Joël Jean-Louis Besse

Atlas Venture LLP is the London office of the independent and partner-owned venture capital investment group Atlas Venture Inc., headquartered in Boston with additional offices in Paris and Munich, plus an administrative office in Amsterdam. The group originated in 1980 and focuses on high-technology financing, aiming for a transatlantic operations model. The London office was established in 1986. The group manages a range of venture capital funds.

Neurotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. designs and develops therapeutic systems for retinal diseases. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Cumberland, RI.

U3 Pharma AG researches and develops novel targeted therapeutics aimed at treating human disease. It develops products for hyperproliferative diseases such as cancer and commercializes human monoclonal antibody therapies directed against validated proprietary drug targets selected from its portfolio. In addition, it has created a second generation functional genomics platform, TASC, which mimics the progression of a tumor cell as it progresses towards its fully malignant cancerous state. Founded in 2001, the company is headquartered in Martinsried, Germany.

Horizon Therapeutics Schweiz GmbH is a biopharmaceutical company that develops and commercializes medicines to target unmet therapeutic needs in arthritis, pain and inflammatory diseases. The company was originally founded in 2004 as a spin-out of Merck KGaA and is headquartered in Reinach, Switzerland.

Novexel SA researches and develops anti-infective drugs for the treatment of bacterial and fungal infections. The firm focuses on discovery and development of novel antibiotics designed to overcome the significant global problem of microbial resistance. The company was founded in December 2004 and is headquartered in Romainville, France.

Actelion Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd. discovers, develops, and markets drugs. Its products are Tracleer for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension and Zavesca, which is used to treat Type 1 Gaucher disease. The company is headquartered in London, UK.

Axovan AG conducts biopharmaceutical research and develops pharmaceuticals. Active in pharmaceutical research and development, it focuses on the family of drug targets called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are involved in a number of pathologies. It has developed a validated GPCR-based chemical library through its proprietary chem-informatics platform AXADDIS. Its lead product, clasozentan, is an intravenous endothelin receptor antagonist optimized for treating cerebral diseases. It is partnering non-core indication projects (pain, metabolic diseases, inflammation) at earlier stages. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Allschwil, Switzerland.

Entomed SA discovers and develops novel medicines derived from insects. It discovers and develops new drugs derived from the biology of insects with a focus on their immune response. Entomed's technology is based on the scientific work carried out by Prof. Jules A. Hoffmann's world leading team in the CNRS Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMC) in Strasbourg. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, France.