Meet the Team
Leadership Team
Karsten Fischer, PhD
Chief Executive OfficerKarsten Fischer is a seasoned manager with more than 20 years of experience in the field of biotechnology. In his last position as CEO of Memo Therapeutics AG, he developed the company from the laboratory bench to a late-stage biotechnology company with a pivotal clinical phase II/III study in the US and a partnership with Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
After training in biochemistry and completing his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry and Colorado State University, he started his career at a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Venture Capital. There he was responsible for analyzing biotechnology companies for equity investment. He then worked at McKinsey&Co, Sanofi SA and WestLB, where he led the Equity Capital Markets team in the Life Sciences & Chemicals division. In the next step, he moved to BioMedPartners AG as a partner, where he was responsible for a large number of investments in the biotech sector. As investment banker, investor and CEO, he was responsible for financing events of over USD 500m as well as numerous M&A transactions.
Bastian Linder, PhD
Chief Scientific OfficerDr. Bastian Linder has been working in the field of gene expression and RNA metabolism since his doctoral thesis. He is a recognized expert in the field of RNA modifications, having developed the first method in the laboratory of Prof. Samie Jaffrey, one of the pioneers in this field, to determine m6A at single nucleotide resolution in the entire transcriptome using high-throughput sequencing.
His expertise and network form the foundation for the development of first-in-biology therapeutic molecules to modify tRNA molecules at Umlaut.bio GmbH.
Simon Breitler, PhD
Chief Development OfficerCorporate Advisors
Prof. Sebastian Leidel
Advisor RNA BiologySebastian is a Full Professor of Cellular RNA Biochemistry at the University of Bern. He studied protestant theology at Siegen, Marburg, Jerusalem, and Heidelberg, and cell biology and molecular biology at Heidelberg University. After completing his master’s thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the lab of Pierre Gönczy at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research for his Ph.D.
There he studied the role of SAS proteins in centrosome duplication in C. elegans. Then he conducted postdoctoral work at the Institute of Biochemistry at ETH Zurich where he discovered that ubiquitin-related modifier 1 (Urm1) acts as a sulfur carrier during the modification of cytoplasmic tRNA in eukaryotes.
In 2008 he became a lecturer at the Institute of Biochemistry at ETH Zurich before he started a Max Planck Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster in 2009. There he continued to work on tRNA modifications and cellular quality control. He received an ERC starting grant in 2012 and was appointed Full Professor at the University of Bern in 2018. In 2019 he became an elected member of the Academia Europaea.
Hendrik Nogai, MD
Medical AdvisorDr. Hendrik Nogai is the Chief Medical Officer at Ryvu Therapeutics. Dr. Nogai is responsible for leading medical, clinical, and regulatory functions to support and guide the development of the company’s pipeline.
Hendrik Nogai is a board-certified medical doctor in Hematology/Oncology as well as in Internal Medicine, with almost 10 years of experience in patient care and basic research in different academic settings, including Charité – University Medicine Berlin, University Hospital in Munich, and Zentralklinikum Augsburg. Besides his clinical expertise, Dr. Nogai’s brings 17 years of industry experience including business consulting at Mercer Management Consulting/ Oliver Wyman, medical advisory at Nordic Biotech Capital ApS, and positions of increasing responsibility at Bayer AG, with his most recent role of Vice President, Global Development Leader NTRK program.
Dr. Nogai has completed his Medical Studies at Charité – University Medicine Berlin (Germany), Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich (Germany) and Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA). He holds a doctoral degree awarded by the Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany) for his research on cell biology.
Gerhard Müller, PhD
Advisor Medicinal ChemistryGerhard holds a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the Technical University of Munich and has spent over a decade working in the pharma, biotech and CRO industry, where he has made significant contributions to the discovery and development of new drugs. He has a proven track record of success in leading integrated discovery teams and driving innovation in the field of chemistry.
As CSO of Spirochem, Gerhard is responsible for their R&D team, development of discovery chemistry capabilities and to create a strategy for offering integrated discovery services to their customers.
Mark Wolters, PhD
Advisor Business Development & StrategyMark Wolters, PhD, has more than 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience. Previously he was Vice President of Business Development & Licensing and Head of Early Licensing, and Vice President of the Bayer Life Science Center at Bayer, where he led a team of early-stage licensing and transaction professionals across an innovation ecosystem including biotech startups, academia, and the life sciences venture capital community.
Mark has negotiated and closed hundreds of transaction of different types at Bayer and in his previous role as the Executive Director and Head of the Office of Technology at Schering AG, including the development of Bayer’s joint ventures Casebia Therapeutics (with CRISPR Therapeutics), BlueRock Therapeutics (with Versant Ventures), and Joyn Bio (with Gingko Bioworks).
Mark received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Freie Universität Berlin and did his post-doctoral training in structural biology in the laboratory of Professor Alexander Rich at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.