Stephan Christgau
Founding Partner
Eir Ventures
Stephan Christgau is founding partner of the Nordic Life Science venture fund Eir Ventures. Prior to that Stephan was a founding member of Novo Seeds, the early stage investment arm of Novo Holdings and for more than 15 years has worked in life science venture capital as an active company creator and early investor. His investments have mainly focused on the Nordic area, where Stephan has led the creation and funding of more than 25 companies.
Stephan holds a PhD in protein chemistry/immunology from UCSF/Technical University of Denmark.
Wouter Joustra
General Partner
Forbion
Wouter Joustra serves as a General Partner at Forbion, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm. At Forbion, Mr. Joustra is responsible for deal origination, general portfolio management and divestment strategies, and focuses on Forbion´s Growth Opportunities Funds, which concentrates on investing in late-stage life sciences companies. Previously, Mr. Joustra was a Senior Trader, as well as Executive Board member of the life sciences franchise at Kempen, a European boutique investment bank. Until Gyroscope Therapeutics’s acquisition by Novartis for up to $1.5 billion, Mr. Joustra served as a member of Gyroscope Therapeutics’s board of directors.
Mr. Joustra is currently on the board of Forbion’s SPAC vehicle, Forbion European Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: FRBN), and VectivBio (NASDAQ: VECT), in addition to being a board observer at NewAmsterdam Pharma N.V. (NASDAQ: NAMS). Mr. Joustra holds an M.Sc. in Business Administration from the University of Groningen, and a B.Sc. in International Business and Management from this same university.
Joep Muijrers
General Partner
Gilde Healthcare
Dr. Joep Muijrers has over two decades of broad experience in healthcare, including senior roles in portfolio management, company operations and investment banking. In his role as General Partner at Gilde healthcare, he focuses on investing in healthcare companies that can provide better care at lower cost. He is also responsible for managing Gilde’s Impact Council, which consists of world-leading experts who advise Gilde and its portfolio companies on key regulatory topics, cost-effectiveness analyses, patient preferences, etc.
Before joining Gilde Healthcare, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief of Portfolio Strategy at PureTech Health, a Boston-based publicly-traded company. Prior to PureTech, Joep worked as Partner and Portfolio Manager at LSP (Life Sciences Partners; now part of EQT) where he invested in healthcare companies. Prior to joining LSP, Joep gained experience as an investment banker, and obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).
Joep has been an invited speaker at events organized by the European Medicines Agency, NICE, ISPOR, BioCentury, Economist, BIO, DIA and other organizations. He has served on the Board of Directors of seven healthcare companies and as an advisor to two not-for-profit entities.
Nathalie ter Wengel
European Lead Worldwide Business Development
Pfizer
Nathalie ter Wengel M.D. is the European Lead Worldwide Business Development at Pfizer, where she is responsible for establishing new collaborations and exploring global licensing, M&A and other corporate development opportunities across all therapeutic areas that Pfizer is interested in with European companies.
Previous to this role, she was the European Head for External Science & Innovation at Pfizer. Nathalie obtained her Doctor of Medicine degree at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. She has a broad knowledge in the medical field, having worked in the hospital with extensive experience in Internal Medicine. Nathalie started her commercial career as European Medical Manager at Pfizer, where she successfully led ambitious international projects, combining a business perspective with her medical knowledge. It was this experience, coupled with her father’s illness that convinced her of the urgent need for change in the pharmaceutical industry. Consequently, she started up a company called myTomorrows focused on compassionate use, where she served as Chief Medical Officer before joining Galapagos as Business Development Director, where she played a key role in the very successful NASDAQ IPO and in the partnering of filgotinib.
Eline van Beest
Chief Executive Officer
Hybridize Therapeutics
Eline is the CEO of Hybridize Therapeutics with the mission to help patients overcome untreatable kidney diseases with RNA-based therapies (anti-sense oligonucleotides). Besides that, she invests in early stage healthcare companies through her role as Venture Partner at Thuja Capital. Previously she founded the Medtech scale-up NightBalance in 2009 with a new therapy for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). NightBalance was acquired by Philips in May 2018.
Eline was nominated for several lists of female and/or tech entrepreneurs like amongst others The Inspiring 50, RisingTalent for the World Women’s Forum and 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT (2018).
Paul van der Horst
Chief Business Officer
Agomab Therapeutics
Paul van der Horst is Chief Business Officer at Agomab Therapeutics, Belgium, where he leads the corporate development, strategy, IP and QA functions. Prior to Agomab, he was Head of Corporate Development at Galapagos NV (NASDAQ: GLPG) from 2016-2021. In this role, he led all major transactions, investments, licensing, and M&A activities. From 2013-2016, he worked at boutique investment bank Kempen & Co in Amsterdam, where he was responsible for broking and trading of European pharma & biotech stocks to institutional investors in Europe and the US. In his career, Paul has been the lead negotiator and deal lead in over 20 pharmaceutical licensing and M&A transactions and has raised over USD1.3bn through equity capital market transactions.
Paul is a member of the Board of Directors at Molecure (WSE: MOC, Warsaw, Poland) and holds a PhD in Gynaecological Oncology from the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up to date
