Committed to Transforming the Lives of Patients Living
with Neurodegenerative Diseases

Florent Gros has held various leadership positions in venture, intellectual property and business transactions at Nestlé, Pasteur Merieux Connaught and Novartis in Switzerland, Europe and North America. Florent has been an active investor for Novartis Venture Funds, seeding companies, serving as director and advisor, sometimes serving as ad. interim CEO, for biotech and medtech companies such as Adicet Bio, Anokion, Binx Health, Covagen, Evolva, Gensight Biologics, Inflazome, Merus, Okairos, Oculis, Vivet Therapeutics.

Valérie Calenda started her career as research scientist in Hematology and Virology at the Institut National de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM). After collaborating on a French/US research program relating to HIV at Davis University, she joined Transgene S.A., an affiliated company of Institut Mérieux, focusing on gene therapy and immunotherapy. She then led a spin-off project in cardio-vascular therapeutic area before collaborating with a Paris based seed Venture Capital firm. Valérie also managed several biotech clinical-stage product developments within the infectious diseases and oncology disease areas, from pre-IND to Phase 2. This led her to manage both in-licensing and out-licensing activities, including global license agreement and alliance management with Hoffman La Roche, acquisition of biotech assets in Europe and in the US.

Helene has a PhD in molecular biology during which she studied the signaling pathways activated in response to chemotherapeutic treatments in cancer cells. She also completed a master’s degree in management. After an experience in customer support at Eurogentec, she joined the technology transfer office of the University of Liege for more than 8 years where she managed Intellectual property, negotiated collaboration and license agreements with companies and support the setting up of spin-offs. Afterwards, she joined Noshaq as a Life Sciences Investment Manager following up on several Noshaq’s holdings in biotech companies.

Kenneth A. Buckfire is the President and co-Founder of Miller Buckfire & Co. During his 30 year career in restructuring he has advised clients in a broad range of industries including oil & gas, oilfield services, homebuilding and real estate, merchant power, electric utilities, broadcasting, media, telephone and data services, shipping, governments and government agencies. In addition to co-founding Miller Buckfire in 2002 (acquired by Stifel Financial in 2012), he co-founded Marblegate Asset Management in 2008 which was sold when Stifel Financial acquired Miller Buckfire in 2012.

Pierre Vandepapelière has been Amyl’s co-founder, CEO, and CMO since 2020. Previously, he was CEO of Imcyse from 2014 to 2019, transforming the company into a rapidly growing biotech and raising €35M in Series B funding. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he contributed to several vaccine projects, including creating Astrivax. Pierre has also held leadership roles at Neovacs and GlaxoSmithKline. He holds a medical degree and a PhD. In his spare time, Pierre enjoys sailing, photography, and birdwatching.