Bringing Together Forces in Personalised Medicine
What Is EPEMED
EPEMED is a European, not for profit organisation bringing together global forces in personalised medicine. The association was founded to address issues in personalised medicine that confront the industry, regulators, payers & insurers as well as governments. The organisation is directed by a dynamic and diverse group of leaders in the personalised medicine field, who have great expertise in the application and development of diagnostic tools to deliver improved patient care.
The association is open to members who want to follow closely EPEMED’s activities, such as knowledge acquisition, discussions with regional authorities, white papers and web-based and European events (see Becoming a Member).
EPEMED’s Board of Directors comprises
Alain Huriez, M.D., Chairman, CEO TcLand Expression
Anne T. Bruinvels, Executive Director, CEO Elixior
Mara Aspinall, President & CEO, On-Q-ity, former President, Genzyme Genetics
Vincent Fert, President & CEO Ipsogen
Werner Kroll, Ph.D., Head Diagnostics Research and Innovation Novartis Molecular Diagnostics
Iain D. Miller, Ph.D., Executive Director, Theranostics Strategy and Business Development BioMerieux
Herman Spolders, BVBA, former CEO Oncomethylome Sciences
Patrick F. Terry, founder Genomic Health & PMC,CEO Technic Solutions
Alain Huriez
Chairman & founder
Alain Huriez MD, is the Chairman and founder of EPEMED.
Alain is Chief Executive Officer of TcLand Expression, a molecular diagnostic company dedicated to personalised medicine diagnostics in Immunology (Solid Organ transplantation and Immune Mediated Disorders) he co-founded in 2002, and located in Nantes France.
Alain is an industry veteran bringing 20 years experience of general management, drug development and financing in the biotechnology sector in various executive positions in Neovacs, Truffle Capital, Quintiles, GSK.
Alain is Medical Doctor, holds an MBA, a Statistics degree from the University of Paris VII, and a Masters of Pharmaco-Economics from the University of Paris I Sorbonne.
Prior to joining the Industry, he was head of an emergency room in a large teaching hospital and practiced 2 years as General Practitioner.
Alain supports and triggers several initiatives in France and in Europe regarding personalised medicine, biomarkers and high value diagnostics and is Vice President of LEEM Biotech, the French Pharma Industry Association and Vice President of the French BioCluster Atlantic Biotherapies.
Anne T. Bruinvels
Executive Director
Anne is the founder and CEO of Elixior Ltd, an advisory company focused on the development and growth of innovative personalized medicine businesses. Previously, Anne Bruinvels founded Curidium, a personalized medicine company identifying companion diagnostics and therapeutics to treat patients with central nervous system disorders. She started Curidium's business activities in 2001 and raised several rounds of angel funding before taking the company public on the AIM of the London Stock Exchange in 2006. Anne was Curidium's CEO until late 2007, when she took on the role of Chief Scientific Officer. In March 2009, Curidium was sold to Avacta Group plc., a York (UK)-based diagnostic services provider.
Prior to founding Curidium, Anne was Scientific Director, Business Development at Pharmagene (now Asterand), where she contributed to the growth of the organisation from private start-up to publicly listed biotechnology company. Previously, she has led research groups, as Head of Neurogenetics, SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (now GlaxoSmithKline) and as Head of Neuroanatomy and co-leader of global schizophrenia research at Wyeth. Anne was awarded a PhD scholarship at Sandoz Pharma (now Novartis) and obtained her PhD (neuroscience) from Utrecht University (the Netherlands). She was presented with the London Biotechnology Network "Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award" in 2003.
Mara G. Aspinall
Board Member
Mara Aspinall is President and CEO of On-Q-ity, Inc., an innovative diagnostics company dedicated to improving the treatment of individual cancer patients through real time non-invasive monitoring to better target therapy and lower costs. On-Q-ity will enable precise personalized therapeutic decisions across multiple cancers through two core proprietary technologies: (1) Microfluidic chip technology that enables the capture, enumeration, and molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTC) in the bloodstream and (2) Validated DNA repair biomarkers that predict treatment response in tissue and blood.
Mara was previously President of Genzyme Genetics, a leading provider of testing services in the oncology and reproductive markets. Under Mara's leadership, Genzyme Genetics set the standard for industry quality, exhibiting profitable company growth at an unprecedented pace. She transformed the business, expanding its scope and market reach to become one of the nation's largest diagnostic laboratories. The company successfully completed and integrated multiple acquisitions, expanded research and development, launched more than two dozen new products and initiated new programs for community outreach and education.
Mara has been on the Board of Predictive Biosciences since its inception, serving as Chairman for the past year. She is also a Board member of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Mara is appointed as Lecturer in Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and will teach a seminar series on medicine and business each year. During 2008, Mara was on sabbatical from Genzyme working at the Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on the implementation of personalized medicine into physician education, clinical practice and research.
Previously, Mara served as President of Genzyme Pharmaceuticals. She restructured the business from generic drug manufacturing to value-added custom production, while building a new international management team that created more than 25% annual profitable growth.
She is an active member of the Federal Secretary of Health and Human Services' Advisory Commission on Genetics, Health and Society as well as Vice Chairman of the Personalized Medicine Coalition. Most recently, she co-authored, “Realizing the Promise of Personalized Medicine” in Harvard Business Review.
