Mission
I am passionate about developing breakthrough inventions in cancer research in products that can transform cancer treatment. I love to immerse myself in novel science and technology. I enjoy to navigate through scientific, regulatory and commercial complexity together with smart and committed professionals to define the optimal path for companies to become attractive candidates for licensing, acquisition or IPO.
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​Specialties: oncology, venture capital, company creation, corporate strategy development, operational support
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Oncopreneur is an independent consultancy firm established by Ernst Geutjes, PhD, a biotechnology entrepreneur and investment professional with deep expertise in cancer research, oncology drug development and venture creation. He has worked on both sides of the table as an executive in new venture creation and as an investor in oncology start-ups. Since 2014, he has been with Aglaia Oncology Funds, a boutique venture capital firm that is specialized in early-stage oncology therapeutics investments and venture creation, initially as partner and currently as venture partner. Some of Aglaia’s companies are Merus (IPO 2016), Syntarga (trade sale 2011), ISA Pharmaceuticals and Sapreme Technologies. He has evaluated more than a 1500 oncology investment propositions and invested in a range of drug modalities and platform technologies: small molecules, antibodies, ADCs, bi-specifics, protein-protein interaction inhibitors, macrophage modulators, nanoparticles, epigenetic enzymes, miRNAs, ASOs and chemotherapy.
Dr. Geutjes provided hands-on strategic support to Aglaia’s portfolio companies. He was the interim managing director of Sapreme Technologies, which develops a disruptive endosomal escape platform. He lead the transition of Sapreme, an academic spin-out to a professional biotech, establishing the company's foundational IP portfolio and the development of killer PoCs that enabled early collaborations with pharma. He was part of task forces to develop business, R&D and fundraising strategies for Mimetas, Inthera Bioscience and Macrophage Pharma. He was board observer for Inthera Bioscience, Macrophage Pharma and Sapreme Technologies. Dr. Geutjes has been in the oncology space since 2006 and built a global network with oncology innovators and KOLs, executives, investors and business development professionals in pharma.
Before Aglaia he worked as business development manager for TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), an independent research organisation in the Netherlands that focusses on applied science. His main objective was to investigate the potential to spin-out technology originating from TNO such as the big data analytics proposition Edgeleap and industrial biotech proposition Dutch DNA Biotech. He lead the idea to business concept for Dutch DNA biotech leading to its spin-out. Dutch DNA was acquired by Gingo Bioworks in 2021. Edgeleap became a succesful services company.
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He developed this entrepreneurial spirit in his academic life working in the laboratory of Hidde Ploegh at Harvard Medical School and at the translational cancer research group of Prof. Rene Bernard at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. The group of Prof. Bernards uses functional genomics to identify novel cancer targets and unravel the determinants of resistance to anticancer drugs. The group’s discoveries lead to the creation of several biotech companies (Agendia i.e.) and the development of a novel combination therapy for BRAF mutant colorectal cancer that formed the basis of Pfizer's acquisition of Array for 11.4 billion $. Dr Geutjes's research was on apoptosis, the ubiquitin system and epigenetics in which he had a fruitful collaboration with Prof. Stephen Baylin at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
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