ADVISORY BOARD

SCIENTIFIC

Stephen Cusack | PhD

Stephen Cusack has been group leader and head of the EMBL Grenoble outstation since 1989. Stephen Cusack received his PhD in 1976 from the Imperial College, London, UK. Postdoctoral work led him to EMBL Grenoble, France, where he worked as staff scientist 1980–1989. The Cusack group is engaged in structural biology research of RNA-protein complexes in gene expression and host-pathogen interactions. Stephen Cusack has an outstanding track record in structural biology. Current research included the field of influenza virus research, leading to elucidation of crucial viral functional domains and the crystallographic structural analysis using the powerful X-ray beams of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). The most recent results, forming the basis for Savira’s foundation, led to the corresponding patents and two key publications in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

 

Klaus Klumpp | PhD

Klaus Klumpp is Director of Virology at Roche Palo Alto LLC and Head of HCV Clinical Virology and the Viral Biochemistry Department at Roche. He has been leading research and development activities at Roche in the area of viral diseases since 1997, after joining Roche from his previous position as fellow at GlaxoWellcome Research and Development and European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) institutes. Research performed under his direction at Roche sites in Welwyn Garden City, UK and Palo Alto, USA, has supported clinical development of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu for the treatment and prophylaxis of influenza virus infection, and Balapiravir, R7128 and R7227, new antiviral agents for the treatment of HCV infection. He has led Roche Research Teams and also worked extensively in R&D collaborations with external partner companies and academic laboratories, resulting in the discovery of a number of new leads and drug candidates for the treatment of acute and chronic viral diseases including influenza, Hepatitis C and HIV. Examples for a few of these new leads and candidates have been published, including inhibitors of novel influenza virus targets, HIV RNase H and inhibitors of HIV reverse transcriptase and HCV polymerase.

 

Hugo Kubinyi | PhD

Hugo Kubinyi studied chemistry in Vienna, Austria. After his Ph.D. thesis at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich he continued as a PostDoc at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg. In 1966 he joined Knoll AG, Development of a partial synthetic cardiac glycoside (Meproscillarin, CLIFT; launched 1978). In 1985 he moved to BASF AG. Since 1987, until his retirement in summer 2001, he was responsible for the Molecular Modelling, X-ray Crystallography and Drug Design group of BASF, since early 1998 also for Combinatorial Chemistry in the Life Sciences. In 1986 he was appointed as associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg. In 2006 he received the Herman Skolnik Award (CINF, ACS) and in 2008 the Nauta Award in Pharmacochemistry (EFMC) and the Nauta Chair (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam). From his scientific work resulted more than 100 publications and seven books on QSAR, 3D QSAR, Drug Design, Chemogenomics in Drug Discovery, and Drug Discovery Technologies.

ECONOMIC

Udo Elsner | PhD

Udo Elsner is lawyer in Vienna since almost 20 years, an expert in corporate and contract law with a special focus in pharmaceutical companies and life science biotechnology and pharma business. He is providing consulting services in connection with negotiation of R&D collaboration agreements, technology transfer from universities to companies, and license agreements.

Christian Soschner | Mag. (MBA)

Christian Soschner has been in the finance business for over 11 years. He headed and built up the finance & controlling department at Nabriva, an Austrian biotech company, responsible for strategic business planning, reporting, annual financial statements, risk management, treasury and contracting. Prior to this he held management positions in the finance area at Agrana, Atos Origin, Austrian Post and NPOs. He holds a degree in economics from the University of Economy, Graz and is certified Management Coach.