30 Rising Leaders

Trevor Martin talked to In Vivo about the importance of sharing a strategic vision with partners, the company’s superpower, and how a PhD is the best prep for a startup.

It has been quite a year for German biotech Tubulis, and CEO Dominik Schumacher tells In Vivo that the group has the potential to be “a really meaningful, sizable leader” in the antibody-drug conjugate space.

Roman Thomas, co-founder and CEO of DISCO Pharmaceuticals, outlines how the company’s surfaceome technology could disrupt drug discovery in oncology.  

Tuyen Ong, a CEO-partner at Flagship Pioneering and CEO of Ring Therapeutics, discusses the importance of balancing short-term wins with a longer-term vision when building a biotech.   

“I'm a strong believer in creating the right mix between young ambitious people and pairing them up with someone experienced,” says Jeroen Bakker, who is focused on biotech company creation at Seed Investments, Novo Holdings.      

2024 In Vivo Rising Leader Somer Baburek wants to overhaul how endometriosis is diagnosed and managed with a product that she says has billion-dollar potential.    

Laksh Aithani, CEO of CHARM Therapeutics, discusses key challenges for the flourishing AI drug development sector including finding the right people and the need for more success stories.

Co-founder and CEO of Cellino Biotech, Nabiha Saklayen, discusses the company’s innovative platform which uses automated technologies to overcome challenges in the development of regenerative medicine.

Rezo’s chief technology officer Sourav Bandyopadhyay discusses the company's focus on leveraging AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and its potential for partnerships with big pharma.  

Rising star Agnė Vaitkevičienė is juggling roles as the CEO of an emerging Lithuanian biotech, with work for a partner company, the national biotech trade association and much more.   

From an early stage in his career, Miquel Vila-Perelló saw himself as a research academic. It was an ambition he duly fulfilled. Later, seeing the greater potential to bring benefit to human health by forming his own company, he co-founded SpliceBio, a Spain-based startup focusing on gene therapies for rare diseases.

In Vivo sat down with 2023 Rising Leader Philipp Spycher, CEO of Araris Biotech, to discuss trends in antibody-drug conjugate R&D, and how Araris hopes to disrupt today’s chemotherapy treatment paradigm with novel linker technology.

Michelle Werner, CEO of Alltrna, sat down with In Vivo to discuss rare disease as an increasingly important area of study, innovation in the space and how the emerging biotech hopes to impact the treatment landscape.

Biomedical engineering graduate Cécile Dupont has for the past 12 years helped healthcare technology businesses develop disruptive solutions that positively impact patients’ lives. The current chapter of her career opened in 2017 when she joined Sofinnova MD Start, the early-stage medtech incubator of VC investor Sofinnova Partners, where she is a partner.

Christoffer Ekström, one of In Vivo's 2023 Rising Leaders, spoke about the challenges a start-up founder faces, the importance of never giving up and how one should always learn from the past.

Jessica Federer, former chief digital officer at Bayer, talks to In Vivo about making the jump into investing and why women’s health is a rich and deep market set for change.

Medtech was not on Jesper Kimer’s radar when pioneering mobile phone company Nokia took him into its graduate program. A few career turns later, having fulfilled a desire to become an entrepreneur, his expertise and interests met in the middle when he co-founded thyroid disorder home monitoring start-up, HEI Therapeutics.

2022 was a turbulent year for start-ups, especially in medtech. However, Rutger Zietsma has persisted, refocused and is ready for further success with his company, Manus Neurodynamica.

One of In Vivo’s 2023 Rising Leaders, Pheast Therapeutics’ chief development officer Amira Barkal, is also busy becoming a qualified physician. She is in the unusual position of leading an early-stage drug development program and being hands-on helping patients at the same time.

Erin Wenzel, director of alliance management at Spero Therapeutics, talks to In Vivo about working with a big pharma partner and Spero’s strategy for future growth.

Tim Knotnerus is empowering Agomab’s team to investigate the potential of growth factor pathways across four different fibrotic indications.  

Debbie Dumont, co-founder of Bioqube Ventures, and one of In Vivo’s Rising Leaders, talks about the company’s investment model, Europe’s translational challenges, and aligning  passion and purpose to find ultimate fulfilment.  

Agios’s Sarah Gheuens talks to In Vivo about the responsibility of providing new therapies to rare disease populations, building trust with historically underserved communities, and why she loves working with small molecules.  

There is no single road to leadership in biotech, as In Vivo Rising leader Manuela Corti demonstrates. The physical therapist shares her passion for treating neuromuscular disorders, the urgency of commercializing gene therapy treatment for these diseases, and the value of infusing the work environment with some fun.  

Inspired by the discovery of the phytochemical corynoline being a potential MYC synthetic lethality agent, Anticancer Bioscience has designed and identified preclinical candidates that could lead to first-in-class innovative drugs.

Sharing his thoughts on the European funding landscape, the importance of software, and sustainable investments, INKEF Capital’s Thijs Cohen Tervaert talks to In Vivo about his investment priorities.  

Rising leader Mårten Steen, spoke with In Vivo about translating science into business, building precision medicine firms from the ground up and the importance of high-energy leadership.    

Swiss-based Rejuveron’s diversified platform of longevity biotechs addresses key hallmarks of aging, with the goal of helping people to age better and live longer with reduced burden of age-related diseases. CEO Matthias Steger discusses the firm’s vision and the road ahead.    

