Board of Directors
Donald Kalff, MBA, PhD
Dr. Kalff is an expert in the field of corporate governance, development, innovation and decision-making. Over the past ten years he published two books on those subjects and numerous articles in Dutch and English papers and journals. He provides advice to consulting groups, institutions and enterprises on effecting structural change. In 2008 Dr. Kalff was appointed as Senior Fellow in the Management Department of the Wharton School. He is a founder of AIMM and an investor in biotech companies. Previously, Dr Kalff was a member of the Executive Board of KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines. Before he joined KLM, he was a member of the international staff of Royal Dutch Shell and held management positions in marketing, trading en strategic planning. Prior to his entrée in the business world Dr Kalff was assistant professor at the Rotterdam School of management, lecturing on industrial relations and corporate planning. Dr. Kalff earned an MBA degree at the Interfaculteit Bedrijfskunde Delft/ Rotterdam and a PhD degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Tom Schwarz (Chairman)
Mr. Schwarz is Managing Partner at the Life Sciences Fund Amsterdam (LSFA); an early stage venture capital fund that made the seed investment in AIMM Therapeutics in 2009 and he consequently joined AIMM Therapeutics as chairman of the Board. Mr. Schwarz possesses seed and early stage investment and corporate experience. Next to LSFA, he co-founded the Erasmus MC Biomedical Fund and the Twente Technology Fund. Mr. Schwarz started his venture capital career in 1998, when he co-founded Life Sciences Partners (LSP), a leading European life sciences venture capital fund. He enjoys strong contacts within the academic and pharmaceutical community. Mr. Schwarz is a pharmacist by training, gained his experience in the life sciences industry as a CEO and co-founder of U-Gene Research, a contract research organization in The Netherlands, which he sold in 1997 to Kendle (US). Mr. Schwarz has led a number of investment processes, including recently AIMM, ArgenX and Regenesance and has held board positions at most of these companies. He has extensive experience with early and later stage biotech companies and was actively involved in founding and management of several start-ups, involving strategy development, fundraising, and M&A.
Thomas Jung , MD
Dr. Jung is an experienced Translational Medicine Specialist. He is Chief Medical Officer at Delenex, Zurich, Switzerland. Prior to that he was Head of Translational Medicine EU at Novartis, Basel, Switzerland, where he was responsible for all proof of concept studies in many major disease area’s including autoimmunity, gastro-enterology, respiratory diseases, neuroscience and muscular -skeletal diseases. As Global Head Development of the Immunology and Infectious Diseases Franchise Dr. Jung was leading large multi-disciplinary teams involved in 11 major drug development programs from proof of concept studies to marketing authorization. At Novartis Dr. Jung conducted many successful proof of concept studies, both with low molecular compounds and biologicals. He was the driving force behind the successful registration of ILARIS ( Canakinumab ) for Cryopyrin Associated Periodic Syndromes and for expansion of its clinical utility in other diseases such as gout, Still’s disease and type 2 diabetes. As a physician -scientist Dr. Jung conducted immunological research at the Novartis Research Institute in Vienna, Austria, the DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto, USA, the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, USA and the University of Marburg, Germany, from which he obtained his MD degree. Dr. Jung is a board certified dermatologist and he also holds an Associate Professor‘s position at the University of Göttingen, Germany.