Dirk is an expert in pharmaceutical research development with more than 30 years of experience in ophthalmology and neuroscience. He successfully led numerous projects and teams during all phases of the drug development process. During his 31 years at Novartis, Dirk held various positions of increasing responsibilities within preclinical and clinical research as well as project management. Between 2011 and 2021 Dirk led the company’s Ophthalmology Development Unit, and during that time was responsible for a development portfolio across back and front of the eye indications.

Judith brings over three decades of experience in the pharma and biotech industries. Since 2022, she has been providing consulting and advisory services to healthtech companies, particularly start-ups focusing on innovative and unique healthcare projects. She was previously CEO at Onxeo, a publicly listed French Biotech company for 12 years and, during her time there, she successfully completed global registrations and licensing agreements with commercial partners, while reshaping the company's strategic direction towards breakthrough innovations, especially in oncology. She also executed two M&A transactions, including a cross-border deal with a Danish-listed company and the acquisition of DNA Therapeutics, a spin-off from the Institut Curie, which positioned the company in the promising field of Tumoral DNA Damage Response (DDR) inhibition. Previous experience included 15 years in international pharma companies, including roles in sales, marketing, and strategy (Pharmacia, Zeneca, LFB, Wyeth France - now Pfizer), and was appointed President of Eisai France in 2007. She is a Doctor of Pharmacy and holds a postgraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Management and Marketing.

An ophthalmic surgeon, researcher and entrepreneur, Francine is Professor of Ophthalmology at Paris Descartes University (France), Head of the Department of Ophthalmology of Hôtel-Dieu – University of Paris Descartes Hospital, and Director of the Physiopathology of Ocular Diseases lab at the Cordeliers INSERM Centre. Previously she served as chief medical officer of the Gonin Lausanne Ophthalmology Hospital in Switzerland. She was founder and chief innovation officer of Eyevensys and Eyegate Pharma, and was awarded the Insern Innovation Prize in 2021.  

Frank G. Holz is Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Bonn, Germany. Professor Holz’s major clinical interest is surgical and medical retina. His scientific interests include the pathogenesis, prognostic factors, biomarkers and treatment of macular and retinal diseases, and innovative retinal imaging technologies. He trained at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and completed a fellowship at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, UK, with Professor Alan Bird and gained additional international experience in the USA at Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School, Boston. Professor Holz was a co-founder of the German Research Foundation Priority Program for AMD and the GRADE Reading Center in Bonn. He is a board member of the German Ophthalmological Society; a member of the European Reference Networks for Eye Diseases (ERN-EYE); a member of the European Academy of Ophthalmology, the Macula Society, the Club Jules Gonin, and the Gass Club; Editor-in-Chief of Der Ophthalmologe; and serves as a reviewer for many peer-reviewed journals. Professor Holz has received numerous awards, including the Leonhard Klein Award for Ocular Surgery, the Alcon Research Institute Award, the Senior Achievement Award from the AAO, and the Jules Gonin Award. He has published more than 600 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is Editor of several books on retinal diseases and retinal imaging.

An ophthalmic surgeon, researcher and entrepreneur, Francine is Professor of Ophthalmology at Paris Descartes University (France), Head of the Department of Ophthalmology of Hôtel-Dieu – University of Paris Descartes Hospital, and Director of the Physiopathology of Ocular Diseases lab at the Cordeliers INSERM Centre. Previously she served as chief medical officer of the Gonin Lausanne Ophthalmology Hospital in Switzerland. She was founder and chief innovation officer of Eyevensys and Eyegate Pharma, and was awarded the Insern Innovation Prize in 2021.  

