Guest Speaker short bio

Meet the guest speakers of our workshop

  Jane Kinghorn

Director, Translational Research Office at University College of London

Jane has extensive experience in developing therapies to clinical benefit gained from >25 years working in large pharma and academia. Her experience has spanned the drug discovery pathway from target validation, lead optimisation, candidate selection through to the clinic and to marketing authorisation. Jane is a molecular/cell biologist with a degree in biochemistry and PhD from the University of Surrey, from where she joined Glaxo Group Research in 1993. Jane has lead 4 programmes to clinical candidate selection.

   Alex Esteban

Programme Manager at Fundació "la Caixa"

Alex Esteban is Programme Manager at Fundació "la Caixa". He holds a PhD in Microbiology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has extensive experience in scientific research in the biotechnology field as a researcher at high innovative institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007-2014) and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (2014-2016). He has managed Horizon2020 projects supported by the European Research Council and from the Science With and For Society programme to promote Responsible Innovation. He has also participated in the coordination of initiatives to promote innovation in health in collaboration with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT Health). He is currently a member of the coordination committee of the CaixaResearch Validate and Consolidate start-up accelerator programmes (“la Caixa” Foundation) to promote biomedical projects in the initial and intermediate stages of technology transfer through financing and personalized support.

  Maryam Atakhorrami

Healthcare Innovation Consultant 

Dr Maryam Atakhorrami is an accomplished and versatile healthcare innovation consultant specialised in strategy, operation, partnerships, and research commercialisation. Maryam has over 16 years’ leadership experience across the healthcare industry (Philips, AINOSTICS), academia and NHS (UCL, and UCLH BRC), and Funders (HDRUK London). She is an expert evaluator for the European Commission for TEAMING scheme to enhance European-wide healthcare R&D centres and is evaluator of Disruptive Technologies for the Ireland Enterprise scheme. She currently holds a portfolio of advisory and consulting roles with clients across the healthcare ecosystem, working with VCs in building new early-stage HealthTech ventures as well as building enabling infrastructure for developing partnerships between industry and academia. Maryam holds a PhD in BioPhysics and started her career as an innovator in medical technology. At Philips as Innovation program leader she gained experience in building commercial clinical studies and partnerships with academia and the healthcare system. At UCL she developed institutional strategy for partnering with life sciences industry and implemented the strategy for research commercialisation and partnering with industry. She has extensive experiences working with Healthtech start-ups and holds various advisory board and non-executive roles. Maryam has published widely and holds a patent portfolio in health technology innovation. She was recognised as one of the top 50 movers and shakers of BioBusiness in the UK in 2019.

  Claas Junghans

Partner at Mittepaten

Class Junghans studied chemistry in Berlin and Edinburgh (1984-1990), and did his PhD in Molecular Biology at Freie Uni Berlin, and hold an MBA from ESCP-EAP (Paris). Claas managed Biotech firms from 1997 to 2005 (Mologen AG, Crystax Pharmaceuticals). Partner at Mittepatent, Germany. The IP practice started 2009 and has grown to over 40 team members this year; the firm provides patent and trademark work to a broad range of clients from leading European academia (Universities Zürich, Basel, Bern, ETH, Lisboa, Algarve, Max Planck), start-ups and large industry.

  Anabel Sanz

Head of Technology Transfer at CRG Barcelona

Anabel has broad experience in evaluation of technologies in life sciences, intellectual asset management, licensing, business development and new ventures. Since 2010, she has held managerial positions in technology transfer at three research excellence centers in Spain, CNB-CSIC (Biotechnology), CNIO (Cancer) and since 2019, at CRG (Genomics). Previously she worked for more than a decade in a spin-off (CropDesing) of the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) and in the multinational company BASF. She has implemented innovation processes and successfully supported establishment of numerous public-private research partnerships and IPR transactions. A chemist by training, she holds a Master’s in Science from the U. Wales, UK, a PhD in Biology from the Autonomous University in Madrid (ES), postdoctoral experience in Spain and Belgium and an Executive Master in Science and Technology Business from IE business school.

 Nuno Arantes-Oliveira

Entrepreneur, Investor, Academic (PT)

Nuno Arantes‐Oliveira is an entrepreneur, investor and academic with a scientific background and an interest in innovation, particularly in the Life Sciences and in Healthcare. Nuno is one of the four Partners of Clinical Research Ventures (CRV), a Boston-based global investment fund focused on clinical-stage biotech and medtech companies. Nuno began his career as an invited graduate student working on the genetics of aging at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). There his research led to a string of high-impact papers, including three in the journal Science. Later Nuno did a post-doc on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Biotechnology and, since 2003, founded and/or served as CEO of various companies in Europe and the U.S., in fields including technology transfer, drug development, genomics, healthcare services, and aquaculture. With these companies Nuno won major international awards, raised tens of millions of euros/dollars, and in several cases achieved high-multiple transactions. In the meantime, Nuno also helped top-tier research institutes spin out companies and strengthen their ties to the industry. Nuno served as President of P‐BIO – Portugal’s Biotechnology Industry Organization from 2011 to 2015 and sat on the board of Health Cluster Portugal from 2008 to 2013. Nuno has had many board, advisory and expert roles internationally, including with Government authorities and top‐tier research organizations, and has negotiated and implemented business and scientific collaborations in Europe, the U.S., China, Africa and Latin America. He also took executive courses at the Harvard Business School and other prominent schools. Until recently, Nuno was Chairman of the Investment Committee of 200M, a sovereign fund co-investing with top-tier private funds in Portuguese startups. Keeping one foot in academia, Nuno worked for the MIT‐Portugal Program (2015-18) and is now an invited associate professor at NOVA School of Business and Economics (NOVA-SBE), where he teaches science-based entrepreneurship.
Nuno is based in Paço de Arcos, near Lisbon, where he lives with his wife Sofia and their three children.