Ulf Grawunder, PhD

Shareholder, Strategic Advisor

Dr. Ulf Grawunder is Managing Partner of Viopas Venture Consulting (Basel, Switzerland), a consulting company in the healthcare sector supporting investors/family offices for investment opportunities and healthcare companies for fundraising, business strategy, licensing, and M&A respectively. 

As a serial entrepreneur Ulf has founded several highly successful Biotech companies. In 2004, he co-founded the Biotech company 4-Antibody AG in Basel, Switzerland, where he served as its founding CEO and later as CSO. 4-Antibody was sold in 2014 to Agenus Inc. Already in 2012 Ulf founded NBE-Therapeutics in Basel, Switzerland, developing next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for improved cancer therapies. He served as the company’s CEO since its foundation, as well as COO and CDO once the company started clinical trials and until Boehringer Ingelheim Inc. acquired NBE Therapeutics in 2021 for USD 1.4 billion in 2020. Ulf also co-founded T-CURX in 2018, a spin-off from the University of Würzburg, Germany, focused on the development of CAR-T cell-based cancer therapies. 

In addition, Ulf is an advisor, mentor and teacher in the Integrated Immunology Master’s program «iImmune» (University of Erlangen, Germany), the European Center for Pharmaceutical Medicine EPCM (University of Basel, Switzerland) and the Swiss Startup program «Venture Kick». Ulf also holds the roles of Vice-president and Board member in the Swiss Biotech Association. 

Ulf is a biochemist and received his PhD in Immunology from the Basel Institute for Immunology (Switzerland). Before becoming a Biotech entrepreneur, his academic career included positions as post-doctoral research scientist at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, USA), the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, USA) and as principal investigator at the Basel Institute for Immunology and the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Ulf also has a Diploma in Technology Entrepreneurship from the University of St. Gallen School of Business, Switzerland.