In the light of the International Women's day, we invite you to celebrate successful female leaders in the Biotech and learn about their journeys and experiences. The event is jointly organised by In´C2 initiative (Innovation, curiosity and creativity promoting tech-transfer initiative at the Institut Curie) and LIBRA (initiative unifying efforts of European research centres to achieve gender equality in academia) and Université PSL.

The current work done by leaders in academia and industry will determine the course of development of the Biotech field in the future. Let's discover together inspiring female leaders and learn about the current research on gender equality in the field. The event will be held in English with the following speakers:

• The keynote speaker: Rafaèle Tordjman, who has more than 15 years of life science investment experience. She has been the managing partner at Sofinnova (Biggest venture capital firm in France, which has financed and accompanied over 500 life science companies). Starting with successful career in medical research, she continued with investment and served on the board of such biotechs as Ascendis and DBV Technologies. She is promoting gender equality in Biotech and has founded W.I.T.H. to connect women in healthcare.

• Jörg Müller from The Interdisciplinary Internet Institute, Barcelona. He is a member of LIBRA advisory board, researcher in practical approaches of studying gender (in)equality and coordinator of the H2020 project GEDII – “Gender-Diversity-Impact” (2015-2018). He will be the opening speaker with his talk 'Closing the Gender Gaps in Science: Opportunities of Gender Diversity for Biotechnology'.

• Géraldine Le Duc, co-founder and CEO of NH TherAguix,a clinical stage start-up company. After fruitful research career at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and co-authoring more than 100 research papers, she co-founded NH TherAguix aiming to translate to clinics a novel nanotechnology based therapy against cancer, the AGuIX nanoparticles. She will participate with talk ‘From Lab to Entrepreneurship in Cancer Research: a Woman’s Vision’.

• Stephanie Descroix is a researcher at the IPGG and Institut Curie, where focuses on the development of microfluidic devices for biophysical and biomedical applications. She has authored more than 70 papers and 5 patents. She has been awarded in 2013 by the French Chemical Society. And since 2013, she is head of the CNRS French Micro and Nanofluidic Network. She is co-founder of Inorevia company in 2016. Her talk is entitled 'A journey in the microfluidic world'.

• Judith Greciet, CEO of Onxeo. Doctor of Pharmacy with a master’s degree in management and pharmaceutical marketing, Judith Greciet spent some fifteen years working her way up through subsidiaries of international pharmaceutical companies. She has held major managerial positions (Pharmacia, Zeneca, LFB, Wyeth France (now Pfizer)) until she finally became President of the French subsidiary of the Japanese laboratory Eisai in June 2007. Since 2016, Judith Greciet is the CEO of Onxeo developing innovative drugs for rare and orphan cancers.

• Ksenija Pavletic CEO of Preglem, president of Gedeon Richter France. Ksenija Pavletic has an MSc Biotechnology and MBA degree and over 10 years experience in sales and marketing in the biotech industry, working in the fields of reproductive health, endocrinology and HIV/AIDS. In 2011, she became president of Gedeon Richter France and in 2015 also the CEO of PregLem, a Swiss-based biotech company acquired by Gedeon Richter in 2010.

Short talks will be followed by informal networking and cocktail.

The event is open to everyone interested with mandatory registration here. Welcome!

Contact: inc2.initiative@curie.fr in case of any questions.