Eric de La Fortelle is CEO of Delenex Therapeutics AG, a Zurich-based biotechnology company focused on bringing the benefits of antibody-based drugs to many more patients, by making such therapies more effective, safer, and easier to use. The company is currently focused on generating clinical efficacy data in patient studies in three areas: psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease and acute systemic inflammation. It also uses its proprietary PENTRA^® platform to generate a full pipeline of highly stable small antibodies that have comparable affinity and other drug-like properties to existing antibodies, but superior tissue penetration properties and rapid clearance, thus enhancing safety for patients.

Formerly, Eric de La Fortelle was Global Head, External Research and Technologies, for Roche. During six years there, he headed a worldwide group with a global mandate to find partners, establish contracts and manage alliances with companies offering innovative technologies for every stage of product discovery, development and life cycle.

Eric de La Fortelle is a scientist by training, with contributions in the field of structure-based drug design (determination of 3D structures of protein targets by X-ray crystallography).

He has extensive experience of negotiating Pharma/Biotech alliances (both from the Biotech and the Pharma side). He was trained as an engineer and Physicist at Ecole Centrale de Paris, holds a PhD in Biophysics from Paris XI University, and an MBA from INSEAD.

Dominik Escher was a co-founder and board member and served as CEO since the inception of ESBATech.

Subsequent to the acquisition by Alcon and Novartis, Dominik Escher became Managing Director and Vice President of Research & Development. Furthermore, he is a board member of the spun-out company Delenex Therapeutics which holds all rights of ESBATech outside of ophthalmology.

Dominik Escher obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich. He also holds a Master of Science in Molecular Biology and Immunology from the University of Zurich and a Masters Degree in Education with specialization in Management and Organization from the ETH of Zurich. In 1995 he worked at the University of California at San Francisco on gene repression.

Dominik Escher was selected as "Swiss-Transatlantic Young Leader Entrepreneur" by the ETH Zurich and the Swiss Embassy in 1999. His achievements for the Company were honored in 2004 as the winner of the "Swiss Life Sciences Prize", in 2005 as a winner of the "Top 100 Private European Companies", in 2006 as the winner of the "Top 50 Swiss Ventures", and in January 2009 Frost & Sullivan recognizes ESBATech with the 2009 North American Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation of the Year Award for its work in developing antibody fragments.

Dominik Escher served as an Advisory Board Member of the Swiss Biotech Forum and as Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Swiss Network for Innovation. Since 2002 he is a Board Member and Vice President of the Swiss Biotech Association (SBA), the biotech industry organization of Switzerland.

Antonio Lanzavecchia earned a degree in Medicine from the University of Pavia where he specialized in Pediatrics and in Infectious Diseases. From 1983 to 1999 he was member of the Basel Institute for Immunology and since 1999 he is the founding director of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, Switzerland. He teached Immunology at the Universities of Genoa and Siena and since 2009 is Professor of Human Immunology at the ETH Zurich.

Awarded with the EMBO medal and the Cloëtta prize, Professor Lanzavecchia has published more than 250 papers. His research covers several aspects of human immunology: antigen processing and presentation, dendritic cell biology, lymphocyte activation and traffic and immunological memory. He developed new methods for the isolation of potent and broadly neutralizing antibodies against human pathogens and is the scientific founder of Humabs, a company that develops human monoclonal antibodies.

Francis Marsland qualified as a solicitor in the UK and worked for four years at Freshfields before moving into industry, with Johnson Matthey PLC. He moved into the pharmaceutical sector in 1998 as sole counsel for Recordati, a quoted Italian pharma company.

Francis Marsland joined Biogen in 2001 as Director, Legal Affairs and from 2004 onwards acted as Chief International Counsel managing the International Legal Affairs department. In his current role Francis serves as a strategic liaison for Biogen Idec Europe+, interacting with Business Development, Corporate Strategy and M&A, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, Finance and Government Affairs. He is also Site Leader of the Zug office.

Christoph Nabholz is Head of Business Development at the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue and additionally serves as Research & Development Manager to Swiss Re’s Life & Health Division.

As Head of Business Development he is responsible for the content of high-profile industry events held at the Centre for Global Dialogue, Swiss Re’s premiere conference facility. With his background in genetics he actively supports Swiss Re’s research on and development activities in medical trends and longevity.

Before joining the Centre, Mr Nabolz was Strategic Research Manager in Global Life & Health Underwriting and served as Swiss Re’s Global Genetics Consultant.

Prior to joining Swiss Re, he was a postdoctoral fellow in genomics and functional genetics with Prof. Tom Maniatis at Harvard University. He received a diploma in biochemistry from the University of Basel, Switzerland, and a Ph.D. with honours in molecular genetics from the University of Freiburg, Switzerland.

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