Ms Nickelsen is a venture capital professional with more than 18 years of supervisory board and investment experience in companies based all over Europe. Before JPIF, Ms Nickelsen was a partner at Aescap, a life science venture capital fund based in Amsterdam (www.Aescap.com), and before that a director at 3i Group plc in London (www.3igroup.com). She holds an MBA from INSEAD (France) and a Masters in Biology from Philipps University Marburg (Germany).
Dr. Axel Polack is a General Partner at the Joint Polish Investment Fund. Before JPIF Dr. Polack was from 2000 to 2014 a key member of the Life Science team at TVM Capital, which raised more than 680m€ in venture capital and accomplished 67 investments, 18 IPOs (“initial public offerings”) and 15 trade sales. Prior to his career in venture capital he was involved in business management as General Manager and basic biomedical research as Deputy Chairman of a large research institute. He has a proven track record in venture capital and early stage company building.
During his time as board member and lead investor representative Genetix Inc. developed into high flying bluebird bio Inc. which attracted 101m$ through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) at NASDAQ in June 2013. Due to break through successes in gene therapy the company reached today a Market Cap of more than 5b$.
As long term board member of Alzheimer ’s disease specialist Probiodrug AG (PBD) was instrumental for the preparation of its IPO on Euronext Amsterdam in October 2014. It represents one of the rare and successful IPOs of German biotech in recent years.
Co-Founder of Nepentes SA, a manufacturer and supplier of pharmaceuticals. In 1997 IPO on WSE and in 2010 Sale to Sanofi-Aventis for about €106M. Since 2010 active as business angel investing in life-science companies in Poland and abroad.
Has 13 years’ experience in pharmaceutical and life-science industry and 5 years’ experience as Chief Operation Officer in Investment Companies. A Member Management Board of ~10 life science start-up companies. Has been involved in acquisition as well as starting up and management of Investment Targets.