Dr Joshua (Josh) Dunaief is the Adele Niessen Professor of Ophthalmology at The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, PA. He is a leader in understanding of the role of oxidative stress in age-related macular degeneration. The Dunaief lab studies inflammation and iron accumulation in Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and other neurodegenerative diseases alongside a global network of collaborators with the aim of preventing vision loss by leveraging cutting edge basic science research to benefit patients across the world. On joining the University of Pennsylvania Dr Dunaief launched a new line of inquiry - examining the role of oxidative stress in age-related macular degeneration. While studying The Foundation Fighting Blindness’s collection of postmortem AMD retinas, he and his team found elevated iron levels in AMD retinas. This work was reported in 2004 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and was the subject of his first NEI R01. He continues to study the link between iron, oxidative stress and neurodegeneration. He also took care of patients with AMD for 20 years, and participated in several clinical trials. He began his studies in ophthalmology as an undergraduate at Harvard, where his pre-medical advisor was Daniel Albert who had discovered the retinoblastoma gene with Ted Dryja and Robert Weinberg. After leaving Harvard, Josh began his medical education at Columbia University in the Medical Scientist Training Program. As a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Stephen Goff, Dr Dunaief continued to work on retinoblastoma. His graduate career culminated in a first-author publication in Cell which has since been cited over 800 times. For his graduate work Josh received the ‘Most Outstanding PhD Award.’ He went on to residency at Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute where he continued his study of retinoblastoma with Donald Zack. In his final year of residency, he received a K08 grant, funded by the National Eye Institute, and joined the faculty of the Scheie Eye Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the past 20+ years Dr Dunaief has mentored more than 75 undergraduate, graduate, medical and postdoctoral students. Many of them have gone on to pursue basic science and clinical research professionally, starting their own labs and clinical practices.

Professor Robyn Guymer AM is Deputy Director, Head of Macular Research at CERA (Centre for Eye Research Australia). Melbourne, Australia and Professor of Ophthalmology at Melbourne University. She is also a senior retinal specialist at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. She leads CERA’s macular research, with a focus on investigating age-related macular degeneration. Professor Guymer AM is a clinician scientist who leads a team of researchers primarily investigating age-related macular degeneration (AMD). She has investigated genetic and environmental risk factors for AMD, predictors of response to treatments for late AMD, as well as being a principal investigator in many industry-sponsored trials. She is on several pharmaceutical advisory boards and is part of the Mactel consortium, the Beckman/Ryan AMD initiative (USA) and the International Classification of Atrophy (CAM) group. She is currently investigating new strategies for treating early stages of AMD and is working to identify novel imaging and functional biomarkers and surrogate endpoints to improve the feasibility of conducting early intervention trials. She is a member of the Macular Society and an inaugural fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. Professor Guymer was named a Member in the General Division (AM) in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, recognized for her significant service to medicine in the field of ophthalmology, particularly age-related macular degeneration as a clinician, academic and researcher. She was also awarded the NHMRC’s 2016 Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship for the top ranked female research fellowship in clinical medicine. She gained her PhD and MD at the University of Melbourne.

Thierry is a seasoned leader in the biotechnology industry, passionate about improving patient outcomes, with over 20 years of experience, having managed early-stage R&D programs with small molecules, viral gene therapies, and cell therapies. Currently serving as the Chief Scientific Officer at PulseSight, Thierry has spent seven years at the forefront of the organization, shaping its strategic vision and consolidating the company pipeline of cutting-edge products. Earlier in his career, as Head of CNS Pharmacology at Trophos, Thierry played a pivotal role in the identification and preclinical development of olesoxime, the company’s lead compound that exhibited promising efficacy in a phase 3 clinical trial for spinal muscular atrophy. Following Trophos' acquisition by Roche, Thierry became the Director of Preclinical Development at the Biotherapies Institute for Rare Diseases in Evry (France) where he orchestrated the development strategies for advanced therapy medicinal products targeting rare diseases, including a tissue engineered product for retinal degeneration. Thierry is a graduate from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon) and holds a PhD in Microbiology and Virology from Sorbonne University.

Dominik is a founding partner of Pureos and a co-founder and chairman of CDR-Life. Previously, he was a founder and CEO of ESBATech, which was acquired in 2009 by Alcon (Novartis) for USD 589 million. As a biotech entrepreneur, he raised USD 90 million for ESBATech to develop novel antibody fragments from discovery to maturity, delivering multiple clinically successful products (e.g., Brolucizumab). Since 2002 he was a Board Member of the Swiss Biotech Association, the biotech industry organization of Switzerland which he led as President from 2013 to 2022. Dominik obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Zurich.  

