University of Oxford, and set-up his first venture straight out of university, benefitting from a very early venture accelerator that was run by the University of Stirling.

Neil Goldsmith

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Neil Goldsmith

Director Strategy
Martyna W

Martyna Wroblewska

Position: Manager Innovation & Sourcing
Email: martyna.wroblewska@baselarea.swiss

Before joining Basel Area Business & Innovation Martyna worked as a Project Leader at Redbiotec AG (pre-clinical stage biotech), where she was responsible for the design, development, and management of projects focused mainly on oncology and vaccine development.

Martyna holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nicolaus Copernicus (Microbiology) in Poland and a Master’s degree in Biology from the University of Zürich (Evolutionary Biology).

Martyna W

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Martyna Wroblewska

Manager Innovation & Sourcing

Partners representatives on the selection board

The selection board decides which companies BaseLaunch funds

Daniel B Timmermann

Vice President, Innovation Outreach at Novo Nordisk

Neil Anderson

Senior Director, Minority Investments at Novo Nordisk

Valérie Hepp

Executive Director, PHC Basel Site Head at Roche Pharma Partnering

Carsten Kroll, PhD

Senior Scientist, SMR External Innovation & Medicinal Chemistry, pRED Roche Innovation Center Basel

Christoph Rösli, PhD

Director Research Bern at CSL Behring

Marco Cavallari, PhD

Manager Research Innovation at CSL Behring

Christian Mauriand

Global Head of Corporate Development, Roivant Sciences

Eric Valeur, PhD

VP Research and Head of Drug Discovery, Roivant Sciences

James Jungkue Lee

Founder & CEO, Bridge Biotherapeutics

B. Chris Kim, PhD

Board Member, Bridge Biotherapeutics

Klaus Breiner, PhD

Managing Partner, Pureos Bioventures

Ximing Ding, PhD

Associate, Pureos Bioventures

Michael R. Huebner, PhD

New Venture Lead, Johnson & Johnson Innovation

Huaizheng Peng, PhD

General Manager, CMS

James Stearns

Managing Director Transactions, CMS

Individual advisors and consultants

Whether we or our ventures need expertise, advice and consultants of any kind in preclinical and clinical drug development, commercial and BD&L, legal and IP, we can draw from the tremendous pool of expertise available in the Basel Area but also globally. The people we work with have decades of experience in biopharma form organizations such as Astra Zeneca, Biogen, Novartis, Roche/Genentech, Shire, Idorsia, Baxter, Bayer, Amgen, Micromet, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and others.

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