Presidency
Ernő Duda
President
Ernő Duda is Co-Founder, President & CEO of Solvo Biotechnology, Hungary’s largest independent biotech company. Mr. Duda is also Founder and President of the Hungarian Biotechnology Association and Co-Founder and Chairman of Aquincum Technology Incubator. As a genuine entrepreneur, he has founded or co-founded over 20 companies, including Copy General quick printing chain, a corporate finance consulting company focused on high-tech Hungarian start-ups, and Hungary’s largest online second-hand book store. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Szeged, and teaches biotechnology and entrepreneurship at several Universities. He was the Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hungary, and President of the Junior Achievement Foundation Hungary from 1997 until 2006. Mr. Duda was a member of the Research and Technology Innovation Council from 2005 until 2010, the Board of Trustees of the Bay Zoltán Foundation for Applied Research from 2004 to 2011. Besides holding a position in the board of the Hungarian Association for Innovation, he is also a regular contributor to publications, and frequently holds presentations at conferences and various public events.
Dr. Arnold Fehér
Member of presidency
Dr. Arnold Fehér is founder and managing partner at Convincive Consulting. Convincive provides strategy and business development advisory for biotech / life sciences companies, scientists and innovators with ideas to be commercialized, R&D or TTO institutions (universities, centers of excellence, hospitals, bioincubators, science parks etc.), sector capital investors, authorities and policy makers in Hungary and Europe. Between 2001 and 2004, Dr. Fehér was director of business development at Solvo Biotechnology, a Hungarian biotech company commercialising products and technologies for the pharmaceutical industry world wide. Before, Dr. Fehér gained three years experience in strategy consulting at The Boston Consulting Group’s Budapest office, developing strategies for pharmaceuticals and other technology and services sectors world wide. Previously, Dr. Fehér spent three years in different sales positions at Abbott Diagnostics and two Hungarian healthcare SMEs. Dr. Fehér is an M.D. and also holds an M.Sc. in Business Administration specialized in finance and entrepreneurship. Dr. Fehér leads the Strategic Committee of the Hungarian Biotechnology Association since 2008.Dr. Ferenc Darvas
Member of presidency
Dr. Darvas received his first degree in organic chemistry, another in computer science, and his PhD. in the use of artificial intelligence in drug design. Dr. Darvas is the author of more than 200 publications and over 100 patents. He was teaching in Budapest, Barcelona, Gainesville (Florida, USA), and still teaching as guest professor at Florida International University, Miami. He was pioneering in developing breakthrough solution for combinatorial synthesis of new molecules for drug discovery, which led to the formation of ComGenex, the 1st European combichem firm and contributed also to the formation of the Hungarian Biotechnology Association, where Dr. Darvas was one of the founders and served as the 1st president. Presently he is involved in flow chemistry and microfluidics (ThalesNano), in nanothechnology (InnoStudio, AgroThetis), and in space chemistry (ComZat).Dr. László Ürge
Member of presidency
Dr. Laszlo Urge has a track record in transforming life science research results and innovations into commercial technologies, building international life science technology companies and transforming startup companies into fully integrated production and commercial organizations. He also built companies for exit including the largest bitotechnology related exit in the Central European region.
Currently he is the CEO and a Board member of DBH Investment a Dutch Holding company focusing on high tech lice science investments. Between 2012-2015, he was an Executive Board member of ComInnex Inc. a healthcare and drug discovery technology company where built up a technology platform from research to commercialization and made 4 major biotech and pharmaceutical collaboration deals to find novel drugs against so far non-druggable targets.
Prior to that was the managing director of Nanoform Therapeutics, a drug formulation company that utilizes proprietary nano technology. He was also one of the founders and board members of Druggability Technologies, an Irish based drug and biologics formulation company utilizing microfluidics based platform. Between 2007-2012 was the CEO of ThalesNano where he was leading the transition of the company from a research focused technology company to a commercial organization that became the world leader in the bench top flow chemistry instrument technology market. Prior to that was the VP of European operations for AMRI, a Nasdaq listed drug discovery and development service company. Between 2001-2006 he was the CEO of ComGenex Inc. an integrated drug discovery service provider. In 2006 AMRI acquired ComGenex as the largest biotech exit in the Central European region. From 1998-2001 was the Head of Pharmaceutical Development at Biorex R&D an innovative biotechnology company. Prior to that he was a senior scientist at Neurex corporation in Menlo Park, California, and at Elan Pharmaceutical. Before that he held an academic position at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, PA.
He serves in the board of different technology companies including Indiso, HandinScan, Cason, Norma Diagnostica, DBH Holland BV, Neostratus. He was also a co-founder of many different biotech companies.
He received his Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from Lorand Eotvos University and holds an MS. degree in Chemistry and Chemical Education and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and a visiting scholar at the Brandeis University.
He has 110 scientific publications, inventions/patents, and book chapters.
Dr. András Dinnyés
Member of presidency
Prof. Andras Dinnyes has been working on embryology, cloning and stem cell biology since 1985. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in the US and worked at the Univ. of Connecticut where he achieved major results in somatic cell nuclear replacement. In 2000 Prof. Dinnyes joined the cloning team in Roslin Institute (the „Dolly team”) as team leader, under the guidance of Sir I. Wilmut and had a key role in production of the first gene knock-out lamb, and the first cloned piglet in Europe. After returning to Hungary he established an academic team which produced the first Hungarian cloned mice and rabbit for biomedical purposes. Currently he is full professor at Szent Istvan University, Godollo, HU and he was invited professor at the Veterinary Faculty of Utrecht University, NL from 2010-2016.
Furthermore, in 2005 he has created a spin-off SME, and leading a team of 20 researchers in BioTalentum Ltd focusing on biotechnology, including animal and human stem cell research, transgenic cellular and animal models, iPS cell generation and differentiation for biomedical, toxicology and pharma purposes. Currently he is focusing on development of new pluripotent stem cell lines from different species, including mouse, rabbit and human and their differentiation towards cardiac, neural and other cell types, including 3D neural structures. His team produced the first human iPS cell lines in Hungary including disease specific cell lines from patients. In 2013 he has received the Denis Gabor Innovation Award for his achievement of genetic reprogramming of animals and cells.