Board of directors
Didier Malherbe has served as the chairman of the board since 2020.
After having completed his law studies at the UCL (1985), Didier Malherbe followed a postgraduate corporate and business law degree at the VUB. He founded the first Student Fair in Belgium -Salon de l’Etudiant- in 1988. He started his professional career as a cabinet member for different governments on regional and federal levels. His first mission focused on the development of the regional airports in Wallonia. He worked for Spadel (Belgian Mineral Water Company) and BellSouth (US), developing the mobile telephony business in Europe and in Belgium in particular, after an executive master of business administration program (EMBA) at the G. Washington University and an internship at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
After a high level experience in both private and public sector, he joined the FEB (Federation of Enterprises in Belgium), where he worked as Executive Director during ten years.
He developed the Communication, the press relations, the publications and the events together with the external relations of the FEB and the economic activities of the State visits of HRH King Albert II, abroad. From 1995 to 2006, he was Communal Councillor of Watermael-Boitsfort and Deputy Mayor. In 2000, he founded the European Business Summit (EBS) of which he is still the Director. In 2005, he created and developed the largest Belgian business event “175 companies in the spotlight for 175 years of Belgium”. He joined UCB in March 2006, as Vice President Public Affairs and Administrateur délégué of UCB Belgium.
He received his Ph.D in organic chemistry from the University of Namur (Belgium) and a Master in Drug Design from the University of Lille (France).
He began his career as a scientist with Janssen Pharmaceutical (Belgium) working on pain, gastro-intestinal disease, cancer, allergy and virology and left the company as principal scientist after five years. Then he joined Tibotec (Belgium), working on the Prezista and the TMC435 project (HCV, protease inhibitor). He was director of the medicinal chemistry department; developing anti-infectious research at Johnson & Johnson (Janssen Pharmaceuticals). Next, he moved to Idenix Pharmaceutical and was Vice-President of the medicinal chemistry department. Under his supervision, the team based in Montpellier delivered promising drugs candidates, HCV nucleotide polymerase inhibitors (IDX21437/21459), HCV non-nucleoside polymerase inhibitor (IDX375), excellent HCV protease inhibitors (IDX320, IDX719) and an NS5A inhibitor (IDX791).
She is a physician and a medical biologist, co-owner of a medical diagnostic laboratory and has a position at the St Eloi Hospital (Montpellier, France), treating patients with infectious diseases.
Jean-Marc Legrand has served as an executive board member since 2017.
Jean-Marc Legrand is a lawyer and a holder of several diplomas in finance, tax and business management. Jean-Marc has been corporate and investment banker with Bank Brussels Lambert (Brussels, London, Tokyo), ING Barings (Tokyo) from 1992 until 2002 and Manager of Private Banks (ING in Eastern Belgium and Brussels) and UBS in Belgium, from 2002 until 2012. He has subsequently co-founded FIDE Capital, a conflict of interest-free asset manager in Brussels from 2012 and remains a stakeholder of the conflict of interest-free investment engine which performs over there. Jean-Marc Legrand is the founder and managing director of TheClubDeal, a Financial Holding offering to co-investors various services of applied governance from selection to supervision of investments into SME’s and real estate projects.
Frederic Schynts has served as an executive board member since 2019.
Frédéric Schynts is a Doctor in Veterinary Medicine (1996) and Ph.D. in Virology and Vaccinology (2002) from the University of Liège (Belgium). He is also Master in Laboratory Animal Science (2003) from the University of Liège (Belgium).
From 2002 to 2007, Frédéric Schynts was Director at the CER Group in Marloie (Belgium), where he was responsible for the Virology Department and Scientific Coordinator of the CER Group. From 2007 to 2013, Frédéric Schynts held various positions at GSK Vaccines (Belgium). He was first responsible of a team developing analytical methods (using molecular biology and cellular biology techniques) for the characterization and release of PhI and PhII vaccinal clinical lots. He was then appointed Project Manager of Influenza vaccine development projects and finally he was Director Development Intelligence for Influenza, HPV and Dengue vaccines development programs. Since 2013, Frédéric Schynts has founded and is the owner of Schynts Consulting SRL, a company providing services for the development of biopharmaceuticals and pharmaceuticals, Laboratory animal sciences and Medicine, due diligence for investment funds in life sciences (pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, medical device, in vitro diagnostics), development of business plans and business models for life sciences projects.
Cyril Dousson has served as an independent board member since 2021.
After obtaining his masters of chemistry and bio-organic chemistry from the Universities of Montpellier and Marseille (France), Cyril obtained his organic chemistry Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom).
Cyril Dousson is the actual CEO of AI-biopharma, a biotech company engaged in the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of human diseases and Medicinal Chemistry services. Prior to Ai-biopharma, he was at AstraZeneca oncology medicinal chemistry group in Alderley Park-UK, and amongst other researches, worked on the discovery of Barasertib. Cyril joined later on, Idenix pharmaceuticals in Montpellier-France, where he headed the Medicinal Chemistry department and became, after the Idenix-MSD acquisition, head of the French discovery site.
During his near to 20 years as a drug hunter in Pharma and Biotech, he participated in and led several drug discovery programs which have advanced in clinical trials (IDX375, Samatasvir, Uprifosbuvir, Fosdevirine…). Cyril Dousson is co-inventor of over 40 international patents and patent applications and co-author of 20 scientific publications. He is specialized in all aspects of preclinical candidate drug discovery, optimization and selection.
