Innovative chemistry solutions provider

Thomas studied chemistry in France (ENSC, Montpellier) and the UK (UMIST, Manchester) and obtained a PhD degree from the university of Nottingham, UK.

After research appointments at the School of Pharmacy in Nottingham and ETH Zürich, Thomas joined Lipideon Biotechnology AG in 2007. As Head of the Drug Discovery and Chemistry, he lead a multi-disciplinary team that discovered a candidate for pre-clinical investigation (Non-Systemic Cholesterol Absorption Inhibitor).

In 2011, Thomas co-founded SpiroChem AG, Swiss fine chemicals company and serves as CEO of the company.

Thomas has several years of experience in the management of R&D projects, including medicinal chemistry, design of innovative building blocks for drug discovery and development of new process routes.

Peter brings a wealth of start-up and industry experience from small and large biotech companies. He was co-founder and acting CEO of Xigen Pharma and was previously head of Business Development at Modex Therapeutics, playing a key role for its IPO on the Swiss Stock exchange. 

Prior to this, he was Head of Market Research and Business Planning with Amgen Europe where he led a pan-European market research organization. Before that he worked in various managerial positions with DuPont de Nemours in manufacturing, sales and Business Development. 

As a CTI Startup coach, he has coached the founders and CEOs of over 30 Swiss life science companies.

Erick obtained a B.S. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana­Champaign and a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University. After carrying out postdoctoral work with Peter Dervan at the California Institute of Technology through late 1992, he joined the faculty at the same institution and was promoted to the rank of full professor. Since 1998, he has been full professor of Organic Chemistry at the ETH Zürich. He is the recipient of many academic and industrial awards. His research program focuses on the asymmetric synthesis of biologically active, stereochemically complex, natural products.

Recent advances from the Carreira group in the design of novel building blocks for drug discovery have had a high impact in the pharmaceutical industry and are the basis of the foundation of SpiroChem AG, Swiss fine chemicals company.

Breaking News: Since 2020, Erick is an elected member of the National Academy of Science of the USA... congrats Erick!

Florent has over 10 years of accomplishments in the Pharma/Biotech industry. His professional experience includes the discovery, process and preclinical development of various protein kinase inhibitors for the treatment of cancer (PQR309, FDA Orphan Drug Designation in 2016) and CNS disorders (PQR620), and a successful technology transfer (2009) with New England Biolabs (SNAP-tag®, CLIP-tag™).

Florent received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Bern in 2004, and carried out postdoctoral work on total synthesis with Alois Fürstner at the Max Planck Institute für Kohlenforschung in 2005. He was Head of Chemistry and Quality Control at Covalys Biosciences AG (Switzerland) (2005 - 2009), Senior Researcher at the Department of Biomedicine of the University of Basel (2009 - 2012) and Deputy Head of Chemistry at PIQUR Therapeutics AG (2012 - 2016).

Florent is co-author of numerous high impact scientific publications and co-inventor of 10 patents in the areas of drug discovery, process development and biological research.

Sven has broad experience in business development, corporate strategy, alliance- and innovation management. He brings +20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical and CRO/CMO industries in different leadership functions spanning from discovery to preclinical development, from start-up biotechs to mid-sized pharma, always with the ultimate aim to leverage innovation sustainably towards improving patient’s life. Prior to joining SpiroChem, Sven worked as VP of Business Development at Eurofins Advinus, CBO and member of the Board of Directors at Wildflower Biopharma, VP of Business Development at GVK Bio (Aragen Life Sciences), Director of Business Development at deCODE genetics (Amgen), Director of Business Development at ChemBridge, Director of New Business and Marketing at Merck KGaA and as Country Business Manager, Germany at Peninsula Laboratories.

Originally from Germany, Sven holds a M.S. in organic chemistry from the University of Leipzig and earned a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University of Heidelberg.

Ben has broad medicinal chemistry experience across avariety of therapeutic areas including infectious disease, inflammation, pain, neurodegeneration & psychiatry. His scientific interests include creation of strategic research collaborations and evaluation of novel technologies for drug discovery, with a particular focus on AI and novel screening technologies. Currently Ben is responsible for Open Innovation Discovery at Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative, a not-for-profit research organization based in Geneva Switzerland. Previously Ben held senior research positions at a variety of drug discovery companies including Genkyotex SA, Addex Therapeutics SA and UCB Pharma. He is cofounder of AiDD SA and MPC Therapeutics SARL. Ben holds a PhD in organic chemistry from Imperial College London and an MBA from IE Business School, Madrid.

David was born and raised in Slovenia, where he obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry (University of Ljubljana). He carried out his undergraduate research with Prof. K. C. Nicolaou at Scripps and Prof. Samuel J. Danishefsky at Columbia. He obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry with Prof. K. C. Nicolaou involving the total synthesis of complex natural products. David then joined Prof. Erick M. Carreira's group at ETH as a postdoctoral fellow and explored the field of asymmetric catalysis. In the fall of 2014 David joined the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

David also serves as an Scientific Advisor of SpiroChem.

Gerhard holds a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the Technical University of Munich and has spent over a decade working in the pharma, biotech and CRO industry, where he has made significant contributions to the discovery and development of new drugs. He has a proven track record of success in leading integrated discovery teams and driving innovation in the field of chemistry.

