Dr. Werner Cautreels was until his retirement in December 2018 President and CEO of Selecta Biosciences (Boston and Moscow). Previously, he was global head of R&D of Solvay Pharmaceuticals (Weesp, The Netherlands) and became in 2005 CEO of Solvay Pharmaceuticals (Brussels, Belgium) until it was acquired by Abbott Laboratories in 2010. Prior to joining Solvay he was employed by Sanofi, Sterling Winthrop and Nycomed-Amersham in a variety of R&D senior management positions in Europe and in the United States. Dr. Cautreels has acted as Director in various companies, among which Galapagos, Seres and Innogenetics. He is currently Chairman of Cristal Therapeutics (Maastricht, The Netherlands). He was the President of the Belgian Chamber of Commerce for Russia. He was born in Antwerp, Belgium, and received a PhD in chemistry from the University of Antwerp. He received his management and financial education from the Harvard Business School.

Dr Possemiers is a founder and CEO of MRM Health and has over 15 years’ expertise in gut microbiology, host-microbiome interactions and immunity at both academic and industrial level. He is an experienced entrepreneur with an extensive commercial network and previously co-founded ProDigest, which he built and led as CEO for 12 years. He also co-founded MRM Technologies, a center of expertise for microbiome R&D, and previously acted as R&D Director of BioActor, a Netherlands-based health ingredient company. He holds a PhD in intestinal microbial ecology from Ghent University, Belgium, which was performed in partnership with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in Paris, France.

Mr Van Nieuwenborgh is investment manager at Ackermans & van Haaren since September 2014. He obtained a Masters in Civil Engineering from the University of Ghent (2005) and an MBA from Harvard Business School (2009). Jens previously worked at McKinsey & Company where he was promoted to associate partner before joining Ackermans & van Haaren.

Jean-Patrick Hennebelle is Chief Business Development Officer at BIOCODEX, where he leads the company’s External Growth Strategy, including venture capital investments, licensing, M&A, and global alliances. He drives portfolio expansion across BIOCODEX’s three therapeutic pillars: Microbiota Care, Rare Diseases, and Women’s Health

Jean-Patrick brings more than 20 years of international experience in business development, alliance management, and corporate strategy. Before joining BIOCODEX, he served as Senior Vice President, Late-Stage Partnering at Ipsen, where he was responsible for advancing late-stage assets in Oncology, Rare Diseases, and Neurosciences. His career also includes leadership roles at Laboratoires Expanscience and the French Blood Service’s biotechnology division (EFS), where he contributed to U.S. expansion initiatives. He began his career in strategy consulting at EY.

Jean-Patrick holds a Master’s in Economic Sciences from I.A.E. Lille / University of Galway (Ireland) and an Executive Master in Corporate Finance from ESCP Europe.

David joined Korys in November 2021, focusing on venture capital investments in the life science sector. He started his career as at PMV in the fund of fund business unit before joining the life sciences direct investments unit as a senior investment manager. At UCB he was the Head of the Immunology R&D Insights to Impact team and acted as an independent scientific, strategic, and financial sparring partner providing insights and transversal resource reallocation challenge for the early and late-stage immunology missions. David holds a Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences and a Master in Economics and Business Administration from the Ghent University as well as a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurial Finance from Vlerick Business School..

Julian Zachmann (PhD) worked as a computational scientist in biotech before earning an MBA and transitioning to venture capital. With ATHOS he now holds multiple board positions and invests in growth-stage startups in healthcare and life sciences.

After having spent several years as a fixed income portfolio manager at Artesia bank (1991-1999), Goedele moved to the sell side team of Artesia Securities (later on Dexia Securities) as financial analyst covering the health care & biotechnology sector (1999-2002). Afterwards, she became responsible for the monitoring and risk assessment of the ALM Equity portfolio (2002-2006) before taking on several assignments as Project Manager within the Structured Finance department of Dexia Bank Belgium (2006-2012). At the end of 2012, Goedele moved to the Private Equity team, with particular focus on infrastructure, green real estate, renewables and energy efficiency investments. In Nov 2013, Goedele was appointed Head of Belfius Private Equity. In Oct 2017, Goedele joined SFPIM (the Federal Holding and Investment Company) as Investment Manager with particular focus on Life Sciences. At the moment, she is an active member of the Board of Bedal, ExeVir, Inbiose, MRM Health & reMYND and represents SFPIM in the Advisory (LPAC) and Investment Committee of several biotech and university funds.

Goedele earned a bachelor’s degree in Applied Economics at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) and holds a Master’s degree in Finance and Business Administration from the University of Chicago, Illinois (USA).