About us

Dr. Esteban Pombo-Villar, the Chief Executive Officer of TargImmune Therapeutics, has over 30 years of experience in leading biopharmaceutical R&D and business development. Previously he was Chief Operations Officer (COO) for Oxford BioTherapeutics, and a Member of their Boards of Directors. Prior to joining Oxford BioTherapeutics, Dr. Pombo-Villar was at Novartis and Sandoz for over 23 years, the last 12 years engaged in Business Development and Alliance Management, and as Head of Alliance Management at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR), Prior to that as medicinal chemist…

Dr. Eric Kitas is the Chief Development Officer at TargImmune Therapeutics AG.  A Medicinal Chemist, he was previously Senior Principal Scientist, Team Leader in the pRED Division of F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Basel. He has over 20 years’ experience in cutting edge drug discovery and project leadership across multiple disease areas including Neuroscience, Cardiovascular & Metabolism, Ophthalmology and Oncology. An Australian citizen, he completed both undergraduate and graduate degrees at The University of Melbourne. At the end of 1990 he joined Roche…

Dr. Maya Zigler has played a major role in the establishment of TargImmune and its activities. Dr Zigler completed her Ph.D at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas on melanoma metastases and progression. She has significant expertise and specialized knowledge in cancer biology. Dr. Zigler joined Professor Alex Levitzki’s laboratory as a postdoc in 2011 where she conducted extensive research, focused on expanding and improving the CTPIC technology to target additional cancer targets. She secured the ERC POC grant in 2013 for the Levitzki laboratory to pursue the CTPIC technology…

Kuno Sommer, Ph.D., today focuses on active board memberships in the life sciences sector as non-executive member. He became Chairman of the Board of the Bachem Group starting in 2012. In his last operational role he headed the contract research division of Harlan Laboratories Ltd. From 2000 until 2006 he was CEO of Berna Biotech Ltd, which was sold to Crucell N.V. in 2006 (today Johnson & Johnson). Starting in 1986 at F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd he worked in various functions until 1999 and spent 4 years in the US. In his last position at Roche he became a member of the Executive Committee…

Dr Peter Kash is a co-founder and a lead investor in TargImmune Therapeutics. He is a global biotech entrepreneur and has raised significant capital for private biotech companies. He has co-founded more than a dozen companies and his former investment banks financed several blockbuster biotech firms including Keryx, Intercept, Kite, Cougar and Velcera. Collectively the companies he co-founded have 6 FDA approved drugs. Dr. Kash was a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Wharton School of Business and has been a visiting professor at several other leading universities…

Professor of biochemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Early in his career he earned his Ph.D. in (Biochemistry and Biophysics) Summa cum Laude at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and The Weizmann Institute. Amongst many visiting professorships he also served as a Fogarty International Scholar at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Several of his outstanding honors include: The Israel Prize in Biochemistry (1990), the Rothschild Prize in Biology (1990), The Wolf Prize in Medicine (2005), The EMET Prize for Cancer Research (2017)…

Christoph joined Santhera in 2015. He is an expert in international public and private funding markets. Prior to Santhara he worked at a privately held Polyphor as CFO, where he supported the company in key stages of its development. He was a partner of Caperis Ltd, an investment advisory and management firm. Christoph worked as Head of Group Funding and Capital Markets at Roche, he was responsible for all finance transactions on group level for more than 8 years. He also led various senior management functions for the Alusuisse-Lonza Group both in Switzerland and in the USA…

Professor of biochemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Early in his career he earned his Ph.D. in (Biochemistry and Biophysics) Summa cum Laude at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and The Weizmann Institute. Amongst many visiting professorships he also served as a Fogarty International Scholar at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Several of his outstanding honors include: The Israel Prize in Biochemistry (1990), the Rothschild Prize in Biology (1990), The Wolf Prize in Medicine (2005), The EMET Prize for Cancer Research (2017)…

Winzer Professor of Medicine in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University, Stanford, California. In 2006 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in recognition for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription, the process by which DNA is copied to RNA.  In 2009, he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. During his career, he received numerus awards including the Eli Lilly Award, the Passano Award, the Ciba-Drew Award, the Gairdner International Award (shared with R. Roeder), the Pasarow Award in Cancer Research, the Le Grand Prix Charles-Leopold Mayer…

Full Professor of Translational Oncology at the Departments of Medical Oncology and Biomedicine, Cancer Immunology at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. In these functions he is Co-Chair of the Department of Oncology with a clinical focus on melanoma and lung cancer, conducting clinical trials as well as supervising clinical research in his laboratory focusing on translational research in the area of cancer immunotherapy and the development of novel targeted cancer therapies. Prof. Zippelius studied medicine at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich, Germany…

Former Chairman of the Division of Oncology at The Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel and Clinical Professor of Oncology (Emeritus) at the Tel-Aviv University. Prof. Catane served as the Director of the Institute of Oncology at Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Director of Clinical Cancer Research-Pharmaceutical Research Institute at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Connecticut, USA, and Acting Head of the Sharett Institute of Oncology at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. He has held positions as Guest Researcher, Clinical Associate and Special Assistant…