Dr. Schulze joined Avontec as CEO in July, 2003. Previously, he was COO and management board member of november AG, a publicly traded German biotech company. He was in charge of november’s Business Development, Research & Development, Sales & Marketing and Human Resources. Prior to that, from 1999 until 2001, Dr. Schulze had acted as VP R&D and Business Development and helped to prepare november’s successful IPO. Before joining november AG, Dr. Schulze had spent nine years at Bayer AG in a series of roles of increasing importance. He began as a lab head before being promoted to Bayer Yakuhin in Japan, where he established the Department of Autoimmune Diseases. After returning to Germany he managed key international pharma projects in various therapeutic areas with increasing relevance to Biotechnology. Prior to joining Bayer in 1990, Dr. Schulze worked as a post-doctoral scholar of the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation for Basic Medicine at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. Thomas holds a PhD in Biology from Berlin Free University. He pursued thesis research on the regulation of retroviral replication, in particular that of HIV-1, at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin.

Thomas Fink joined Avontec as Interim CFO in November, 2005. Working as a professional consultant and interim manager with Portus Corporate Finance (Berlin) since 2003, he held similar positions in other biotech and medtech companies. Before he gained 4 years experience in a biotechnology oriented venture capital company and 2 years experience in investment banking. Thomas Fink holds an MBA from Frankfurt University in Germany.

Dr. Grupe joined Avontec as Chief Business Officer and managing director in September 2007. Dr. Grupe has 16 years of experience in leadership roles in marketing and business development. She joined Avontec from Wilex AG, a publically traded German biopharmaceutical company where she served as Vice President of Business Development from 2000 to 2007. From 1996 to 2000, she held various positions with increasing responsibility in marketing and business development at Monsanto Deutschland GmbH, including Business Development Director of Europe. Prior to that, from 1995 to 1996 Dr. Grupe was Market Development Manager at Zeneca GmbH. From 1991 to 1994, she started and led the Biotechnology Co-ordination Center of the Federal State of Lower Saxony, Germany. Dr. Grupe received her PhD in biology at the University of Göttingen, Germany.

Dr. Henning joined Avontec in September, 2005 as Senior Director Research and Technology. He came from Xerion Pharmaceuticals, where he had served as Director Research, leading the company’s research and development programs for five years since 2000. He spent several years as a post-doctoral researcher at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) Laboratories in London, UK, and at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). Dr. Henning earned a PhD in Biochemistry and Immunology from Tuebingen University, Germany, for his research performed at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg on signal transduction mechanisms in human T-lymphocytes.

Dr. Friedrich joined Avontec in January 2007, from Astellas Pharma GmbH (formerly Fujisawa GmbH). She had spent eleven years at Fujisawa (which merged and became Astellas in 2005), most recently as Senior Manager for Pharmacology and Toxicology. Prior to her time at Fujisawa, Dr. Friedrich spent three years at Klinge Pharma GmbH, a pharmaceutical company in Germany. Dr. Friedrich earned a doctoral degree in veterinary medicine at the University of Munich in Germany and was later awarded the titles of Board Certified Pharmacologist and Toxicologist and of Eurotox Registered Toxicologist by the authorities in Bavaria and Europe, respectively.

Dr. Breipohl joined Avontec on May 1st 2007 from Coley Pharmaceutical GmbH where he was Director Process Development for five years. Previously he worked for more than 19 years at Aventis and its predecessor companies Hoechst and HMR as a laboratory head in medicinal chemistry (Peptide-Nucleotide-Group) and chemical development. Gerhard has broad experience in peptide and nucleotide chemistry, medicinal chemistry, scale-up, process development and drug development. He holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Münster and was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachussets Institute of Technology.