The business of drug development is a highly challenging exercise. This is why GAOMA’s Strategic Committee gathers members with strong and complementary experience from the pharmaceutical industry, funding and entrepreneurship.
Hélène Peyro-Saint-Paul graduated from Toulouse University Medical School as a neurologist and neurogeneticist and completed a 2-year junior faculty/chief residency. She holds an Executive MBA from ESSEC, Paris, France. Her fields of medical expertise are neurology, oncology, rare diseases and genomics. Over more than 25 years in corporate Medical Affairs positions in leading Pharma and Medical Device/IVD companies, Dr. Peyro-Saint-Paul has built a significant track record in the international clinical development, product positioning, market access and regulatory approval of innovative drugs and devices (incl. the FDA approval of an MS drug, a 510k de novo for a molecular diagnostic test in oncology, and a first-in-class post-marketing safety surveillance system for the EMA). Through her C-suite corporate positions at Serono, Actelion, Ipsogen and QIAGEN, she has also developed a solid strategic expertise in corporate development, risk management, portfolio and licensing management, and product launch. Dr. Peyro-Saint-Paul is a cofounder of HalioDx, an innovative immune-oncology and digital pathology diagnostic company created in 2015.
Vincent Mutel is currently CEO, co-founder and member of the BoD of Inflamalps, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel medicines, with a focus on chronic inflammatory diseases of the eye. Vincent was previously co-founder, CEO and vice chairman of the board of Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a well-established public Swiss biotech, and prior was Research Area Head in the CNS division at the Swiss pharmaceutical company F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd where he worked for 13 years. Vincent is a biochemist and pharmacologist by training and has initiated and successfully driven several R&D projects bringing molecules from discovery to advanced clinical trial. In his role at Addex Pharmaceuticals Ltd he led the growth of the organization to up to 140 staff, completed three rounds of venture financing, an IPO and a PIPE, totaling CHF263 million, and signed three major drug development partnerships, two with Merck & Co., Inc. and one with Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, representing CHF43 million in realized revenues.
Eric Garnier has an experience of around 38 years in healthcare businesses, including 12 years of expatriation in the UK, Asia and the US. During this period, Eric has occupied key positions with increasing responsibilities in two American multinational Life Sciences companies i.e., Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pall Corporation (a Danaher company). Eric started in finance and has had several management roles in France and in the UK as European Finance Director. He subsequently moved to general management leadership positions as General Manager France, Regional VP South Europe and then President of the AsiaPac region for Pall, a $800M business, based in Singapore. In his last role with Pall Eric was Vice President and GM of the global Medical BU based in Boston. After relocating back to France in 2018 Eric has set up his own consultancy business specializing in healthcare. He is a member of the board of Angels Santé, a leading group of business angels, has invested in several start-ups and is a board member in 5 of them. Eric has an MBA from Institut Superieur de Gestion (Paris) and is a certified board member from EM Lyon.
Philippe Archinard is Deputy Managing Director for Technological Innovation and Scientific Partnerships at Institut Mérieux. Until recently, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the listed biotech Transgene, of which he remains a member of the Board of Directors. Philippe is a chemical engineer, PhD in biochemistry from the University of Lyon, and holder of the PMD from Harvard Business School. He began his career at bioMérieux, where he held R&D and operational management responsibilities in France and the United States until 1999. He then became CEO of Innogenetics in Belgium until 2004, before to join Transgene. He is also Chairman of the Bioaster Technological Research Institute and serves as Director is several biotech companies.
Jean-Yves holds a doctorate in pharmacy from the University of Strasbourg and a master’s degree in the management of the pharmaceutical industry. He has more than 24 years of experience in drug development and entrepreneurship that encompasses CROs and device companies specialized in CNS. He was managing director of a CRO of 170+ employees and is co-founder of PPRS where he applies his expertise to clinical development, medical device development, and pharmacodynamical tools applied to drug development in CNS.
Amor Belmeguenai is Associate Professor at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and expert in electrophysiology (Patch Clamp), in the mechanism of signal transduction through G-protein coupled receptors and their pharmacological characterization, in ion channel assays as well as in behavioral tasks used to assess hippocampus- and cerebellum-dependent learning and memory. During his postdoc period in the department of neurosciences ErasmusMC (the Netherlands), Amor extensively characterized new forms of hippocampal and cerebellar synaptic plasticity, such as Long-Term Depression (LTD) and Long-Term Potentiation (LTP), the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlaying learning and memory. He also described the intrinsic plasticity in Purkinje cells in more detail, including underlying mechanisms and its interference with synaptic plasticity. Over the last decade, Amor's research activities have focused on the development and evaluation of innovative therapeutic strategies for cognitive impairment in many neurological disorders, including traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy. Amor’s efforts were particularly devoted to the combination paradigm of pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches to better prevent or treat epilepsy and its comorbidities. He is an elected member of the National Council of Universities and was awarded several prizes.
Jacques Bodennec graduated from University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, where he obtained his PhD in comparative physiology. His research interest was focused on the metabolism and physiological functions of complex lipids, such as glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids. He spent several years as a post-doctoral fellow in the biological chemistry department of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, thanks to the Koschland excellence award that he was attributed. During his stay in Israel he developed research aiming to delineate the biochemical and molecular mechanisms involved in the etiology of two sphingolipidoses, Gaucher disease and Sandhoff disease. He was part of the team that first characterized the mammalian ceramide synthases. He then realized a second post-doctoral position between France and Germany working on the functions of sphingolipid metabolites in cancer cell mechanisms of radioresistance. Jacques continued to work on the physiological functions of complex lipids once he was recruited as assistant Professor in Lyon University. He particularly focused his research work on the development of structured lipid molecules aiming to target brain tissue. Jacques is co-founder of Amoeba SA, a biotech company created in 2010 to develop and commercialize a technology based on a patent he was the main inventor. He served as CSO of Amoeba for several years and the company is now listed on the Euronext market since 2015. Jacques has been an elected member of the National Council of Universities for the last 12 years and was awarded several prizes.
Eglantine Rollet is currently Investment Manager at PULSALYS, the technology transfer office and incubator of University of Lyon. Eglantine oversees a portfolio of 9 startup participations. Before PULSALYS, Eglantine held several positions in French technology transfer accelerator as Project Manager then as Business Unit Manager with a focus on Biotech and MedTech investments. She has 10 years of innovation, investment and partnership experiences. She holds a PhD in microbiology from University of Lille and an Executive MBA from Ieseg School of Management.