venture capital Archives

Stephan Christgau

18 March 202519 January 2025 by Sejelas

You have an extensive background in both academia and the biotech industry, with over 60 peer-reviewed papers and multiple patents. How has your experience as a researcher shaped your approach as a life sciences investor and entrepreneur?

I think it gives a different perspective as an investor, when you have actually had operational experience. Having started companies and worked with f.ex. patent strategy, development plans and CRO selection and monitoring is not only something I hear about in the board room, but something I have actually done myself.

That said, one should of course also be humble and recognize that one’s own experience is only directly relevant in few cases, and of course we engage experts and other stakeholders in all cases, but it is nevertheless a different perspective one gets from having started and run companies.

The scientific background, and ability to grasp and challenge scientific backgrounds of projects and companies, is essential for an investor in the life science space, and indeed I believe most of my peers in other venture funds have scientific and/or clinical backgrounds.

Casper Breum

12 September 202411 September 2024 by Sejelas

Tell us about your background.

I am an organic chemist who has worked in many different fields within pharma and biotech. I have worked at Novo Nordisk, H. Lundbeck and at a Danish CRO working in different areas and roles such as QA, R&D Chemistry, Project Management, Sourcing and Corporate Business Development and Strategy. Before I started my venture trajectory, I was CEO of a venture-backed diagnostic company. My time in venture capital started in 2009 at Lundbeckfonden Ventures when the Lundbeck Foundation decided to establish a VC entity.

Andreas Wüpper

19 June 2024 by Sejelas

Tell us about yourself. My current role is that of a Managing Director of Fresenius Medical Care Ventures GmbH. I have been part of the Ventures team since it was established in 2016. My role has developed over the past 8 years, but I am still involved in the daily routines from opportunity sourcing, due diligence, preparing the requests for approval by our Investment Committee, deal execution and management of portfolio companies.

Klaus Dugi

13 May 2024 by Sejelas

Tell us more about your background and what is your team building at Vandria. I am a physician by training. I spent four years as a PostDoc at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, USA, and subsequently received my clinical training at Heidelberg University Hospital in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology. Inspired by the opportunity to develop new medicines to improve outcomes for patients, I moved from academic medicine to pharmaceutical drug development in 2003.

Jia-Yi Har

1 March 2023 by Sejelas

Tell us more about your current role with Cathay Health. rtner at Cathy Health and my day-to-day job is to evaluate investment opportunities in the area of convergence medicine, which is the application of engineering and data technologies to solve unmet needs in healthcare and life sciences.

Sascha-Oliver Bucher

15 February 202315 February 2023 by Sejelas

Tell us about yourself. Was becoming a biotech investor something that you always envisioned? The desire to become an investor, or more precisely a company builder, which is what Forty51 is all about, grew inside me over time.

Sascha Berger

21 April 20225 January 2022 by Sejelas

Tell us more about your current role. I’m a general partner at TVM Capital based in Munich. I’ve been with the company now for five years but much longer in this industry. I used to be a working student at TVM and stayed in touch ever since.

Jacqueline Ruedin Rüsch

21 April 202227 October 2021 by Sejelas

We invest in people! Specifically, we look at ventures which are in their seed stage, and we support them financially but most importantly we work together to build a successful company. We live in the most innovative country in the world, so it is not a surprise that most of our companies are based in Switzerland.

Robert Grundy

21 April 202217 March 2021 by Sejelas

Mira LSV is a new organisation that was set up to specifically fund and develop early-stage innovations in life and health sciences. As a team, we are predominantly product developers in the areas of therapeutics, medical devices and diagnostics. We have significant fund management experience, but we are also seasoned innovators and developers. As such, we envisioned the need for a better model for early-stage innovation funding.

Christian Winkler

21 April 202223 January 2021 by Sejelas

Karl Kirchmayer, who is one of asc’s co-founders, and I have known each other for a very long time. In January of 2020 he told me that he had been acquiring land in Romania and been active in Russia too for many years and was seeing a string of very interesting opportunities. However, he was very much limited to traditional means of financing, joint ventures with other landholders or borrowing from the traditional banks.