Board of Directors

David Guyer, MD, joined SVLS in May 2006 and sits on the boards of Neurotech and Ophthotech.

Dr Guyer was most recently the chief executive officer, co-founder and a director of Eyetech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. prior to the company's acquisition by OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 2005. He co-founded and served as CEO and director for six years of Eyetech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. a biopharmaceutical company that specialized in the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics to treat diseases of the eye. There he led the firm through a series of events representative of the life cycle of a venture-backed portfolio company. OSI Pharmaceuticals subsequently acquired Eyetech in a deal valued at $935 million. Prior to founding Eyetech, David was professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the NYU School of Medicine. David received a B.Sc. from Yale College and an M.D. from Johns Hopkins Medical School.

Axel Bolte is an investment advisor at HBM Partners AG, based in Zurich, Switzerland.

He joined HBM Partners AG from NMT New Medical Technologies, the first Swiss Venture Capital group focused exclusively on the life sciences. Previously, Axel was with Serono SA, where he held a position in R&D management. He is a director of several public and private biotech companies, including Newron Pharmaceuticals SpA (SWX Swiss Exchange: NWRN; Milan, Italy), Nabriva Therapeutics AG (Vienna, Austria), PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (South Plainfield, NJ), Ophthotech Corporation (Princeton, NJ), Lux Biosciences, Inc. (Jersey City, NJ) and MPex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (San Diego, CA). Axel holds an M.B.A. from the University of St. Gallen (HSG). He studied biochemistry and organic chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he focused on the synthesis of complex natural products of marine origin.

Thomas Dyrberg obtained his M.D. degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1981 and his D.M.Sc. degree, also from the University of Copenhagen in 1986.

He held research positions at the Hagedorn Research Institute, Denmark, and at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA.

In 1990 he joined Novo Nordisk A/S, initially working in Health Care Discovery on various aspects of diabetes immunology and pathogenesis, and from 1996 in Health Care Clinical Drug Development as an International Clinical Project Manager.

Thomas joined Novo A/S in December 2000 and serves on the boards of LifeCycle Pharma A/S, Ophthotech Corp, Sapphire Therapeutics, Inc. and Lux Biosciences, Inc.

Dr. Henry Simon joined Schroder Ventures in 1987 as head of the venture capital group which, under his direction, developed a life sciences business in the UK.

Henry was instrumental in raising SVLSF I and was CEO of the life sciences team until March 1997 and then its Chairman until December 2001. Henry is Chairman of Zarlink as well as a director of Gyros and Ophthotech. Henry was previously Chairman of several other companies, including Eyetech, Leica Microsystems, Shire Pharmaceuticals and Chiroscience. Henry has a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Institute of Technology in Munich and a doctorate in Telecommunications from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Samir Patel is the Co-founder, President and CEO of Ophthotech Corporation. He also serves on its Board of Directors. Previously, Dr. Patel was the co-founder and Director of Eyetech Pharmaceuticals where he also served as the Chief Medical Officer and Chief of Clinical and Commercial Strategy.

Prior to joining Ophthotech, Dr. Patel spent over a decade in academic medicine. He joined the University of Chicago, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science in 1991 where he served as the Director of the Retina Service and the residency program and was an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology. His area of academic interest focused on cell therapies for Age Related Macular Degeneration and while at the University of Chicago, he was amongst the first to perform human retinal transplant in the world. Dr. Patel received his Medical Degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and ophthalmology training from the University of Chicago. He received his training in retinal surgery from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Patel has been a consultant to multiple ophthalmic biotechnology companies and serves on the scientific advisory board of Aerie Pharmaceuticals and as a director of EyeGate Pharma