TORQUR - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Manager
Albert Muntane Casanova is an accomplished manager responsible for overseeing the financial activities of the company.
Job Titles:
- Non - Executive Board Member
Christoph Brutschin obtained his economic degrees at the University of applied sciences of Zürich and at the University of Fribourg. He held positions with PWC and maxit AG (Switzerland) before becoming a headmaster of the Basel commercial vocational training college.
Job Titles:
- Non - Executive Board Member
- Senior Business Consultant
Christoph Tschumi is a senior business consultant with a focus on organisational development, governance, as well as economic analysis and risk management. He is member of various boards. In the Foundation Board of the Basel Institute on Governance, as well as the board of Pension Fund of the Canton Basel-Stadt he is head of the finance and audit committees.
Job Titles:
- Head of Clinical Operations
David Allman is a biochemist by training and has over 25 years of global experience in the pharmaceutical industry having worked for pharmaceutical companies and leading clinical research organizations as well as applying his expertise in the virtual development arena.
David E. Fisher, MD, PhD is an internationally known researcher, clinician and academic, who is Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts (USA).
Job Titles:
- Chief Legal Officer
- Legal Counsel of Swiss Rockets AG
Debora Foglia joined the company as Legal Counsel of Swiss Rockets AG and its subsidiary companies in January 2023. She is an attorney-at-law and holds a bachelor's and master's degree in law of the University of Basel.
Job Titles:
- Head of Regulatory Affairs & Quality Assurance
Dr. Aurélie Jenn, Head of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance, is a pharmacist (Pharm. D) bringing over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. In a first part of her career, she worked in Regulatory Affairs / CMC writing for generic products and New Chemical Entities in Switzerland and France, having close interactions and providing support to technical departments.
Job Titles:
- Head of Intellectual Property
Dr. Bernhard Hostettler, Head of Intellectual Property, originally is an organic chemist. After his Ph.D. at ETH Zürich, Bernhard was active in research for more than 20 years with companies Roche, CIBA, Syngenta and Givaudan.
Dr. Bruno Osterwalder is an esteemed figure in the realm of hematology and oncology, with a wealth of experience spanning 15 years in academic clinical practice. With Swiss board certifications, his journey has been a testament to his expertise in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology.
Job Titles:
- Chief Scientific Officer
- Discovery and Kinase Expert
Dr. Doriano Fabbro is a renowned drug discovery and kinase expert with more than 20 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry, following 10 years in academia. Until 2005, Doriano was an Executive Director for the Oncology Drug Discovery Division of the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Basel, Switzerland and was a member of the NIBR Oncology Advisory Board overseeing the oncology portfolio from target discovery to clinical development.
Dr. Heidi Lane is a distinguished tumor biologist, holding a PhD in Biochemistry and boasting a robust academic background, complemented by an impressive 22-year tenure in the field of cancer drug development and translational medicine.
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Vice - Chairwoman
- Non - Executive Board Member
Dr. Jeanette Wood is an accomplished scientist with extensive experience in all aspects of drug discovery across multiple disease areas, including cancer.
Job Titles:
- Chief Quality Officer
- Expert
Dr. Josef Künzle is an expert responsible for establishing and maintaining the company's Pharmaceutical Quality Management System.
Job Titles:
- Global Head of Business Development
Lubor Gaal is a distinguished figure in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. He currently serves as the Global Head of Business Development at Swiss Rockets and its subsidiary companies. With a career spanning over 25 years, Gaal has demonstrated exceptional expertise and leadership in various capacities across renowned organizations.
Dr. Marc Lang is a medicinal chemist with an outstanding career served in Novartis, Basel, Switzerland and spanning more than 30 years in drug discovery across various therapeutic fields, including infectious diseases and oncology. Marc contributed personally to the discovery of three compounds that were successfully developed and approved to treat patients (Femara, Reyataz and Tasigna).
Job Titles:
- Executive
- Chief of Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls ( CMC )
Dr. Milan Crnogorac is an experienced executive responsible for providing strategic, financial and operational leadership for the Technical Operations, Project Management and CapEx spending.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Research Scientist
- Scientist With a Background in Radiochemistry
Dr. Nadezda Gracheva is a scientist with a background in Radiochemistry and Radiopharmacy as a branch of Nuclear Medicine. She obtained a Ph.D. degree at ETH Zurich, where she was responsible for the development of novel radioactive nuclides for Targeted Radionuclide Therapy to promote innovative cancer treatments.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Executive Board
Dr. Natasa Cmiljanovic is a dynamic and accomplished professional, serving as the Chief Operating Officer and Founder of Swiss Rockets. With over a decade of invaluable experience in oncology drug development, Natasa's background as a medicinal chemist and clinical scientist makes her a driving force in the field.
