About Us

Leadership Team

Our founders are globally acknowledged scientists and drug development leaders whose vision is to make a difference in AML patient care.

Florent Gros

Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Stephan Oehen

Chief Operating Officer
and Founder

Philippe Lievre

Chief Business Officer
and Founder

Brice Suire

Chief Financial Officer and Founder

Elisabeth Kueenburg

Chief Medical Officer

Malika Souquières

Head Clinical Sciences & Operations

Karen Von Graevenitz

Head Regulatory Affairs

Simone Dertschnig

Head Research

Frédéric David

Head Technical Development

Our supervisory board is composed of venture capital leaders from leading international venture funds, also joined by Dr. Dhaval Patel, leader in S1Pr drug developments (Gilenya).

Manus Rogan

Chair
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Dhaval Patel

Director
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Marten Steen

Director
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Henry Skinner

Director
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Lionel Carnot

Director
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Advisory Board

Christoph Bucher

Head of Clinical Advisory Board and Founder

Simone Seiter

Head of Commercial and Scientific Advisory Board and Founder

Florent Gros

Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Florent Gros is CEO and Co-Founder of Priothera. He has held various leadership positions in venture, intellectual property and transaction matters at Nestlé, Pasteur Merieux Connaught and Novartis in Switzerland, Europe and North America. Florent is a Kaufmann Fellow, a certified European Patent Attorney, and he holds two master’s degrees, in Biotechnology Engineering and Private Law. At Novartis Venture Funds, Florent led investments and served in 17 start-up companies, of which 12 were exited. Since 2019, Florent is also Founder and CEO of Handl Therapeutics, a gene therapy company focusing on AAV-based neurodegenerative therapies.

Stephan Oehen

Chief Operating Officer and Founder

Immunologist, PhD with 21 years experience in biotech and pharma, a strong science (University Basel, University Hospital Zürich, UC San Diego), and drug development background in Autoimmunity, Transplantation and Inflammation (ATI). Stephan has an expert track record in Program Management and held several leadership positions in biotech (Cytos Biotechnology) and big pharma (Novartis Pharma). In 2006 he joined Novartis Research (NIBR) holding positions as Project Management Director ATI and Therapeutic Area Head of the Project Management Office. In his roles he managed the KRP203 program from inception to today. In 2018, he moved to Novartis Global Drug Development (Global Health) as Global Program Director (GPD) for out-partnering and as GPD of the Transplant Global Program Team.

Philippe Lievre

Chief Business Officer and Founder

A UK Pharmacist with an MBA from Temple University. Philippe started his career at Warner -Lambert and went on to Rhone-Poulenc as Director of Pharmaceutical Affairs of the Joint-Venture created with Tanabe Seiyaku. A few years later, Philippe created Tanabe Pharma in Paris and ultimately relocated to Osaka as Deputy General Manager in the Licensing and Business Department of Tanabe. Philippe joined Novartis in 2002, initially as a Marketing Manager (Transplantation Unit) in Tokyo, and later joined Novartis in Basel as an Alliance Manager for the Neuroscience Franchise. Philippe returned to Japan in 2014 to lead and reshape the Novartis Japanese BD&L organization. In 2017, Philippe joined the Basel BD&L group to head the Global Pharma Alliance Management Team. He has successfully managed many major in-licensing transactions.

Brice Suire

Chief Financial Officer and Founder

Brice has over 25 years’ financial experience in the life science sector, having worked as CFO and Financial consultant for several biotech and medtech companies including Gensight, Vivet and Oculis. Before that he worked for over 15 years at Novartis in Finance positions of increasing responsibility, including as Global Head of Finance Supply Chain Pharma. Prior to that, Brice played a significant role in establishing the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, where he worked as Head of Finance for Research Collaborations and Global Head of Financial Reporting and Accounting for Research (at 6 different Novartis sites). Brice started his career with Audit Consultancy firms Mazars in Paris and London and Price Waterhouse Coopers in Madrid. He has a Master’s in Finance from Paris Dauphine, CPA, an IEP from INSEAD, and completed the Novartis Harvard Finance Leadership Program at Harvard Business School.

Elisabeth Kueenburg

Chief Medical Officer

Elisabeth Kueenburg received her Medical Degree from the University of Vienna, Austria and afterwards completed her fellowship and specialization in Internal Medicine and Hematology/Oncology. She joined industry in 2006, supporting the newly created Austrian affiliate of Celgene and became Austrian Medical Director during the period when the company was building up in Europe. She continued her career by moving across to working with the European headquarter in Switzerland in medical disease lead functions as well as co-chairing cross functional disease teams. For more than ten years, she served within Clinical Development as well as Medical Affairs. Before joining Priothera she held the position of a Clinical Development Lead. During her time at Celgene, then a BMS company, she was involved in all aspects of drug development as well as regulatory submissions in hematology.

