About Us

Amyl therapeutics is a preclinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering a breakthrough approach to treat rare and severe peripheral protein misfolding diseases. By developing novel therapies that recognize and target multiple misfolded proteins, we aim to make a transformative impact on the lives of patients affected by systemic amyloidosis and by neurodegenerative diseases.

Our approach is shaped by an experienced team with deep drug development experience, and productive collaborations with world-class advisors and partners.

Board Members

Florent Gros

Chairman & Founder

Florent Gros has 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.

Valérie Calenda

Hélène Sabatel

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.

Kenneth A. Buckfire

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. 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, MD, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Medical Officer and Founder

Pierre has a large experience in development of vaccines, immunotherapeutics and biologicals. He held various positions and has led complex developments at GSK vaccines and in several Biotech companies.

Karine Goraj, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Karine is appointed as CSO of Amyl Therapeutics at the initiation of the Company (April 2021).

Florent Gros

Chairman & Founder

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.

In 2019, Florent founded and led as CEO Handl Therapeutics in Leuven, Belgium, which developed gene therapy technologies, and was sold to UCB Pharma in 2020. In 2020, Florent then founded and is leading as CEO Priothera Ltd in Ireland, which is developing a late stage clinical asset in hematology.

Florent is a Kaufmann Fellow (class 12) and holds a Biotechnology Engineering Master Degree from France; he did his diploma thesis on vaccines at GSK in Belgium. He also holds European and French patent lawyer degrees and a Master in Private Law.

Valérie Calenda

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.

Valérie joined Mérieux Développement as a Partner in January 2010 and has focused on Venture deal flow and investments, supporting more than 8 companies since 2010. She has also been actively involved in structuring and launching M2Care, an industrial accelerator for start-ups operating in the Healthcare and Nutrition sectors.

Valérie received her PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Marseille. She holds a degree in Hematology and a B.Sc. in Biochemistry-Immunology from the University of Marseille.

Valérie Calenda currently serves as board member of:

AcuSurgical
KeepMed
Keranova
PhysioAssist
Amyl Therapeutics
Proclara Biosciences
M2Care
Waoup

Hélène Sabatel

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

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 Buckf ire 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.

His notable accomplishments include the first prepackaged Chapter 11 (Edgell Communications, 1990), the largest out of court utility restructuring (Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, 1998), the first convertible DIP loan (ICO Global Communications, 2000), the first public common stock offering by a bankrupt company (General Growth Properties, 2010), the largest successful Chapter 9 reorganization including the first municipal DIP loan (City of Detroit, 2014) and the first restructuring using a SPAC (Faraday Future, 2021).

Mr. Buckfire has been the primary financial advisor in the restructurings of Faraday Furure, Attica Bank, The City of Detroit, General Growth Properties, Calpine Corporation, Level(3) Communications, Exide Technologies, Excel Shipping, Molycorp, Standard Pacific Homes, McLeod USA, ICG Communications, iPayments, PSINet, Sirius Satellite Radio, BTI Telecom, CMS Energy, CenterPoint Energy, Oncor, Optima Steel, Horizon Natural Resources, TECO Energy, Centennial Communications, Readers Digest, Advanstar, Allegheny International, Foamex, Van Camp Seafood, Walter Industries, Burnham Broadcasting, EUA Power Corporation, Dialog Corporation, Imperial Sugar, and CRIIMI MAE. He has been an advisor to the FDIC, the National Bank of Ukraine and the Bank of Greece.

He has received numerous industry awards including the 2015 Harvey R. Miller TMA Outstanding Achievement Award, the 2016 Foreign Policy Association Medal for leading the successful restructuring of the City of Detroit, the 2014 Turnaround Atlas Individual Leadership Award, and the 2014 Mega Transaction of the Year Award for the City of Detroit (from the Turnaround Management Association and Turnaround Atlas).

Many of his transactions have been similarly recognized including Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (Energy Transaction of 1998, IDD), Calpine Corporation (Mega Transaction of 2008, TMA), General Growth Properties (Mega Transaction of 2010, TMA), Horizon Natural Resources (Most Outstanding Transaction of 2005 by TMA), and Molycorp (Most Outstanding Middle Market Restructuring, 2015).
Prior to founding Miller Buckf ire in 2002, Mr. Buckfire was a Managing Director of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Co-Head of the financial restructuring group. Before joining Wasserstein Perella & Co. (acquired by Dresdner), he was a Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers Inc.

For The University of Michigan, Mr. Buckfire is on the Board of Advisors of the Zell-Lurie Institute at the Ross Business School, the University Music Society and the Honors College. He is on the Board of Advisors of New Mountain Capital. He is a former Trustee of the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York, UJA-Federation of New York, the Paul & Daisy Soros Fund for New Americans and the Orpheus Orchestra.
Mr. Buckf ire is currently serving on the Boards of Directors of Purdue Pharma (Chairman of the Audit and Strategic Issues Committees), Amyl Therapeutics and ProClara Biosciences. Mr. Buckfire is a Board Observer of and a founding investor in Ambiq Micro. He has been a director of seven other public and private companies.

Mr. Buckfire is a Visiting Professor at Columbia Business School where he teaches a graduate course in Corporate and Government Restructuring. He has been a guest lecturer at The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and at the Ross School of Business, The University of Michigan.

Mr. Buckf ire received his MBA from Columbia University in 1987. He received his B.A. in Economics and Philosophy from The University of Michigan in 1980.

Dr. Pierre Vandepapelière, MD, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Medical Officer and Founder

Pierre Vandepapelière, M.D.,PhD has a large experience in development of vaccines, immunotherapeutics and biologicals. He held various positions and has led complex developments at GSK vaccines and in several Biotech companies. As CEO and CMO, he transformed Imcyse, a biotech company developing active specific immunotherapeutics to treat and to prevent auto immune diseases, into a rapidly growing Biotech company. Before he was head of early clinical research at GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and has been involved in the development of vaccines for tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, Hepatitis C, Herpes zoster (Shingrix) and Streptococcus pneumoniae in the elderly, and of therapeutic vaccines for hepatitis B, human papilloma virus and herpes simplex. Pierre also spent 7 years as head of development of immunotherapeutics for auto immune diseases, primarily lupus, at Neovacs, Paris, and as consultant to implement phase IIb programs at Genticel and Abivax.

He graduated in Medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain, in Tropical Medicine at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium and holds a PhD from the University of Gent.

Karine Goraj, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Karine is appointed as CSO of Amyl Therapeutics at the initiation of the Company (April 2021).

She is in charge of the Research and Development management, to lead internal research activities and scientific partnerships covering preclinical and development project phases.

Before to join Amyl, Karine worked in the RD department of GSK Vaccines more than 20 years and held several positions as Vaccine Project Leader as well as Head of Discovery Performance Unit of the GSK RD Center based in Italy.

Karine holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Liege University, focusing her research to the field of Protein Engineering and Design as Professor Assistant during several years before to join GSK.

About Us

Board Members

Florent Gros

Valérie Calenda

Hélène Sabatel

Kenneth A. Buckfire

MANAGEMENT

Pierre Vandepapelière, MD, PhD

Karine Goraj, PhD

Florent Gros

Chairman & Founder

Valérie Calenda

Hélène Sabatel

Kenneth A. Buckfire

Dr. Pierre Vandepapelière, MD, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Medical Officer and Founder

Karine Goraj, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer