Holger Ottleben, Ph.D. has over 20 years of experience in Pharma, Biotech, and Health Tech, gaining him profound knowledge of various therapeutic areas and the value chain. He served as General Manager in big pharma, top tier consulting and corporate. As co-founder of a biotech company, and board member of a VC backing start-up companies including clinical-stage biotech, micro-dispensing and telemedicine companies, he has significant start-up experience.

Christian Laurer is senior investment manager at tecnet equity, an early stage vc fund in Austria.

He is responsible for the life science portfolio in a broader sense with 7 years experience in marketing and sales with diagnostics and pharma and works in finance since 1999, mainly with early stage technology companies. Christian is a lecturer at the University of Vienna, where he received his PhD in biology. He is also a qualified car mechanic.

Carmen Visus, Ph.D. has over 20 years of experience across academia, biotech, and big pharma in Europe and the US. She holds profound expertise in immunology, oncology, and rare disease development.

At AOP Health, she is Senior Director of R&D Operations, leading strategic R&D execution and coordination. Carmen plays a key role in asset scouting and external innovation. And engages with academic and biotech partners to strengthen the company’s pipeline and advance data-driven, agile R&D practices.

Ingrid Kelly is a technology transfer professional and a Partner at XISTA Science Ventures, as well as a board member of biomedical startup Hephaistos Pharma.

She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) and practiced as a European Patent Attorney in the Pharma industry.

Tom Miller has extensive experience in nuclear engineering and global medical operations, including roles as division CEO at Siemens and CEO of Carl Zeiss, Analogic Corporation. He is the founder of GreyBird Ventures, investing in technologies for precision medicine diagnosis and currently serves as director or chairman on the boards of fourteen medical technology companies. Tom is a global speaker on healthcare technology and holds a graduate degree from the Harvard/MIT Health Sciences and Technology program and a degree from UMass Lowell.

Joachim Scholpp has over 20 years experience in global pharmaceutical leadership, most recently as Global Head of Translational Medicine CNS & Emerging Areas at Boehringer Ingelheim. He advises start-up companies, incubators, and investors on clinical development and innovation strategies, supporting organizations such as EIT Health and the Charité Foundation and BayStartUP. Joachim is a board certified physician, and holds a diploma from the European Society of Anaesthesiology.

Ulrich Granzer, PhD. is an independent consultant for drug development and regulatory affairs. He and his consultancy company are focusing on all aspects of drug development and regulatory affairs globally with a special emphasis on novel and orphan drugs. He has a track record of working on more than 300 new molecular entities in the US, Europe and other areas of the world.

Daniela Buchmayr has an engineering degree in biochemistry, biotechnology and genetic engineering and held various management positions in international companies in the biopharmaceutical sector for more than 15 years. As CEO and co-founder of Sarcura, a device platform to scale global manufacturing capacity focusing on CAR-T cell therapy, she is responsible for setting and leading the strategic direction of the company and organization.

Gregory Vladimer is co-founder and CEO of Graph Therapeutics, a next generation precision immunology techbio leveraging perturbation modeling from primary patient cell samples combined with multi-omics data to deliver transformative targeted therapies and biomarkers for immune-driven diseases. Greg was co-founder and CSO of Allcyte (acquired) and VP of Translational Research and Multimodal Discovery Lab at Exscientia. Greg also supports first-time founders as an advisor and angel investor.

Nikolaus Krall Ph.D., is Founder and Managing Director of Mobius, an Austrian biotech company focused on the discovery and development of novel anticancer drugs. 

Before Mobius, he served as Executive Vice President of Precision Medicine at Exscientia, a leader in AI-driven drug discovery. He joined Exscientia following its acquisition of Allcyte, a pioneer in AI-enabled cancer precision medicine which he co-founded and led as Managing Director.

Sophie Zettl, Ph.D. has 20 years of international Business Development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with a proven track record in high-value licensing, strategic alliances, and fundraising.

Having held leadership positions at MedImmune/AstraZeneca, Arsanis, and CEBINA, she now serves as CBO at YGION Biomedical. She combines deep commercial expertise with an industrial R&D background from Eli Lilly and GSK.

Joseph Newton, EngD, is an expert in technical development and biochemical engineering, with a focus on early-stage products through to commercial GMP manufacturing. He has held roles in process development at Boehringer Ingelheim and several roles at Hookipa Pharma.

He currently leads the Technical Development department at AOP Health.

Zoltán Magyarics, MD, Ph.D. has over 15 years of experience in preclinical and clinical development, specializing in dendritic cell biology and infectious diseases. He served as Medical Director and VP of Development across multiple European and US-based biotechs and held medical advisory roles.

Currently, he is Vice President of R&D at AOP Health, where he leads rare disease and specialty care programs.

Bettina Bernhard, MBA, is an international market access leader with an extensive track record in pharmaceutical strategy and health policy. She has held senior leadership roles at AbbVie and served as a life sciences consultant at firms including Roland Berger and IQVIA.

Currently Vice President of Market Access at AOP Health, she combines a scientific foundation in molecular genetics with an MBA to shape global commercial viability and clinical development strategy.

Barbara Zemann, ERT, is a leader in non-clinical drug development and regulatory strategy with deep expertise in complex toxicology. She has served in senior regulatory and leadership roles at the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) and represented Austria at the EMA.

With previous translational research experience at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, she currently acts as Senior Director Preclinical Development at AOP.