Bain & Company, an international strategic consulting firm, was where Mara started her business career. She earned her Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and her undergraduate degree in International relations from Tufts University.
Vincent Fert
Board Member
Vincent Fert has a master’s degree in immunology of the University of Marseilles, France.
Prior to founding Ipsogen in 1999, Vincent Fert held different executive positions at Immunotech and then Beckman-Coulter (USA). He was first responsible for R&D, then license acquisition and commercial and business development. Vincent is the author of 15 scientific publications and 9 patents. In 1996, Vincent joined the ‘Advanced Technology Centre’ in Brea, CA where he led technology research projects.
In 1999, with Industry managers, scientists and physicians, Vincent founded Ipsogen, Marseilles, France to develop and market innovative diagnostic tools in order to tailor cancer treatments. Since its inception and under Vincent tenure Ipsogen rose € 12 M in private placement and grants and recently listed Ipsogen on the public market (ALIPS) raising additional €14 M. The company develops actively its presence in both Europe and North America with a dynamic development and commercial activity.
Werner Kroll
Board Member
Since beginning of 2009 Dr. Kroll is Global Head Diagnostics Research and Innovation of Novartis’ newly founded business unit Molecular Diagnostics. The unit is charged to develop outcome driven innovative diagnostics that will improve the selectivity and reliability of medical care and ultimately transforming the way medicine is practiced. From 2007 to 2009 he headed up the Molecular Diagnostics and Theranostics Program at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics and established pilot programs to access micro-RNA and methylation analysis technologies for diagnostic use in Novartis Diagnostics.
Dr. Kroll joined Novartis Pharmaceuticals in 2005 as VP and Global Head Biomarker Development in Cambridge, MA leading the early biomarker discovery activities across all pharmaceutical development programs.
Before joining Novartis, Dr. Kroll was the Global Head of Molecular Research at Bayer Diagnostics. During his 17 years at Bayer, he worked in several positions with increasing responsibilities in line functions in Research, Development and Pilot Production at both Bayer Pharma and Bayer Diagnostics. During that time he directed Bayer’s worldwide Pharmacogenomics and Toxicogenomics activities at CuraGen, a biopharmaceutical company. He enjoyed the entrepreneurial environment and interaction between a large pharmaceutical company and a developing small company.
Dr. Kroll obtained a PhD in Chemistry with a specialty in Physiological Chemistry from the Philipps University, Marburg, Germany.
Iain D. Miller
Board Member
Iain Miller is responsible for oncology strategy and theranostics at bioMerieux, which he joined in 2007. At bioMerieux, his objectives include forging partnerships with leading pharmaceutical and academic organizations, together with driving the company's strategy in the onology marketplace.
Iain has worked in a commercial capacity in the Boston-area biotechnology community for nearly 20 years. Most recently, he has held senior business development positions at US Genomics, personalized medicine pioneer Variagenics, Candela Corporation, and Boston Consulting Group life science venture ActiveCyte. In the mid-1990s, he also managed technology partnering for Massachusetts General Hospital, and has founded two life science ventures.
Iain holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde, an MBA from Edinburgh Business School and a bachelors degree in Physics from the University of Glasgow.
Herman Spolders
Board Member
Mr. Spolders has 30 years of experience in the biotech industry in Europe and the U.S. Throughout his career, Mr. Spolders has been instrumental in forging large pharma-biotech collaborations, growing research and development organizations, defining new product opportunities, and protecting intellectual property. In addition to direct management experience, Mr. Spolders has served on the board of Organon Teknika (Akzo Nobel) and numerous international biotech companies.
Mr. Spolders founded OncoMethylome Sciences (a early cancer diagnosis and personalized medice company) in 2003 and grow the company to its IPO at Euronext in 2006.
From 1999-2001, Mr. Spolders managed business development and operations of Tibotec-Virco, which matured into a leading HIV/AIDS therapeutics and diagnostics company until its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. Prior to joining Tibotec-Virco, Mr. Spolders served as vice-president of business development at Devgen, where he planned and negotiated its first licensing deals which have since become Devgen's core activity.
From 1993 to 1998, Mr. Spolders was vice-president of business development of IGEN International, and participated in its initial public offering.
Patrick F. Terry
Board Member
Patrick F. Terry is a social entrepreneur who has founded a series of philanthropic, research, and commercial organizations based on the life sciences, applied technology, and social-network theory. He is the co-founder of Genomic Health [NASDAQ: GHDX], and former Director at the pioneering personalized medicine company based in California. His perspective is forged from personal and family experiences with genetic disease, cancer, and extensive work in the patient advocacy community. He has published dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers, articles, and book chapters in the fields of genetics, translational research, and personalized medicine. Some of his recent activities included leadership positions on numerous trade associations, professional societies, corporate boards, and federal advisory bodies. He has experience doing hands-on bench science, coordinating genetics research, conducting research on rare diseases, and managing a life sciences patent portfolio. He has received many honors and awards in the business and scientific communities in the U.S. and internationally. He has dedicated his career to helping people and advancing a patient-centered perspective in research, product development, and delivery of care. He is currently a Director at Sirius Genomics, TcLand Expression, BioLogos Foundation, and GRAND Therapeutics.
Patrick has also founded the following organizations: Personalized Medicine Coalition, 21 st Century Medicine Coalition, PXE International, Genetic Alliance BioBank, International Genetic Alliance, and GRAND Therapeutics.