The business person: Rob van der Meulen PhD LLM
Rob’s career started in the nineties Rob at the General Treasury of the Ministry of Finance responsible for partly state owned stock listed companies like Hoogovens, Fokker, DSM and KLM. As project manager he executed the first international successful auction of telecom licensees in cooperation with SBC Warburg (proceeds approx. 1 billion US dollar). In the late nineties Rob became CFO and one of the major shareholders of DLV NV. Since 2001 he is an informal investor investing solely in small and medium sized companies. He has been ad interim chairman of the executive board of the SOZ hospitals and member of several advisory state commissions. Rob graduated cum laude as a lawyer at the University Utrecht, after which he received his PhD in general management at the Rotterdam School of Management.
“The researcher / scientist: James H. M. Simon DPhil, MBA
James has spent 15 years founding and leading new ventures in the field of life sciences. He is currently the CEO and a co-founder of ExBiome B.V., Amsterdam, a company developing blood-based diagnostics for cancer. Previously, he was interim MD at hVivo Ltd in London, where he launched a new business unit and raised over £60m in financing on AIM at London Stock Exchange. Prior to this he co-founded and was CEO of Viroclinics Biosciences BV (sold to Parcom Capital), and was COO at ViroNovative B.V., both successful spin-outs from Erasmus MC. He started his commercial career with the Boston Consulting Group in its London office, concentrating on the biopharmaceutical sector. James gained a BA in Biochemistry and a DPhil from the University of Oxford and, following several years as a post-doctoral fellow with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, he gained an MBA from the Wharton Business School, where he majored in Health Care Management. ”
“The lawyer; Paul B. Voorn LLM
Paul practices law since 1986 initially as in-house company lawyer with Royal Philips Electronics, as a manager in the law practice of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and as a partner-founder of the boutique law firm Legal Capital. Since 2004 he is an independent business lawyer. His advisory work is dedicated to mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) and private equity transactions, as well as international contracts concerning R&D, manufacturing, laboratory & CRO services, clinical trials, technology transfer and patent & know how licensing. As regards the biotechnology, medical devices and pharmaceutical industry he has extensive experience in working with start up companies, SME, Universities, University hospitals and multinationals like Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Glaxosmithkline, Boehringer Ingelheim, Abbott Laboratories, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Pfizer, bioMérieux, Johnson & Johnson and alike. Paul gained a masters degree in international trade and transport law at Utrecht University. ”
