Niccolò is the founder of BiotechFounder. He brings several years of early-stage venture capital investment and company creation experience. He worked at Novo Seeds, the early-stage investment team of Novo Holdings, one of the largest life science investors globally, and most recently at DROIA Ventures, a successful early and seed stage global investor managing funds dedicated to genetic diseases and oncology. Niccolò experienced first-hand the power of structured company-building and founded BiotechFounder to help the industry accelerate the commercialization of emerging science. Highlights of his experience include:

 

• Sourced, structured and launched a company in precision oncology

• Worked on several company creation concepts in various fields (gene therapy, genetic diseases, mitochondrial biology)

• Managed several investments in early-stage biotech companies

• Board observer roles in preclinical and clinical stage biotech companies (STipe Therapeutics, MinervaX, Hoba Therapeutics, HyperBio Therapeutics)

 

Niccolò is passionate about gene and cell therapy and genetic diseases and has more than 10 years of experience in the field. He started working on AAV vectors during his Master thesis at Uniqure, a Dutch company pioneering the field of viral vectors. He then continued with a PhD dedicated to finding potential cures for retinal genetic diseases using splicing modulation. Following this, he worked in business development at Fondazione Telethon, an Italian foundation funding research for rare genetic diseases, where he defined commercial development strategies for Telethon’s most advanced research projects, working globally at the intersection between internal R&D, pharma/biotech companies and venture capitalists.

 

Qualifications

• MBA (Entrepreneurship focus), I.E. International Business School, Spain

• PhD Biomolecular Sciences, Trento University, Italy

• M.Sc. Medical, Molecular & Cellular Biotechnology, San Raffaele University, Italy

Hermann is the co-founder of BiotechFounder. He brings over 15 years of experience in research and business development in biotech. He is also Vice President, Business Development for ARMGO Pharma, a US-based clinical stage biotech company addressing muscle and cardiac disorders. He served as the CEO of Sirana Pharma, a company targeting musculoskeletal disorders, and has held the position of Vice President Business Development at Evotec SE, where he sat on various R&D partnership steering committees with pharma and biotech companies. Highlights of his experience include:

 

• Led a biotech startup company and fundraising campaigns with European and US venture capital

• Created company business plans and R&D strategies for small molecule, antibody and antisense oligonucleotide-based drug programs

• Track record on closing multi-million € R&D deals and building business relationships with biotech and pharma

• Led international project teams & research collaborations

 

Hermann is enthusiastic about membrane biology and new drug discovery technologies especially in the context of inflammation and ion channel disorders. After his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and a postdoc at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine he moved to sales and business development first for FEI, Inc (now Thermo Fisher) followed by Evotec SE. Working at the interface with young biotech companies and venture capital across Europe led him to follow his entrepreneurial ambitions with Sirana Pharma. Thrilled by the idea of structured venture creation he joined Niccolò at BiotechFounder in 2022.

 

Qualifications

• PhD in Cell Biology, International Max Planck Research School, Germany

• Diploma in Biotechnology, Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany and University of Waterloo, Canada

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