Turning cutting-edge innovations
into breakthrough Biotech companies

Yves Ribeill
Partner & EIR

Yves Ribeill founded Scynexis, Inc (NASDAQ: SCYX) and served as its Chairman and CEO from 1999 to 2015. Prior to Scynexis, Inc., Dr. Ribeill served various positions during the 25 years of his international career with Rhone-Poulenc, Aventis. He was involved in discovery and development effort that resulted in the FDA approval of multiple drugs. He has also been a Director of various Biotech companies in Europe and the US.

Rémi Soula
Partner & EIR

Rémi Soula, Founding Partner and Entrepreneur in Residence at Argobio, co-founded Adocia (Euronext Paris: ADOC), a French public biotech company, where he was head of Business Development and Legal Affairs. Over his 14 years at Adocia, he has been in charge for several large licensing deals and partnerships with pharmaceutical companies in the US and China, and he has actively participated to the financing rounds and the IPO of the company. Prior to Adocia, he was Senior Manager at Avadel Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVDL, formerly Flamel Technologies SA). He has also been on the board of several companies, including Cellnovo. (Euronext: CLNV), a former French public medtech company. He is co-inventor on more than thirty patent families. Rémi holds a PhD in Chemistry from University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and an executive MBA from HEC Paris.

Neill Moray Mackenzie
Partner & EIR

Neill Moray Mackenzie is an internationally networked pharmaceutical executive and a serial entrepreneur with extensive operational, commercial, licensing and R&D background in academia, pharma and Biotech companies. Over the last 25 years, after a career in pharma at Wellcome plc, Dr. Mackenzie has served on the boards of Immetacyte Ltd (now Instil Inc.) as co-founder, Chairman and CBO, Trimunocor Ltd. as co-founder and CEO, Biotecnol Ltd. as CBO, Cellular therapeutics Ltd., as CBO, CMP Therapeutics Ltd. as CEO, Roji Ltd. as founder and CEO, Medigene AG (listed on the German Börse) as Senior Vice President, Business Development and Commercial Strategy, Avidex Ltd. (now Immunocore Ltd) as CBO, Oxford BioMedica plc (listed on the LSE), and BioMedica Inc. as co-founder and EVP of Business Development and Corporate Strategy, and with Cambridge Genetics Ltd. as co-founder and CEO.

Thierry Laugel
Chairman

Thierry Laugel is a Managing Partner at Kurma Partners that he co-founded in 2009. He has almost 30 years of experience in Life Sciences, both in Venture and in Industry. Thierry started his career in 1992 as R&D Project Manager for Laboratoires Fournier in Tokyo. In 1996, he joined Flamel Technologies, just after its successful listing on Nasdaq, and managed the development-stage portfolio of the company. In 1998, he moved to investments, first at Caisse des Dépots (CDC), then at AGF Private Equity (Allianz Group) in 2005, where he supervised the healthcare investment team. As an investor, Thierry has led investments in more than 25 companies like Actelion, Arpida, Targacept, Adocia, or Erytech. He currently represents Kurma Partners at the Boards of Corteria Pharma, Amolyt Pharma, Ermium, Coave Therapeutics, Minoryx Therapeutics, Blink Biomedical, and Pathoquest.

Daniel Sobral
Partner & Chief Financial Officer

Daniel Sobral is Partner and Chief Financial Officer at Argobio. He brings extensive expertise in financial analysis, strategic planning, market analysis and business development. He was previously Head of financial analysis at Laboratoires Pierre Fabre, where he led financial and economic due diligences of corporate strategic investments. He also managed the business development activities of Clevexel and acquired a solid experience in early-stage licensing. He started his career in the molecular diagnosis industry as R&D project leader at Ceeram, a Biomérieux company.

Daniel holds a Master's Degree in Life Science Engineering from Montpellier Supagro and a PhD in Molecular Biology from University Paris XI.

Delphine Charvin
Partner Science

Delphine Charvin is an experienced drug developer, scientist and entrepreneur in neurological diseases. She brings two decades of experience from senior leadership and managerial positions in international pharmaceutical, biotech and start-up companies, including Addex Pharmaceuticals, Merck-Serono, Prexton Therapeutics, Lundbeck and Stalicla. As the Chief Scientific Officer of Prexton, she developed a program from lead identification up to clinical phase II and played a crucial role in the company development since inception, then series A and series B fundraising, and finally in the successful exit with the acquisition of the company by Lundbeck.

Delphine holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Paris VI Sorbonne University and a BSc in Genetics and Bioinformatics from Genopole - Evry University in France.

Oscar Castanon
Associate

Oscar Castanon is an Associate at Argobio. He sources and evaluates disruptive translational research projects. He conducted his PhD and post-doctoral research at the Church lab at Harvard Medical School where he developed and patented a large-scale genome editing technology. He previously worked as deputy project manager at Sanofi-Genzyme and as deputy attaché at the Office for Science & Technology of the Embassy of France where he managed deeptech start-up programs. He holds a PhD in biology and a master’s degree in innovation management from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) as well as a master’s degree in Immunology from the Paris-Sud school of medicine at Paris-Saclay University.