Dr. Paul Hebeisen is a highly experienced medicinal chemist with an impressive track record in drug discovery over 28 years of service at F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Switzerland. Paul served in various positions, most notably as a Group Leader in Chemistry in the discovery of novel anti-infectives.
Job Titles:
- Head of Preclinical Safety / Dr
Dr. Robert Ettlin
Head of Preclinical Safety
Dr. Robert Ettlin is the Head of Preclinical Safety in Swiss Rockets. After some years in toxicological pathology at F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd., Ettlin joined Sandoz Ltd. in Basel, where he advanced to Head of Toxicology and later Head of Development Operations Switzerland.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Secretary of the Board
- Non - Executive Board Member Member & Secretary
Dr. Thomas Ladner, Board Member and Secretary of the Board, became in 2002 the youngest partner at Meyerlustenberger Lachenal, one of Switzerland's leading law firms, where he specialized in private equity and M&A. From 2000 to 2004, Thomas lectured on corporate law and contract law at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), from where he also holds a Ph.D.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Executive Board
- Vice - Chairman
Dr. Vladimir Cmiljanovic is a renowned serial biotech entrepreneur, cancer scientist, and medicinal chemist with over 15 years of experience in oncology drug development.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Operations Manager
Helene Muller has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry managing numerous clinical projects for leading clinical research organizations but also working as a consultant supporting mainly small and mid-sized biotechnology companies in project oversight and implementation.
Jörg Honegger, a highly experienced attorney with over 30 years of practical legal experience in consulting and litigation, has been serving as interim General Counsel of Swiss Rockets Incubator and its subsidiary companies.
Michel Petignat, Head of Human Resources, is a qualified HR Specialist in the Life Sciences industry. During his long and outstanding professional career, Michel worked as an HR Manager in leading pharma and biotech companies such as Sandoz, Novartis Pharma, Syngenta Crop Protection and Actelion Pharmaceuticals.
Prof. Dr. Anton Stuetz is a medicinal chemist and pharmacologist with more than 40 years of experience in Pharmaceutical Research and Development in the fields of antifungal chemotherapy, immunology, oncology, inflammation, dermatology, wound healing and translational research. Anton studied chemistry and physics at the University of Vienna and holds a Ph.
Prof. Dr. Bernd Giese is a professor of organic chemistry and co-founder and former chairman of the biotech company Piqur Therapeutics AG. He studied the influence of activation entropies on the selectivity of organic reactions and developed the isoselective relationship.
Prof. Alex A. Adjei is an accomplished researcher in the field of experimental therapeutics and clinical drug development. He is a Professor of Oncology and a Professor of Pharmacology at the Mayo College of Medicine (Rochester, USA), as well as a consultant in Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic.
Prof. Jean-Yves Blay is a well-known scientist and a medical oncologist whose main research interests focus on clinical and basic research in sarcomas. Dr. Blay is a General Director of the Centre Leon Bérard, the Comprehensive Cancer of Lyon, France, as well as a Professor of Medicine at the Université Claude Bernard.
Prof. Richard Herrmann is a leading expert in Oncology with extensive experience in cancer clinical trials methodology in Phases I-III. He is Professor of Oncology at the University of Basel and former Head of the Division of Oncology and the Department of Clinical Research at the University Hospital Basel.
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Vice - Chairwoman
Prof. Solange Peters is an experienced scientist whose main research fields include discovery and validation in preclinical/clinical settings of new biomarkers for thoracic cancers and targeted therapy and immunotherapy. Prof. Peters runs the Thoracic Malignancies Program and the Medical Oncology Service in the Department of Oncology at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) in Switzerland and manages the organization and coordination of clinical trials.
Job Titles:
- Chairman and Non - Executive Board Member
Prof. Dr. Michael N. Hall is an American and Swiss molecular biologist and Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. He earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Harvard University in 1981 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and the University of California, San Francisco.