Max Colao, MBA, joined OncoVerity as Chief Executive Officer, bringing more than 30 years of biotechnology leadership expertise. His most recent role was as Chief Commercial Officer at Aurinia, where he established and guided the commercial team through launch. At Alexion, Max took on progressively senior roles, heading the US commercial operations and leading the launches of several rare disease therapies. Max also spent two decades at Amgen, in a number of senior positions, where he launched various therapies in hematology, oncology, and autoimmune disorders including Enbrel™, significantly contributing to Amgen’s transformation from small biotech to large pharma.
Arjen Lemmen serves as Executive Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy at argenx, which he joined in 2016. In his role, he has successfully executed several transactions including a number of programs within the Immunology Innovation Program and the strategic collaboration with Janssen for cusatuzumab.
Prior to joining argenx, Arjen served as a corporate finance specialist at Kempen & Co focusing on M&A, Equity Capital Markets and strategic advisory transactions in the European life sciences industry. He holds a B.Sc. in Life Science & Technology from the University of Groningen and a Master of Engineering Management from Duke University.
Petra Van Vlierberghe serves as Vice President, Head of Global Clinical Operations at argenx, which she joined in 2020. Ms. Van Vlierberghe has over 24 years of global clinical research and drug development experience, a passion for building global teams and a track record of driving teams to targeted results.
Prior to her role at argenx, she functioned as Global Head Integrated Solutions for Oncology and Hematology at Parexel. She was previously responsible for client relationship of biotech, midsize and large pharma and successfully developed several accounts from tactical outsourcing to strategic partnership. She has expertise across all phases of clinical development and multiple therapeutic areas, with a special interest in innovation in patient centricity and innovations in clinical trials.
Steve Hess is the chief information officer for UCHealth, a nationally recognized, nonprofit health care system with operating revenue of $6 billion and a workforce of more than 28,000 people. UCHealth includes 12 Colorado hospitals with over 2,000 inpatient beds and more than 150 clinic locations in Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska.
Mr. Hess is responsible for the management of information systems across the enterprise, including Epic, an electronic medical record system; UCHealth.org; and My Health Connection, a patient portal.
Previously, Mr. Hess was the chief information officer for University of Colorado Hospital, a partner of UCHealth.
Prior to joining UCHealth, Mr. Hess was the chief information officer for Christiana Care Health System, one of the country’s largest health care providers.
Kimberly Muller is the Executive Director of CU Innovations where she leads innovation for the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Kimberly’s business development responsibilities include investing, company creation, innovation management, forming key strategic industry partnerships, and licensing. Large-scale industry collaborations have been established in areas such as AI and drug development. She also manages several investment funds, including a $10 million innovation grant fund, a $50 million early stage venture fund, a $75 million follow-on fund, and partners with UCHealth on a $100 million growth stage fund.
Kimberly joined the University of Colorado from Yale University where she was formerly the Deputy Director of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (YEI), and managed New Ventures in the Office of Cooperative Research. During Kimberly’s tenure, Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research started more than 70 new ventures that have raised over $5 billion in investor capital.
Previously, Kimberly started and sold companies in the biotech, tech, and clean energy fields, companies included Curagen Corporation (acquired by Celldex Therapeutics), 454 Life Science (acquired by Roche), and Arbor Fuel, a biofuel company that utilized recombinant microorganisms for the production of ethanol and butanol. Kimberly began her career in New York as a patent attorney for Chadbourne and Parke, LLP.
Kimberly has a graduate degree in Genetics and received her law degree with highest honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law.