Vice Chair of Clinical Research, Ophthalmology Duke University Medical Center. Eleonora (Nora) Lad, MD, PhD is a clinician scientist and retinal ophthalmologist with the primary goal of developing novel strategies for early diagnosis and treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and other retinal degenerative disease. She completed ophthalmology residency at Stanford University where she was awarded the Heed Fellowship, and a medical retina fellowship at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Lad has fulfilled the role of international lead PI for the Apellis phase 3 OAKS study for geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to AMD, the first large phase 3 trial in GA that met its primary endpoint. Dr. Lad serves on the Executive Advisory Boards on multiple companies and advises industry sponsors on novel, approvable visual function assessments in the context of clinical trials for retinal disease, with particular expertise in dry AMD (intermediate and GA) and inherited retinal degeneration. She has assisted with clinical trial protocol design and presentations to the regulatory agencies (FDA and EMA). Dr. Lad serves as a member of the FDA/NEI Ophthalmic Imaging Collaborative Communities on AMD Imaging and Artificial Intelligence, as Heed Society faculty, and on the Advisory Board of the Innovative Medicine-2 (IMI-2) consortium leading the MACUSTAR program.  Dr. Lad has served as the director of grading for retina clinical trials at Duke Reading Center and primary investigator for investigator-initiated and phase 1 through 3 clinical trials at the Duke Eye Center. Dr. Lad was awarded the Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23) from the National Eye Institute, the Veterans Affairs Clinical Science Research and Development I01 Merit Award,  the 2016 ARVO/Alcon Early Career Clinician-Scientist Research Award, Research to Prevent Blindness Ernest & Elizabeth Althouse Special Scholar Award, Duke Health Scholar, and a number of foundation grants.

George is a clinician-scientist serving as CMO at PulseSight Therapeutics, where he leads the clinical development of the company’s non-viral gene therapies platform. building on two decades of earlier experience including large leadership roles, pipeline support and full development support in human pharmacology, clinical pharmacology and translational medicine at Novartis, Pfizer and Roche. He joined ESBATech in 2011 and successfully developed brolucizumab (Beovu) from first in human clinical development to market approval. Benefiting from the acquisition of Esbatech by Alcon then Novartis, George has driven early- and late-stage ophthalmology drug development for Novartis, initially as a Translational Medicine Expert, then a Global Clinical Project Head and finally the Clinical Development Head for Ophthalmology and finally CMO for Gyroscope. Along with his experience, he has developed a deep expertise in clinical development in a large variety of ophthalmology indications, targets and drug formats, including long-acting delivery platforms for retinal diseases and gene therapy for IRDs and AMD/GA. George holds an MD and an MSc in pharmacology and cell biology from the University of Strasbourg.

Vanessa Capuozzo is a Chief Financial Officer specializing in the financial and strategic support of innovative biotech and healthtech startups. She works closely with founders and executive teams as a strategic business partner, covering all key financial areas including financial modeling and business planning, cash flow management, budgeting and forecasting, cost optimization, and the implementation of robust financial reporting and control systems in highly regulated, capital-intensive environments. Vanessa supports startups at various stages of development—from early-stage to growth phases—preparing companies for fundraising, financial due diligence, and institutional partners. She also advises on non-dilutive financing strategies, including grants, innovation funding programs, and tax incentive schemes.

Anne joined the Pureos Bioventures team in 2021. This followed her first venture capital experience as Analyst fellow at M Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Merck KGaA, in Amsterdam. Prior to that, Anne was a Post Doctoral scientist at the University of Basel. Anne obtained her PhD in structural biology from the University of Basel and studied biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Kiel and the University of Jena, in Germany, and at the University of York in the UK.

Kostas is a Venture Partner at ND Capital, bringing extensive experience as a serial entrepreneur adept at co-founding, managing, and steering companies up to successful M&A. Previously, he served as the co-founder and CEO of Arctos Medical, a pioneering gene therapy company for blindness, later acquired by Novartis. Currently, he holds the positions of CEO and co-founder at Epicure Biotechnologies and Evir Therapeutics. Additionally, he co-founded and serves on the Board of Directors at Avrion Therapeutics and ReMedys Foundation. In the past, during his tenure in Merck's KGaA Business Development, Kostas adeptly sourced, negotiated and managed numerous strategic partnerships and licensing agreements. Kostas earned a PhD in molecular embryology from the University of Geneva and had a postdoctoral training in cancer genetics at the Swiss Institute of Cancer Research.

20+ years’ experience working for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Expert in complex clinical development for innovative products.

Expert in Clinical Operations and Regulatory Affairs for Medical Devices and In Vitro Diagnostic (IVD) MD.