Malika Souquières

Head Clinical Sciences & Operations

Malika has over 20 years’ clinical research experience, having worked as Clinical Research Associate, Project Manager and Clinical Scientist for Pharma Companies (LFB, Novartis), Clinical Research Organization (PPD) and Patient Association specialized in Gene Therapy (Genethon).
In 2016 she joined Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) as Senior Clinical Scientist in Autoimmunity, Transplantation and Inflammation (ATI) where she worked on the KRP203 program as the Lead Clinical Scientist. After, she moved to a Clinical Sciences & Operations Head role in Clinical Sciences and Innovation, managing a large and diverse team of Clinical Scientists and Study Operations Managers.
Malika has a MSc in Biochemistry from the University Claude Bernard in Lyon and studied Biology in University Rene Descartes in Paris and University of Montreal.

Karen Von Graevenitz

Head Regulatory Affairs

A Pharmacist from University of Basel with over 30 years of experience in Pharma. Karen started her career at Roche in Basel (Switzerland) in Medical Marketing and seven years later, she moved into Global Drug Development Regulatory Affairs. During this period, she was involved and leading many meetings with all major Health Authorities, mainly in the cardiovascular & metabolic, CNS and breast cancer space. In 2014, Karen joined Novartis Oncology as a Sub-Region Head Oncology for AsiaPacific in Regulatory Affairs and in 2017, she became Head of New Product Planning Oncology for Asia, Middle East and Africa region. She has successfully managed major filings and approvals for NDAs and new indications. Karen joined Priothera on 1-April-2021.

Simone Dertschnig

Head Research

Simone holds a PhD in biomedical research/immunology from the University of Basel and has several years of extensive research experience in the field of haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, graft-versus-host disease and transplantation immunology. She has acquired her experience at University of Basel and University College London and was holding research grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, European Hematology Association and Novartis Foundation for medical-biological research. She has substantially contributed to advance the understanding of pre-clinical haematopoietic stem cell transplantation research and her work has been presented at major conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.

Frédéric David

Head Technical Development

French Chemical engineer with 24 year experience of the Chemistry Manufacturing and Controls of pharmaceutical products. After 12 years working for Pfizer then Allergan in Scientific and Regulatory roles, Frédéric advised numerous small biotech to large corporations as a member of Fred-CMC a small consultancy he co-founded in 2009. In this role he insured design and manufacturing of innovative products for clinical use (Bepo® / MedinCell, Servier, Oculis, …) and life cycle changes to marketed products (Galderma, Bayer, Stallergenes, …) are approved by health authorities around the world.

Manus Rogan

Chair

Dr Manus Rogan is a Managing Partner and co-founder of Fountain Healthcare Partners. He has over 27 years of investment and operating experience in the life science sector in both the US and Europe. Manus earned a PhD in chemistry from the University of York (sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline) and an MBA from Trinity College Dublin.

Manus began his career in product development at GlaxoSmithkline in the UK and in 1996 joined Elan Corporation’s business development group. For four years he was responsible for licensing products and drug delivery technologies in Europe and Japan. In 2001, Manus joined Elan’s Corporate Venture Capital group in New York where he invested in private and public biotechnology companies. Investments included Sirna (acquired by Merck, 2006) and Beyond Genomics (IPO, 2011). In his 7 years at Elan, Manus concluded over twenty five investment and technology licensing transactions involving companies in the US, Europe and Japan.

Manus led Fountain’s investment in Innocoll Inc. and currently serves on the board of Neuromod Devices and PrioThera Ltd. He previously represented Fountain on the boards of Inflazome (acquired by Roche), Amarin Corporation, Opsona Therapeutics and Mainstay Medical (IPO, 2014). He was formerly Chairman of the Irish Venture Capital Association (‘IVCA’).

Dhaval Patel

Director

Dhaval is an EVP and CSO of UCB, based in Brussels, Belgium. He received an MD and PhD (Microbiology and Immunology) from and further clinical training in Internal Medicine, Rheumatology, Allergy, and Clinical Immunology at Duke University. Prior to joining the industry in 2006, he was an Eminent Professor of Medicine, Chief of Rheumatology, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and Director of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. During a 10 year career at Novartis, he led Research in Europe and Autoimmunity, Transplantation and Inflammation Disease Area which developed the S1PR modulators fingolimid and siponimod as well as several other medicines. He was also an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Novartis Venture Fund, and serves on several biotechnology boards.