Wolfgang Meder, Ph.D., has more than 20 years of experience in Regulatory Affairs (RA), spanning both Big Pharma and SME environments. He has headed RA departments in three distinct organizations and has interacted with all global reference authorities, including the FDA and EMA.

Currently leading the Regulatory Strategy function at AOP Health, he holds deep expertise in orphan disease and pediatric development programs.

Uli Geis has extensive experience in global regulatory affairs and a pragmatic, development-oriented perspective to advancing patient access to new medicines. Having held senior leadership roles at Otsuka, he possesses a deep understanding of global regulatory affairs, market authorization processes, and cross-functional collaboration.

He currently serves as Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs at AOP Health.

Andreas Jurik, Ph.D., is an expert in pharmaceutical science and computer-aided drug design. He has held multiple CMC and regulatory roles, including a senior position at Amomed Pharma.

Currently Team Lead for Technical Writing & Strategy at AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals, he leads CMC regulatory strategy and technical writing activities while serving as an External Lecturer for Pharmacology at FH OÖ.

Andrej Murányi, Ph.D., specializes  in Chemistry Manufacturing and Control (CMS) activities and technology transfer for small molecules and biologics. He has broad industrial experience from senior scientific roles at Octapharma, Curia and Hemeln rds.

Currently, he serves as Senior Drug Product Process Science Lead at AOP Health, where he leads CMC-related drug product activities across early-stage programs.

Rudolf Dömötör is Director of WU Vienna Entrepreneurship Center and of the Entrepreneurship Center Network, a joint initiative of +35 Austrian universities promoting cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship. He is co-founder of Entrepreneurship Avenue, and co-author of the Austrian Startup Monitor, Austria’s largest startup study. Since summer 2022, he has been a member of the Startup Council of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Economic Affairs.

Monique Fischer, MSc is Head of Operations at the WU Entrepreneurship Center at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She works on the coordination and implementation of entrepreneurship programs and supports initiatives that promote entrepreneurial education at the university level. She is also leading the ECN, contributing to collaboration between Austrian universities. She is currently pursuing a PhD with a research focus on venture capital startup evaluations.

Barbara Heitger  is a widely recognized systemic consultant, thought leader and author in organisational development and leadership.

Her focus is on strategy,  change and leadership-teams. She works with corporations, family-businesses and startups.

Marco Masia is head of entrepreneurship at the University of Vienna, member of the investment advisory board of the Vienna technology incubator (INiTS), and serves as Academic Chair for innovation at the European University Initiative alliance Circle-U. For more than a decade, he has covered different roles at the intersection between research, innovation, and policy. He holds a PhD in Physics a MSc in Chemistry, and an executive MBA.

Alexander Schwartz is a partner at XISTA, investing in and working with start-ups in life science, chemistry, and physics.

He has more than 15 years consulting experience working for McKinsey and other companies. During this time he focussed on strategy, innovation, and business development in life science related industries. Alexander holds a PhD in chemistry, was a research fellow at ETH Zurich and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. 

Philipp Hainzl is the managing director of Vienna’s life sciences platform LISAvienna. He is responsible for the Vienna Business Agency’s Startup Labs at the Campus Vienna BioCenter. Furthermore, he helps shaping strategic decisions on the future development of this sector and is committed to providing infrastructure and laboratory space for life science start-ups.

Birgit Reiter-Braunwieser is an expert for the Business and Research Location Austria and offers professional consulting to foreign companies.

She is focused on advising R&D intense companies wishing to start business in Austria. Her expertise covers all questions regarding the business location, tax issues, legal questions such as residence and work permits,relevant incentives and questions on research and development in Austria.

Alexander Pekarsky is a bioprocess development professional and XISTA  fellow.

He earned his PhD from TU Wien and worked in the biopharma industry focusing on developing and scaling bioprocesses. He has recently been granted the XISTA Fellowship to develop a commercial solution for continuous microbial bioprocessing based on an IP-pending technology developed at ISTA.

Stefan Kittler is a postdoctoral researcher in the IBD Group at TU Wien.

Since completing his doctoral studies in 2022, he has focused on the development and optimization of microbial bioprocesses in close collaboration with industry. His current project, BetterStrains, aims to enable continuous microbial processing to improve productivity and resource efficiency in biomanufacturing. In this context, he and Alexander Pekarsky are working together to found a biotech start-up.

Regina Weinmüllner has more than 20 years of experience working with various young companies, leading cooperations between several industrial partners and working as an international project manager in the pharmaceutical industry. As Investment Manager at Austria Wirtschaftsservice, she specializes in Deeptech Founders. Regina has a broad academic background in Life Sciences and holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Natural Sciences in Vienna.

Markus Pröll-Schobel studied Applied Business Administration in Klagenfurt, specialising in Marketing & International Management and Innovation Management & Business Creation. After almost 2.5 years as a business start-up consultant, he moved to the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) in 2008, where he took over the management of the national Spin-off Fellowship funding programme in March 2020 after holding several positions at the FFG.

Holger Bock holds a PhD in organic chemistry and has over 25 years of experience in the early-stage startup sector.

He is startup consultant at the University of Innsbruck and supports Startup Tirol in the same role.

Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO of a biotech startup in the field of mRNA technologies. 

Laura Cassels is a UK and European Patent Attorney at Script IP, specialising in life sciences and biotechnology. She manages IP strategy, prosecution, and contentious proceedings for a diverse client base ranging from big pharma to universities and start-ups.

Laura advises on multi-jurisdictional patent portfolios and holds a PhD in Neuroscience with a background in academic and clinical research.