BIO Deutschland holds general assembly and elects new board
BIO Deutschland convened in Berlin for its 16th general assembly. In addition to the end-of-year review, the approval of the annual financial statement and the discharge of the board, the association elected a new board for the next two years. The ten members of BIO Deutschland’s board represent various segments of innovative small and medium-sized biotechnology enterprises.
The following members were re-elected: Peter Heinrich (Managing Director of Sinfonie Life Science Management GmbH, Planegg), Norbert Hentschel (CFO of Miltenyi Biotec GmbH, Bergisch-Gladbach), Klaus Maleck (CEO of TETEC AG, Reutlingen), Roland Sackers (CFO and Managing Director of QIAGEN N.V., Hilden), Oliver Schacht, Ph.D. (CEO of Curetis N. V., Holzgerlingen), Sylvia Wojczewski (Managing Director of BioSpring GmbH, Frankfurt am Main) and Holger Zimmermann (CEO of AiCuris Anti-infective Cures GmbH, Wuppertal).
Kathrin Sabine Adlkofer (CEO and founder of Cellbox Solutions GmbH, Lübeck), Jürgen Eck (CEO of BRAIN AG, Zwingenberg) and Hubert Birner (Managing Partner of TVM Capital GmbH and of TVM Life Science Management GmbH, Munich) were newly elected to the board.
Claus Kremoser (CEO of Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG, Ludwigshafen), Peter-Andreas Löschmann (Senior Medical Director Germany/Managing Director of Pfizer Pharma GmbH, Berlin) and Jan Schmidt-Brand (Managing Director of Heidelberg Pharma Research GmbH, Ladenburg) did not run for another board term. Viola Bronsema, Managing Director of BIO Deutschland, and Peter Heinrich thanked them at the general assembly for their outstanding service on the board. They also awarded Martin Pöhlchen with BIO Deutschland’s silver pin of honour for his more than ten years of service to the association as head of the Working Group on Licences and Technical Contracts and of the Working Group on Bio IT, Big Data and E-Health.
During the general assembly, Viola Bronsema also presented the results of this year’s members survey. In addition, BIO Deutschland’s members discussed health policy issues with Member of the Bundestag Andrew Ullmann (FDP).
The new board unanimously confirmed the appointment of Oliver Schacht as its chairman directly after the general assembly. Norbert Hentschel was appointed as treasurer.
“I look forward to the new role and to earning the trust of the members and the board. Over the last 15 years, the work we have done through BIO Deutschland has already achieved a great deal. For this I would like to especially thank my predecessor Peter Heinrich, who has been engaged in the association since its founding,” said Oliver Schacht, the new chairman of the board. “The tax incentives for research that we have called for for so long are finally on the way. Our topics are now integrated into policy programmes such as the Bio-Agenda and the Industrial Bioeconomy Platform. I want to continue this successful work. Biotechnology is still widely underappreciated as a key technology. We are committed to changing this. Biotechnology needs to be brought more sharply into focus among the public, decision makers and investors,” added Schacht.
Peter Heinrich said: “I would like to thank my fellow board members for their dedication over the past years, especially Claus Kremoser, Peter-Andreas Löschmann and Jan Schmidt-Brand, who regretfully decided not to stand for re-election again. I also, of course, want to say a big thanks to all the other former board members who I served with during my time as chairman of the board. In the future, my engagement for BIO Deutschland is going to focus on positioning biotechnology internationally. As chair of the SME Platform of EuropaBio, the European umbrella association for biotechnology, I will continue to advocate for the interests of small and medium-sized biotech companies.”