Prior to moving to business development, Cedric worked through various R&D functions at Ablynx, first as a scientist in the pharmacology group and later as project manager, leading cross-functional project teams from discovery up to Phase 2 clinical studies.

Cedric has a PhD in bioscience engineering from KU Leuven.

She is the inventor of filgotinib (Jyseleca), commercialized for treatment of moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis. Prior to Galapagos, Christel worked at Faust Pharmaceuticals (now Domain Therapeutics), a biotechnology company specializing in GPCR drug discovery. She is an inventor on over 25 patent applications and brings over 20 years of R&D experience to Confo.

Christel completed a PhD in Organic Chemistry at the University of Manchester  in the lab of Prof Jonathan Clayden.

He held positions including Vice President Development Sciences at Kymab Ltd. in Cambridge U.K and Senior Director of Translational Sciences, Clinical Pharmacology, Pharmacometrics and Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at MedImmune’s Cambridge U.K. site. Paolo was a Research Fellow, Biotherapeutics and Translational Research, with Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics and Metabolism at Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development in California for seven years. Prior to that, he was a faculty member with the Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (US).

Paolo has received multiple honors, is a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and a member of several professional organizations. He has over 140 publications in diverse areas including oncology-targeted agents, diabetes, immunotherapy and immunogenicity of biotherapeutics, dose optimization as well as pharmacometrics and systems pharmacology.

Paolo obtained his PhD in Bioengineering from the Polytechnic of Milan and the University of Padova (Italy) and finished his MBA in 2014 from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (US).

He has extensive experience in identifying, leading, negotiating, and executing various licensing deals.

Prior to joining Confo, Stephen served as Head of Business Development, Europe, at Rallybio, a clinical-stage Nasdaq-listed rare disease company based in New Haven, Connecticut.

Prior to this, Stephen served as Senior Director of Business Development at Kymab, a clinical-stage antibody biotech in Cambridge, UK which was sold to Sanofi in 2021 for $1.1 billion and up to $350 in milestones. He was also Head of Business Development at SNIPR Biome based in Copenhagen, Denmark developing CRISPR-based therapeutics to reprogram the microbiome.

Previously, he held research leadership roles at GlaxoSmithKline and SmithKline Beecham.

Stephen was awarded a PhD, from his work at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) and an MBA from Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.

Prior to joining Confo Therapeutics, Frank was a member of the management team at Ablynx, where he was responsible for IP strategy, secured a strong patent estate and was involved in negotiating various partnerships with leading pharma companies.

Frank was Director of IP and Legal at Devgen, a Belgian biotech that was acquired by Syngenta. He also counseled major pharmaceutical, biotechnology and research institutes while working in private practice. Frank holds degrees in Chemistry and Civil Law, both from Leiden University (the Netherlands), and Business Law from the University of Antwerp (Belgium), and was named as one of Managing IP’s ‘Corporate IP Stars’ four years in a row (2015–2018).

He was formerly Chief Medical Officer International at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and CMO at EUSA Pharma and Zeneus Pharma, having held senior positions in both big and small pharma and in the UK regulatory agency.

Tim qualified in medicine at London University and became honorary Consultant and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, London before joining the pharma sector.

Prior to joining Confo, Marc was Associate Director of Finance at Argenx from 2010-2016, where he helped professionalize the Company’s Finance and HR department. He was also part of the core-team launching Argenx’ IPO on Euronext Brussels in 2014.

Prior to his Biotech experience, Marc served in several finance positions with increasing responsibility in the Travel Industry (Thomas Cook) and Sportswear (Champion).

Marc holds an Accounting degree and completed the Executive Masterclass Corporate Finance at the Vlerick Management School.

He has a keen interest in Open Source, Linux and Windows system administration, security, and networking.

Peter was Director of IT at Devgen, a Belgian biotech that was acquired by Syngenta.

Stephanie worked for over 10 years at Ablynx (Sanofi) where she headed the discovery phase of multiple therapeutic projects and amassed key expertise in VHH lead optimization. She also led multiple projects focused on platform improvement and extension. Before joining Confo Therapeutics Stephanie worked for almost 2 years at Biotalys, where she played a key role in establishment of Biotalys’ VHH-based crop protection platform and led multiple discovery projects.

Stephanie has a PhD in biochemistry from KU Leuven.

She has established a strong track record in quality assurance and control, working with both small and large molecules.

Before joining Confo Therapeutics, she served as Head of Quality and led the in-house Quality Control lab at Precigen ActoBio. In this role, Leonie was responsible for overseeing all quality and quality-related clinical trial activities, as well as managing the Quality Control lab.

Prior to her time at Precigen ActoBio, she held various Quality Assurance positions of increasing responsibility at Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and UCB.