Marten Steen

Director

Dr. Mårten Steen. Partner of HealthCap. Previously, he has worked with business development at Merck Serono focusing on both product and technology licensing. Mårten is a Medical Doctor trained at Lund University. He has pursued research in the field of protein chemistry and coagulation at Lund University and Novo Nordisk, rendering him a PhD in Clinical Chemistry. He is the author of numerous scientific papers and published in peer-reviewed journals. He has also a B.Sc. degree in Business Administration from the Lund University School of Economics and Management.

Henry Skinner

Director

Dr. Skinner is Senior Vice President, Venture at Tekla Capital Management. Prior to joining Tekla, Dr. Skinner Served as Deputy Head and Managing Director of Novartis Venture Fund. In addition, Dr. Skinner has been CEO of SelectX Pharmaceuticals and NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals and has held positions in Business Development for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Pfizer, Pharmacia, Pharmacia & Upjohn and Lexicon Genetics. Dr. Skinner was a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine in the department of Human and Molecular Genetics, earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois and M.S. and B.S. in Biology/Biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Lionel Carnot

Director

Lionel Carnot is a Partner at Earlybird. Before joining Earlybird in 2016, Lionel was a Managing Director at Bay City Capital after having been extensively involved in the firm’s activities as part of The Pritzker Organization. Prior to The Pritzker Organization, Lionel was a Principal at Oracle Partners, a healthcare hedge fund. He also held several positions in the pharmaceutical industry, including Product Manager for Prozac at Eli Lilly and several sales and marketing positions at Sanofi-Aventis. He was also a strategy and management consultant to the biopharmaceutical industry at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and Accenture Strategic Services. Lionel holds an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD and an M.Sc. in Molecular Biology from the University of Geneva.

Christoph Bucher

Head of Clinical Advisory Board and Founder

Christoph is the CMO of Anaveon. Before Christoph was at Roche, where he led the transition to the late-stage development of Crovalimab, a complement C5 inhibitor. Before that, Christoph was at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where he led programs in the stem cell transplant and complement system spaces and conducted trials in cell therapy. He obtained his medical degree and training in stem cell transplantation and internal medicine in Basel, and he completed his postdoc in the immunobiology of graft versus host and graft versus leukemia effects in Bruce Blazar’s group at the University of Minnesota. Christoph continues to practice hematology part-time at the University Hospital Basel.

Simone Seiter

Head of Commercial and Scientific Advisory Board and Founder

Simone is a Partner at Simon-Kucher & Partners, leading their Commercial Strategy Cluster within the Life Sciences division. Before joining the company, she was the global lead of IQVIA´s Brand & Commercial Strategy Team and lead their launch excellence platform. She is a board certified dermatologists and worked at the University hospitals in Heidelberg and Homburg in Germany, as well as at several dermatology clinics. She also worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH. Simone specializes in strategic pharmaceutical commercialization, launch, and brand excellence, portfolio and lifecycle management, including go-to-market strategies, P&MA strategies, product lifecycle strategies, and orphan diseases. She has supported many of the current top 20 pharma companies in successfully developing and commercializing their healthcare innovations in Europe and the US. Simone has published a number of articles and white papers on launch excellence and coauthored the IQVIA Launch Excellence series.

About Us

Leadership Team

Our founders are globally acknowledged scientists and drug development leaders whose vision is to make a difference in AML patient care.

Florent Gros

Stephan Oehen

Philippe Lievre

Brice Suire

Elisabeth Kueenburg

Functions Area Heads

Malika Souquières

Karen Von Graevenitz

Simone Dertschnig

Frédéric David

Supervisory Board

Our supervisory board is composed of venture capital leaders from leading international venture funds, also joined by Dr. Dhaval Patel, leader in S1Pr drug developments (Gilenya).

Manus Rogan

Dhaval Patel

Marten Steen

Henry Skinner

Lionel Carnot

Advisory Board

Christoph Bucher

Simone Seiter

Investors

Florent Gros

Chief Executive Officer​ and Founder

Stephan Oehen

Chief Operating Officer and Founder

Philippe Lievre

Chief Business Officer and Founder

Brice Suire

Chief Financial Officer and Founder

Elisabeth Kueenburg

Chief Medical Officer

Malika Souquières

Head Clinical Sciences & Operations

Karen Von Graevenitz

Head Regulatory Affairs

Simone Dertschnig

Head Research

Frédéric David

Head Technical Development

Manus Rogan

Chair

Dhaval Patel

Director

Marten Steen

Director

Henry Skinner

Director

Lionel Carnot

Director

Christoph Bucher

Head of Clinical Advisory Board and Founder

Simone Seiter

Head of Commercial and Scientific Advisory Board and Founder

Chief Executive Officer and Founder