Board of Directors

Peter Van Vlasselaer, PhD has over 20 years of experience in the biotech industry. He was most recently the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of ARMO Biosciences, which shortly after its public offering (ARMO) was acquired by Eli Lilly. Before that he was President and Chief Executive Officer of iPierian (acquired by BMS), ARRESTO (acquired by Gilead) and AVIDIA (acquired by AMGEN).
In addition to founding ARMO, Dr. Van Vlasselaer was the founder of ARRESTO, co-founder of TrueNorth (acquired by Bioverativ) and he was a member of the start-up teams of InterMune (ITMN) and Dendreon (DNDN). He currently serves on the boards of BLADE Therapeutics, Comet Therapeutics and RGENIX. Dr. Van Vlasselaer has a degree in Zoology and a PhD in Immunology from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.  He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology at Stanford University Medical School and DNAX Research Institute. Dr. Van Vlasselaer has authored several peer reviewed scientific publications and book chapters and he is an inventor on multiple patents.

Henrijette Richter is managing partners and an active member of the Capital Funds team at Sofinnova.

She joined Sofinnova in 2014, and her investments and board involvements include Mozart Therapeutics, Muna Therapeutics, Nitrase Therapeutics, Nodthera, Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics, Asceneuron, Delinia (sold to Celgene), and iOmx Therapeutics.

Henrijette was attracted by Sofinnova Partners’ focus on a positive, consensus-oriented environment and its philosophy of investing in people.

Prior to Sofinnova, Henrijette was part of the team that founded Novo Seeds in 2007, and as an Investment Director, she was instrumental in the creation, financing and building of companies such as Orphazyme (ORPHA.CO; ORPH), Avilex Pharma, EpiTherapeutics (sold to Gilead), and Lysogene (LYS, Euronext Paris).

Henrijette holds a combined Ph.D. and Industrial Scientist degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Copenhagen and Novo Nordisk A/S. She did her postdoctoral fellowship at the MIT Center for Cancer Research in Massachusetts.

Dirk Beher is the Chief Executive Officer, a Founder and member of the Board of Directors of Asceneuron SA. He has raised CHF 36 million from leading venture capital firms for Asceneuron besides obtaining grant funding. Since its inception he has strategically positioned the company as an emerging leader in the field of orally bioavailable drugs for treating tauopathies. Dirk led the initial spin-off proposal for Merck Serono's tauopathy and Alzheimer's disease pipeline and successfully raised the seed funding which materialized in the creation of Asceneuron SA in October 2012. 
Dirk brings more than 23 years of experience in the field of Alzheimer's disease & Neurodegeneration and spent over 17 years in pharmaceutical drug discovery. Prior responsibilities include the management of the Alzheimer's disease team at Merck Serono in Geneva, Switzerland. He also managed the in vitro pharmacology team and oversaw a diverse CNS portfolio as management team member in the Neuroscience Department at Amgen Inc. in Thousands Oaks, California. Dirk started his career in pharmaceutical drug discovery at Merck Sharp & Dohme (Merck & Co.) in Harlow, United Kingdom in 1998. During that time he made key contributions to the clinical γ-secretase inhibitor MK-0752 and was finally responsible for all γ-secretase programs. Dirk holds a Ph.D. and a Diploma (M.S.) in Biology from the Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg, Germany. He is an inventor of seven patents and currently authors 49 peer-reviewed publications and reviews.

Hakan Goker (Ph.D.) is a senior investment director at Merck Ventures, corporate venture arm of the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Hakan joined Merck Ventures in 2013 and previously was investing as a partner at Aescap Venture and prior to that at Atlas Venture. Since 2006, Hakan was instrumental in the creation, financing, and strategy of  multiple biotechnology companies globally including Asceneuron (CH), Orphazyme (DK), Nimbus Discovery (US), F Star (NL), Bicycle Therapeutics (UK) and Nitec now Horizon Pharma (CH/US).
Hakan received his PhD in cancer biology from the Institute of Cancer Research/ University of London and continued his scientific career with post-doctoral work at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Centre/Royal Marsden Hospital. He gained his BSc Honours, from University College London. Hakan is a board member of Asceneuron, Artios Pharma, Forendo, Raze Therapeutics, Tocopherx, Synaffix, and Storm Therapeutics.

Amit is a Principal in SR One London office and covers venture capital investments in biotech. Prior to joining SR One in early 2018, Amit worked in various roles at GlaxoSmithKline including late phase clinical development, global med affairs, and early pipeline commercial strategy. He is a board certified equivalent plastic surgeon, specialised in microsurgical cancer reconstruction. Since 2020, Amit has sat on the venture capital panel for the BioInnovation Institute, Novo Nordisk’s international life sciences incubator.

Lior Teitelbaum is Principal, Venture Investments at Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., where he is responsible for investments in the MedTech, Pharmaceutical, and Biotechnology spaces across Israel/Europe. He brings over 17 years of experience in founding, financing and operating in early-stage life sciences companies.

Prior to joining JJDC, Lior was the CBO of FutuRx, a JJDC associated Biotech company creation incubator, where he was responsible for all search & evaluation, transaction and company creation activities as well for FutuRx’s SAB management. He was also responsible for Business Development activities and fundraising for all of the FutuRx portfolio companies and for all BD activities of the FutuRx incubator. Before that Lior cofounded the first digital health incubator in Israel supported by Medtronic and IBM.
Prior to that Lior held multiple BD , transaction and alliance management leadership roles in public and private Biotech and Medtech companies. Lior holds an MSc in Molecular Genetics from the Weizmann Institute of science and an MBA from the Tel Aviv University.

Dr Eric Yuen, has over 25 years of clinical development experience in central nervous system (CNS) pathologies and has led multiple Phase I-IV development programs for biologics and small molecules obtaining numerous regulatory approvals. He is currently Chief Medical Officer at Talee Bio Inc which he co-founded in addition to RiboNova Inc. He has held senior positions in several biotech companies including as Chief Medical Officer at Inozyme Pharma and Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals.

Dr Yuen received his M.D. from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago and completed his neurology training at the University of California at San Francisco. He holds a B.S. in Physics and Biology with Academic Distinction from Stanford University.

Ms. Moukheibir most recently served as chief executive officer of MedDay Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company that focused on nervous system disorders, from July 2019 to January 2021. She was also the chairman of the board of directors of MedDay from April 2016 to January 2021. Prior to that, Ms. Moukheibir served as the senior advisor for finance and a member of the executive board of directors at Innate Pharma SA, an oncology company, from 2011 to December 2016, and as the chief financial officer for Movetis N.V. from 2008 to 2010, when it was acquired. Ms. Moukheibir previously served as the director of capital markets for Zeltia Group S.A. from 2001 to 2007.

Ms. Moukheibir currently serves on the board of directors and chairs the audit committee of Biotalys, Orphazyme A/S, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and CMR Surgical. She also held past directorships on the boards of directors of Ablynx NV, Cerenis Therapeutics SA, Creabilis S.A., GenKyoTex S.A., Kymab Group Ltd and Zealand Pharma A/S.  She has an M.A. in economics and an M.B.A. from Yale University.  Ms. Moukheibir’s long leadership career in the biopharmaceutical industry, as well as her deep background in international finance, provide her with valuable business and financial expertise in support of our corporate objectives.