Lorenzo Leoni
PHD
- Lorenzo Leoni, PhD, is a scientific serial entrepreneur in the biopharmaceutical and biomedical areas with a broad experience in translational medicine (oncology/hematology), drug development, medical device development, clinical development and business development.
- After obtaining a Ph.D. in biochemistry and immunology in Lausanne 1995, he moved to California for a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego and became I Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology Oncology. Dr. Leoni worked on the biology of lymphoproliferative and leukemic diseases and the pharmacology of newly discovered anti-tumor drugs.
- In 2000 he founded Salmedix inc, a biopharmaceutical company based in San Diego venture capital funded, that successfully developed several anti-tumor therapies against hematologic tumors and solid tumors and was sold to a large biotech company in 2005 for $ 200 million.
- After returning to Switzerland, and a brief position as COO of a Swiss public biotech company, he founded and became CEO of Telormedix a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on targeted immunity in the treatment of cancers that developed the experimental product Vesimune. In 2010 Dr. Leoni founded a medical device company developing a wireless implanted biosensor for the continuous diagnosis of clinical biomarkers.
- Since 2011 Dr. Leoni is the CEO of the AGIRE Foundation, the innovation Agency of Southern Switzerland, and managing partner of the seed investment fund AGIRE INVEST that has invested in several biomedical early stage companies.