Digital health platforms that offer personalized support are gaining traction in the market, both from patients and investors. Trellus Health is connecting IBD patients with resilience methodologies that enable disease management at lower healthcare costs. Its co-founder Laurie Keefer talks to In Vivo about scaling up the business for greater reach within the market.  

The role and purpose of medical device regulation is now better understood than at any time in its history, and regulators are no longer seen as gatekeepers preventing business from happening. In Vivo Rising Leader 2022 Graeme Tunbridge, formerly at the MHRA and now a senior VP at BSI, is a champion of the climate of inclusivity.

From pre-med to pharma lab rat to deputy director of operations at the FDA, Khushboo Sharma, a 2021 In Vivo Rising Leader and current VP of science and regulatory affairs at BIO, has spent her career pursuing a goal she says the FDA and biopharma industry have in common: ensuring that innovative drugs get to patients. 

As leader of Stanford’s Cancer Computational and Systems Biology group, Christina Curtis, one of In Vivo’s 2021 Rising Leaders, is working to shed new light on the mysteries of metastatic cancer. Curtis’s use of computational models to analyze genetic mutations in breast cancer earned her an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award.

Approved in Europe and just given the US green light, MeMed is making waves in the fight against antimicrobial resistance using advanced "host response" technology. Its CEO talks to In Vivo about strategy, commercialization and earning the right to fantasize.

HashtagHealth builds social media campaigns informed by sophisticated social listening, a focus on specific patient needs and a measurable return on investment for clients. 2021 Rising Leader Brittany Latson, a HashtagHealth co-founder, has leveraged her unique career experiences – at Disney, CVS, and advertising agencies large and small – to create a business that reflects her own values and priorities. 

Using a simulation-based drug discovery platform, Turbine is dramatically reshaping drug discovery and development, explains CEO and co-founder Szabolcs Nagy, a 2021 Rising Leader.

Lars Christian Wilde, a 2021 In Vivo Rising Leader, is president and co-founder of Compass Pathways, a psychedelic medicines company developing psilocybin for mental health disorders. An entrepreneur who began his career in finance before launching an athletics company, two cooking supply companies and an investment fund, among other achievements, Wilde describes himself as ‘a generalist who surrounds himself with amazing people.’

Health care is decentralizing, moving away from the inpatient setting and the hospital, and Sight Diagnostics CEO Yossi Pollak says his AI-based blood test is well placed to accelerate the trend.

Find a problem and develop the solution for it: so goes the accepted wisdom for successful health care technology adoption. But as Cognetivity Neurosciences CEO Sina Habibi demonstrates, the reverse can also provide a very valid business pathway.

Anne Carpenter, one of In Vivo’s 2021 Rising Leaders, talks about the growth of open source technology, putting data into action and why pharma deserves to be rewarded for evolving academic findings into marketable products for patients. 

Smaller physicians’ offices often lack the resources and expertise to perform ultrasound exams to the highest standards. This realization incentivized ultrasound technician Denise Barbato to found her own company to reimagine the service offered.

GlamorousAI is developing technology to uncover new targets and take on previously intractable disease challenges. Founder Noor Shaker hopes to license a drug to big pharma within the next three years.

Laura Soucek, one of In Vivo’s 2020 Rising Leaders, is hoping to take Barcelona-based start-up Peptomyc to the next level. The company is nearing the clinic with an inhibitor of the transcription factor Myc, which is involved in the regulation of cellular proliferation, but can also be a driver of cancer.

Tomas de Wouters, one of In Vivo’s 2020 Rising Leaders, has taken on the complex challenge of the microbiome, aiming to design the next generation of microbiome therapeutic candidates targeted at host-microbial interactions. 

Rabia Khan, managing director of discovery sciences at Sensyne Health, talks to In Vivo about pairing biology with technology in the most effective way, managing COVID-19 challenges and what the future leaders of biopharma might look like.

Her experience in banking and consultancy helped C4XD strategy chief Bhavna Hunjan to build a team that drives corporate development through partnerships, with a focus on attractive preclinical data packages to out-license to pharmaceutical companies.

Jhaymee Tynan, assistant vice president of integration at Atrium Health and creator and founder of the 100x2030 Initiative, speaks to In Vivo about her journey into health care, putting the patient first, and the importance of encouraging diversity in the industry.

An undergraduate class in abnormal psychology and a lifelong interest in technology helped to set Michael Hufford on a career path that now includes the co-founding of five companies. As CEO of Harm Reduction Therapeutics, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company, Hufford hopes to make a cheap, OTC version of naloxone widely available to help prevent unnecessary deaths from opioid overdoses.

Entrepreneur Carlo Rivis, one of In Vivo’s Rising Leaders, brought his disruptive innovation approaches to in-silico trials and digital avatar developer Computational Life, and now he is doing the same at Innovation Discovery.

Raquel Deering, one of In Vivo's 2020 Rising Leaders, discusses Regeneron's efforts to develop combination therapies, its collaborations with cancer vaccine companies, and its plans to become a major force in the oncology field.

Theragnostics’ CEO Greg Mullen aims to use his wide-ranging “hands-on” scientific and commercial experience to help clinch a $45m series A financing round that will fund a Phase I/II basket study to develop the biotech’s lead radiotherapeutic PARP inhibitor.