Liliane Goetsch
Senior Scientific Director & Secondee at Institut Pasteur

Liliane Goetsch is an innovative and result-focused scientist with a strong expertise in Oncology and Immunooncology. Over the last 30 years, after an academic experience at the Centre Léon Bérard, Dr. Goetsch started a career in the pharmaceutical industry, first at Aguettant Laboratories and then at the Pierre Fabre Biotechnology Center where she served as Director of the Experimental Oncology Department, supporting drug discovery of innovative therapeutic mAbs, R&D and licensing. She is Inventor or co-inventor of more than thirty patent families among which two have been licensed to MSD (Dalotuzumab) and Abbvie (Telisotuzumab vedotin) respectively. She has also co-founded Alibion AG where she served as CSO.

Morgane Schwenzer
Office Manager

Joining Argobio in 2021 with 12 years of experience, Morgane manages the office's administration and is the main contact for accounting and social matters. She is also in charge in the planning and logistics of events held by the firm. Morgane holds a bachelor’s degree Philosophy.

Aurore Hick
Scientific Project Manager

Aurore Hick is Scientific Project Manager at Argobio with about 10 years of experience in drug discovery. She has previously worked as Lab Head in the biotech company Anagenesis Biotechnologies where she has managed the R&D team, as well as collaborations with pharmaceutical companies. She has a background in stem cell differentiation, disease modelling and high throughput screening.

Aurore holds a PhD in molecular and cellular biology from Strasbourg University and an engineer diploma in pharmacology and biotechnologies from Polytech’Nice Sophia engineering school.

Jonathan Foley
Scientific Director

Jonathan Foley is Scientific Director at Argobio with 20 years of experience in drug discovery, analytical development, and rare disease research. Most recently, Jonathan was a Senior Director and Head of Discovery at Freeline (Nasdaq: FRLN). Prior to Freeline, he was a Lecturer at University College London in the group of gene therapy pioneer Professor Amit Nathwani and was a member of the first research team that spun Freeline out of academia. During his academic career he published extensively in the areas of biochemistry, bleeding disorders and complement-mediated disease.

Jonathan holds a PhD in Biochemisty from Queen’s University, Canada and held a prestigious Banting Fellowship at the University of British Columbia.

Poul Sørensen
Partner & EIR

Poul Sørensen, Partner and Entrepreneur in Residence at Argobio, has extensive leadership experience in R&D and corporate development from top tier international Biotech and Pharmaceutical companies (Pharmacia, LEO Pharma, Micromet, ALK-Abello, Stallergenes Greer) across multiple indications within immuno-oncology, inflammation, neurology and immune disorders. He brings to ArgoBio studio more than 25 years’ experience and passion for translating ground-breaking innovation into therapeutics and new product developments, strategic co-operations and creation of new ventures. As a serial biotech entrepreneur Poul has co-founded several start-ups including Allero Therapeutics as CSO.

Poul holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Copenhagen University and is Honorary Professor in Biomedicine at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Mélanie Berta
Scientific Project Manager

Mélanie is Scientific Project Manager at Argobio with more than 15 years experience in drug discovery in the Pharmaceutical Industry and Biotechnology including Galderma and Medincell. She brings a solid expertise of in vivo pharmacology, medical device development and identification of new molecular targets in oncology, dermatology and aging. She also has a strong track record in team management in a matrix environment with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams. In her last position, she coordinated the evaluation of product opportunities (internal and partnered) to enrich the project portfolio.

Melanie holds a PhD in molecular and cellular biology from University of Nice and spent 4 years working as a post-doctoral fellow at Cancer Research UK in London and Cambridge.

Grégory Meiffren
Senior Scientific Project Manager

Grégory Meiffren is Senior Scientific Project Manager at Argobio. He brings more than 12 years of experience in innovation management and drug development. He was previously Director of Monoclonal Antibodies Development at Inotrem, where he led the development strategy of novel biologics. As Director of Clinical Development, PKPD and Biology at Adocia, he managed activities ranging from discovery to phase 3 clinical trials. He was also project leader for the two main assets of the company; and has actively taken part to multiple international partnerships with big pharma.

Greg holds a PhD in Immunology from the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon from which he is an alumni

Nicolas Billiald
Analyst

Nicolas Billiald is Analyst at Argobio. He sources and evaluates disruptive translational research projects. Prior to joining us, Nicolas was a Junior Analyst on the Capital team at Sofinnova Partners, where he contributed to the review of the deal flow.

Nicolas has a Ph.D. in Immunology from Paris Sorbonne University, which he carried out at Pitié Salpetrière Hospital under the supervision of Pr. D. Klatzmann. Working on the improvement of therapeutic properties of interleukin-2 by molecular engineering or medicine associations, he developped and patented fusion proteins with therapeutic potential in several autoimmmune and inflammatory diseases.

Nicolas holds a Pharm.D. degree and a M.Sc. from Paris Descartes University and a degree in Biopharmaceutical Management from ESCP Business School.