Former Managing Director, Research & Development at Boehringer Ingelheim

Dr. Dieter Hinzen holds a doctorate in Medicine from the University of Cologne (Germany) where he habilitated in Physiology. He is professor at the University of Basel (Switzerland).

After working for several years as scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Gif-sur-Yvette (France), Dieter Hinzen held key positions in the pharmaceutical industry. He worked for F.Hoffmann-La Roche (Switzerland) and for Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany) for over 20 years as Managing Director Research & Development.

During sojourn in Switzerland (until 1998) Dieter Hinzen held memberships in the Board of the Schweizerischer Wissenschaftsrat (Swiss Science Council); in the Scientific Board of the Swiss Academy of Technological Sciences; the Board of Directors of Helicon Therapeutics, Inc. (USA). He is member of the Advisory Board of the RSVP Group (Germany).

Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Research & Development at Merck Serono

Dr. Florian Bieber is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Merck Serono since April 2010. He is based in Darmstadt with offices both in Darmstadt and Geneva.

Before joining Merck Serono Dr. Bieber was with Novartis Consumer Health Inc. in the USA where he held the position of Vice President Research & Development, Pain Category.

Since he joined Novartis in 2005, he had different positions including the Head of Clinical and pre-clinical Development and Drug Safety for the OTC Division.

Prior to this, Dr. Bieber worked at Human Genome Sciences (HGS) Europe where he was Managing Director and VP of Drug Development. At HGS, he built the European organization and was responsible for development activities in oncology and immunology between 2003 and 2005.

Dr. Bieber also worked at Bayer Pharma where he progressed through various positions of increasing responsibility in clinical research, portfolio strategy and project management in cardiovascular and neuroscience ultimately assuming the role of VP Therapeutic Area Cardiovascular, Neuroscience and Metabolic Disorders.

Dr. Bieber holds a bachelor's degree in Biology and a medical degree from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.

Senior Vice President, Head Global Early Development at Bayer HealthCare

Directs the global activities of all pre-clinical development functions (Toxicology, Safety Pharmacology, DMPK, Animal Management). Has the final say in all matters of non-clinical safety for Bayer HealthCare and is the speaker for Toxicology for the entire Bayer group. Functional and operational responsibility for all pre-clinical units at Bayer HealthCare

Experimental experience in conducting a broad range of toxicological studies, broad experience in designing preclinical/toxicological testing strategies, broad regulatory expertise, broad expertise in toxicological risk assessment and risk management

Long-lasting managerial experience in supervising departments/institutes with up to 540 employees and managing inter-disciplinary teams, leading several re-structuring processes, continuous improvement processes, "controlled experiments" and lessons learned activities

Lecturer at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), University of Bonn (Germany) and University (Charite) of Berlin (Germany); Former member of the Scientific Committee (ECETOC); Member of the Drug Safety Executive Council (DSEC); Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Fraunhofer Institute of Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (Hannover, Germany)