She previously worked as senior program manager at Precigen ActoBio, a biotech company developing biological therapeutic agents, where she was responsible for multiple programs from discovery up to early-stage clinical trials. Prior to that, she worked in a large multinational company as scientist and project manager focusing on the development of dietary compounds modulating the gut microbiome to reduce the risks of metabolic diseases.

Joan has a PhD in Bioscience Engineering from the University of Gent (Belgium).

Mr. Weinand presently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Replimune Group Inc. (NASDAQ: REPL), Mnemo, Insprina, and Clasp, and is a Director of Coya (NASDAQ: Coya).

Previously, Mr. Weinand was CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer Pharma AG and member of the Management Board at Bayer AG.

Prior to his work at Bayer, Mr. Weinand held various positions in commercial, operational, and strategic areas of the pharmaceutical industry. These included responsibilities spanning various therapeutic areas and geographies for companies such as Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Otsuka.

Mr. Weinand is a former board member of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries & Associations (EFPIA), and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (IFPMA), and served as a member of the Board of Directors of HealthPrize Technologies.

He has managed drug development teams responsible for highly successful pharmaceutical brands such as Norvasc, Lipitor, Repatha, Humira, Skyrizi and Rinvoq. His most recent position was Chief Medical Officer and Head of Development at AbbVie.

Before that, he was Vice President, Global Development TA Head and Head of Development Design Center at Amgen. From 2012 – 2016 he was a member of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Cardiovascular and Renal Drug Advisory Committee where he built strong relationships with senior FDA staff. Before Amgen, he held several leadership positions with emerging pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Dr. Scott is a graduate from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and started his pharma career at Janssen as a Medical Advisor. He has been a board member of TransCelerate and a member of the PhRMA R&D Leadership Forum.

She is a board member in several biotechs including Tubulis and Confo Therapeutics, while also serving on the board of SFPIM, Belgium’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. Caroline previously worked at Gimv where she was responsible for driving investments and taking on board responsibilities in several biotech but also medtech companies. Caroline started her career at UCB taking on various subsequent roles ranging from marketing and sales to business development, portfolio valuation and strategy, and finally commercial lead for their immunology portfolio.

Caroline holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from KU Leuven followed by an MBA and an executive master’s in corporate finance, both from Vlerick Business School.

He currently serves as a board member for ImCheck, Dunad and SciRhom and as a board observer for TRiCares, Minervax, and Seamless. Before joining Wellington, Varun worked as an Intern at Ysios Captial (Spain) and supported the investment team of Forbion (The Netherlands).

Varun was awarded a PhD with Summa cum Laude in Neuroscience from the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and holds an MBA from IESE Business School (Spain).

Edward brings over 20 years of experience in building new innovative life sciences companies. He currently also serves on the supervisory boards of Azafaros, Scenic Biotech, TigaTx and Kivu Bioscience. He previously served on the supervisory boards of Progentix Orthobiology (acquired by Nuvasive (Globus Medical)), Noviogendix (acquired by MDxHealth), was founding investor and supervisory board member of Acerta Pharma that developed Calquence (acquired by Astra Zeneca) and was supervisory board member at Synaffix (acquired by Lonza). Edward received a MSc. in Chemistry from Utrecht University and a MSc. in Biochemical Engineering from the Delft University of Technology.

Previously he worked at the Private Equity and Sustainable Business departments of BNP Paribas Fortis. Jeroen is also a board member at Vico Therapeutics and a board observer at Astrivax Therapeutics.

Prior to moving to business development, Cedric worked through various R&D functions at Ablynx, first as a scientist in the pharmacology group and later as project manager, leading cross-functional project teams from discovery up to Phase 2 clinical studies.

Cedric has a PhD in bioscience engineering from KU Leuven.

Before joining PMV, Bart was active as a Business Development Manager at VIB and as a Search and Evaluation Lead at Cistim focusing on the translation of early-stage research projects. Before that, Bart led a scientific team for more than 10 years as a Project Leader in Drug Discovery at reMYND, where he built a diabetes drug discovery platform, and as a postdoc and assistant professor at Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University.

Bart holds a Master’s and PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from KU Leuven, where he also obtained a Postgraduate degree in Business Economics.

Before joining Driehaus in 2015, Alex worked in various commercialization and business development roles for pharmaceutical and medical device companies.  Alex received a B.A. from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Jos has a PhD in Solid State Physics from the University of Leuven. He worked at Bell Telephone Manufacturing Cy, PA Technology and BeneVent Management, before starting Capricorn Partners. Jos was the first Chairman of the Belgian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, he served as Chairman of EVCA (now Invest Europe) and chaired their capital markets working group which led to the creation of Easdaq.

As one of the veterans of the European Venture Capital and Private Equity industry Jos was involved in over three decades of early stage investing in a broad range of technology-based companies and supported these in IPO’s on Nasdaq, Easdaq and Euronext as well as in M&A transactions.