Chair
Dr. Hecht has been the Chair of Affimed’s Supervisory Board since 2007. He is Head of Hecht Healthcare Consulting in Küssnacht, Switzerland, a biopharmaceutical consulting company founded in 2002. Dr. Hecht also serves as Chair of Aelix Therapeutics and as member of the board of directors of BioInvent, Sweden.
Previously, Dr. Hecht served as a director of Humabs BioMed AG until August 2017 and he served as chairman of the board of directors of Cell Medica Ltd. Until the beginning of June 2020, he served as chair of the board of directors of Vaximm AG, until March 2015, he served as chairman of the supervisory council of SuppreMol GmbH and until June 2016, of Delenex AG. Dr. Hecht was previously Vice President Marketing at Amgen Europe. A seasoned manager and industry professional, he held various positions of increasing responsibility in clinical development, medical affairs and marketing at Amgen between 1989 and 2002. Prior to joining the biopharmaceutical industry, he was certified in internal medicine and served as Co-Head of the Program for Bone Marrow Transplantation at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
Dr. Jenkins has been a member of Affimed’s Supervisory Board since August 2020 and has been appointed Vice-chair in June 2024. She is a life sciences thought leader with over 25 years of experience building and financing companies pursuing cures for the most challenging diseases globally. She has consistently mentored leadership teams advancing programs from basic research through clinical development, regulatory approval, and into healthcare systems globally.
Dr Jenkins graduated in Medicine at the University of London and received her Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians London. She trained in Cardiovascular medicine and was a research fellow at Imperial College.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Jenkins was a medical officer in the British Royal Navy during the Gulf Conflict, achieving the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander. She also held senior leadership roles at Merck Serono, and Bristol Myers-Squibb over 15 years. Dr. Jenkins served as President and CEO of Dimension Therapeutics, a leading gene therapy company she took public on the NASDAQ and subsequently sold to Ultragenyx. Following her relocation back to the UK, she developed a portfolio of roles spanning the public, private and charitable sectors including Genomics England, The King’s Fund, British Heart Foundation and Chair of YouBelong, a leading mental health care charity. She is also a Board member of several growing public and private companies including AVROBIO, COMPASS Pathways, Mereo Biopharma, Skye Bioscience and Letterone Holdings SA & Letterone Investment Holdings SA.
Dr. Jenkins serves on a number of advisory boards and contributes publicly on leadership with purpose, social entrepreneurship, diversity and innovation.
Dr. Ehmer has been a member of Affimed’s Supervisory Board since 2016. In May 2022, he has been elected to chair the board of directors and as member of the audit committee of Biotest AG, where he already served as chair of the board of management until April 2019. Furthermore, he is on the Board of Directors at Achilles Therapeutics since May 2022. Dr. Ehmer served as chair of the board of directors at Symphogen A/S, Denmark until June 2020. Prior to this, he worked for the Imclone Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly, as President of Imclone Systems Corporation in the United States and as managing director in Germany.
In 2007/2008 he was CEO of Fresenius Biotech, Germany and before this, Dr. Ehmer headed the Business Area Oncology of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt and served as head of Global Clinical Operations at Merck. Between 1986 and 1998 he held various functions at Boehringer Mannheim in Germany, Italy and Singapore. Dr. Ehmer holds a degree in medicine and worked in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Academic Teaching Hospital of the University of Heidelberg.
Dr. Ulmer-Eilfort joined Affimed’s Supervisory Board in June 2023. She has long-term legal experience advising Biotech and Pharma companies in major transactions, brings in skills and experience in ESG, compliance, governance, and corporate strategy.
Since 2022, Dr. Ulmer-Eilfort has been a partner at the law firm Peters, Schönberger & Partner, an interdisciplinary law and advisory firm located in Munich, Germany. Prior to that, Dr. Ulmer-Eilfort has worked at Baker McKenzie serving in several roles, including as partner since 1998, Member of the Global Executive Committee since 2017, and as Managing Partner of the German and Austrian offices from 2012 to 2017. Since 2021, Dr. Ulmer-Eilfort serves as member of the supervisory board of Evotec SE, a Hamburg based publicly listed drug discovery and development company. She also serves as Chair of the Advisory Committee at Smart4Diagnostics GmbH, a biotechnology start-up based in Munich since 2021. Additionally, Dr. Ulmer-Eilfort is a member of the board of Proxygen GmbH, a Vienna based biotech company developing and commercializing molecular glue degraders, and is advisor to the management board of Artidis AG, a Basel healthcare company developing a technology platform for the rapid diagnosis of cancer, both since 2022.
Dr. Ulmer-Eilfort holds a law degree from the University of Munich, a Master of Law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and a doctorate degree in law from the University of Berlin.