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Chief Executive Officer, Board Member
Walter Schmidt is a founder of AFFiRiS and the CEO of the company. He is also a founder of InterCell AG, the first Austrian biotech company that was initiated on the basis of international venture capital in 1998. He invented InterCell's key vaccine technologies, on which this company is based and which are now under phase II clinical testing in HCV patients. After establishing the company he took over a senior management position in business development with InterCell. Prior to founding InterCell, from 1991 to 1997 he was working as staff scientist with Max Birnstiel on cancer vaccines at Boehringer Ingelheim´s Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna. Walter Schmidt got his PhD in 1990 with Fritz Eckstein at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, Germany. His thesis in the field of HIV was awarded with the Otto Hahn medal for outstanding young scientists, and since then he became the author of numerous scientific key publications. Walter Schmidt is the inventor of several fundamental patents/patent applications in the field of vaccines and he is furthermore particularly experienced in the establishment and development of start up biotech companies.
Chief Scientific Officer, Board Member
Frank Mattner, CSO, is co-founder of AFFiRiS and as Chief Scientific Officer in charge of the research and development division. His immunological research generated numerous scientific patents and publications. Following many years of work in academia, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, today he puts his expertise at the disposal of AFFiRiS for developing new drugs to thus-far incurable diseases.
Chief Financial Officer
Richard Westmoreland serves as the CFO of AFFiRiS AG. He is one of the most experienced managers in the biotechnology industry in Austria. He has over twenty years experience in financial and operational management where the majority of these have been with top pharmaceutical companies such as Serono and Smith & Nephew. Most recently he was Managing Director of Innovacell a biotechnology company developing cell based therapies where he structured funding, organized production and research and development facilities and set up the internal structure and strategy for the company. He has also served as board member and CFO of InterCell AG where he used his experience to guide a leadership team from academic backgrounds to structure the company for operational performance. Richard started his carrier at Citicorp Investment Bank and has been instrumental in raising over 100M Euros for early stage biotechnology companies..
