Handing over the reins: Jens Klein and Holger Reithinger will head the working group on finance for the biotech industry associa

(Berlin - July 9, 2024) Over the next few months, the two financial experts want to work with the members of the association to develop topics for the next three years and set the tone for the framework conditions for future technology, also with regard to the German federal election campaign. “We are very happy to have such experienced and respected experts leading the working group,” says association president Oliver Schacht. At the event, he thanked Dirk Honold and Heike Balzer for their many years of voluntary service. Dirk Honold had set up the committee almost 20 years ago. Regular finance summits have been taking place under the auspices of the working group since 2007. Heike Balzer had co-led the working group together with Dirk Honold since December 2020.

Jens Klein is the founder and managing director of Insempra. The Munich-based company uses biotechnology to scale up biological processes so that cosmetic and food ingredients can be produced on an industrial scale with significantly less energy and waste, while at the same time reducing the need for ingredients extracted from petrochemicals or from nature. Klein was previously CEO of AMSilk, the world's first company to produce vegan silk polymers on an industrial scale. Before that, he worked for Evonik Industries AG, which had acquired nanoresins AG and Hanse Chemie AG in 2011, where Jens Klein had been a shareholder and member of the management board since 2006. He began his career at Fresenius AG, where he served as CFO and CEO of subsidiaries.

Holger Reithinger is a General Partner at Forbion, a leading European venture capital firm, and heads the German office. Holger has more than 25 years of experience as an investor in life science companies and has served on the boards of numerous life science companies. Prior to his VC activities, Holger gained operational experience as a product development manager at Biometra/Whatman Plc, now part of GE Healthcare. He is a member of the Life Science Investment Committee of High-Tech Gründerfonds.

BIO Deutschland e. V. is an independent biotechnology organization. The business association represents the interests of its members at the national, European and global level. Biotechnology transfers biology into industrial application. It has already demonstrated visible benefits in medicine, for example. Innovative bio-based economic systems can enable Germany and Europe to achieve sovereignty and prosperity in the long term. The network within the association is interdisciplinary and unique. Its members conduct research, development, manufacturing and marketing on a global scale. BIO Deutschland is a strong community. It relies on diversity, openness and equal opportunities and is committed to the free democratic order. Oliver Schacht, Ph. D., is chairman of the board of BIO Deutschland.

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BIO Deutschland's sponsoring members and industry partners are:
AGC Biologics, Avia, Baker Tilly, Bayer, BioSpring, Boehringer Ingelheim, BüchnerBarella, Centogene, Citeline, CMS Hasche Sigle, Deutsche Bank, Ernst & Young, Evotec, KPMG, Lonza, Miltenyi Bi otec, MorphoSys, Novartis, Pfizer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, QIAGEN, Rentschler Biopharma, Roche Diagnostics, Sanofi Aventis Deutschland, Simmons & Simmons, Thermo Fisher Scientific, SpringerNature, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Vibalogics, ZETA.

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