As CSO, Gerhard is working closely with our R&D team to further develop our discovery chemistry capabilities and to create a strategy for offering integrated discovery services to our customers. This includes the development of new methodologies, the optimization of existing processes, the orchestration between various disciplines, and the identification of new target areas for drug discovery.  

Laurence is Innovation Solutions Developer at SpiroChem. In her role she drives innovation development strategy to further consolidate the company’s position as a leading provider for innovative chemistry solutions.

Prior to joining SpiroChem, Laurence was an Innovation Project Manager at Prestwick Chemical. Overall, she has more than 18 years of international experience in the life science industry, with hands-on laboratory experience and profound medicinal chemistry expertise in diversified therapeutic areas such as oncology, CNS, antiviral, antibacterial, cosmetics.

Laurence graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier (2001) and obtained her PhD in medicinal chemistry at the University of Strasbourg (2010).

Kristina establishes and manages strategic R&D alliances with international pharma, biotech and academic institutions. She builds scientific and business relationships with new potential clients and partners in the USA and Europe.

Kristina received her MS degree in chemistry from Moscow State University. She completed her PhD at the University of Basel in the field of chemical enzymology, where her research was focused on understanding the mechanism of a novel enzyme called sulfoxide synthase. Kristina is an active member of the Swiss Chemical Society, EFMC and EFMC-YSN where she helps to strengthen the communication between pharmaceutical industry and young chemists.

Rob was educated (MA, D. Phil) at the University of Oxford and undertook post-doctoral work at The University of Chicago before joining Wellcome, from where he navigated mergers and acquisitions in the formation of GSK during his industrial career.

Rob brings 30+ years of experience in drug discovery, which provides substantive hands on and leadership experience to provide consultancy service. His career encompassed work across all stages of the discovery process from program initiation, through hit/lead identification (using all methods from fragments, through ligand based design, HTS and DNA encoded libraries) and lead optimization to candidate selections across many targets and therapeutic areas. His pioneering work property based design, advocating low fat, low flat principles, is very much aligned to SpiroChem’s expertise in novel sp3-rich scaffolds and isosteres.

Marc holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Strasbourg and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Woodward Research Institute in Basel, Switzerland.

Marc has more than 30 years of experience in medicinal chemistry from various fields of research related to antibiotics, antivirals and oncology. Until 2013, he was Executive Director of the Medicinal Chemistry Unit for Oncology in Basel, and a member of the Global Oncology Decision Board at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research. During his career, he contributed to three compounds currently on the market: Femara®(aromatase inhibitor); Reyataz® (HIV-protease inhibitor); Tasigna® (Bcr/Abl kinase inhibitor).

Adrian holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago, obtained in 1991, followed by postdoctoral work with William P. Jencks at Brandeis University.

He spent more than a decade at Biogen where he contributed to various successful drug and clinical candidate projects involving biopharmaceuticals and small molecules. As a member of the company’s senior research leadership, he held seats on the R&D Committee (governing committee for Biogen’s 800-person R&D organization), Drug Discovery Core Management Team, Preclinical Development Team, Oncology R&D Committee, Immunology Research Committee, and Neurology Research Committee.

Since 2008, Adrian is a Professor of Chemistry at Boston University. At the Whitty Group, the primary research focus lies in discovering novel methods to impede protein-protein interactions utilizing small molecules, particularly through unconventional techniques like synthetic macrocycles and targeted covalent inhibitors. Additionally, they investigate the activation and signaling mechanisms of growth factor receptors.

Erhard is a financial industry veteran with more than 40 years of experience. Erhard’s journey in finance began at Rüd, Blass & Cie. He later held leadership roles at BZ Bank Zurich and Bank Leu before becoming a partner and executive board member at Actieninvest and Schaller Management + Consulting. In 2001, he founded AMG Analysen & Anlagen AG and has since been the sole owner. Additionally, he has served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of AMG Fondsverwaltung AG since 2013, as well as many other industrial and start-up companies, whom he has helped growing.

Kevin is an experienced consultant with over 25 years of experience in various public and privately held financial institutions. He possesses operational and financial expertise, with a successful track record of scaling numerous companies globally across diverse market segments. Known for his strong business acumen, Kevin is skilled in Operations Management, Sales, Negotiation, and Business Planning. He is dedicated to building talented, change-capable teams and has a deep understanding of leading, coaching, and transforming teams for optimal performance and professional growth.

Arkadii is the site head of the North American Division of SpiroChem (Cyclenium Pharma, Montreal, Canada). He is responsible for the site operation directing multiple teams of scientists working on platform, medicinal chemistry and custom synthesis projects, as well as supporting the SpiroChem business development team in contacting, soliciting and arranging meetings with potential clients.

He has more than 25 years of drug discovery and development experience in the areas of infectious diseases, ophthalmology and oncology. Prior to joining SpiroChem Arkadii served as Executive Director at MethylGene/Mirati Therapeutics in Montreal where he and his coworkers delivered clinical compounds, Glesatinib and Sitravatinib to treat cancer; and most recently as Senior Director at NuChem Sciences, a well-established North American CRO.

Arkadii holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from N.D.Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences.