Board of Directors

Silvano Spinelli

Chairman of the Board

Silvano is Venture Partner at Sofinnova Partners, co-founder of Enthera and Founder and Chairman of BiovelocITA, the first Italian biotech accelerator.

Prior to this, Silvano founded EOS S.p.A. (Ethical Oncology Science) in 2006 and acted as Chairman and CEO until the company was acquired by Clovis Oncology Inc. in 2013 for US$470 million. He also co-founded and acted as CEO of Novuspharma, which raised more than €160 million in the IPO in 2000, before Cell Therapeutics acquired the company in 2003. Silvano was previously Head of R&D at Boehringer Mannheim Italia.

Silvano holds a degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Pisa.

Lucia Faccio

Investor, Director

Lucia has been a Partner at Sofinnova Partners since 2018. She is part of the Sofinnova Telethon Fund, the largest biotechnology fund in Italy that is focused on rare and genetic diseases. Lucia has extensive experience in technology transfer and business development in the life sciences sector. Prior to joining Sofinnova Partners, Lucia was the Director of Research & Development at Fondazione Telethon, an Italian charity whose mission is to develop therapies for patients affected by genetic diseases.

Lucia brings over 20 years of experience in business development in life sciences, with an exceptional track record for identifying projects with strong translational potential, and developing them through solid intellectual property positions, technology transfer, regulatory affairs, and license agreements with industry partners.

Previously, Lucia was the Director of Technology Transfer of San Raffaele Hospital, the largest private hospital in Italy, which is also a leading national research center.

Lucia has a degree in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Padua in Italy and a Ph.D. in biotechnology from the University of l’Aquila, Italy, in association with the Harvard Medical School and conducted at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Paolo Fiorina

Director

With extensive research and advisory experience from a number of roles in both academia and industry, Paolo has made significant and innovative contributions to the fields of autoimmune diabetes, islet transplantation and diabetic nephropathy. After studying transplantation immunology for six years at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Paolo joined Boston Children’s Hospital as a research fellow and became an Assistant Professor of Nephrology at Boston Children’s/Harvard Medical School. He has recently been nominated Associate Professor in Endocrinology at the University of Milan, and currently acts as Chief of Endocrinology at Fatebenefratelli-Sacco-Melloni Hospitals.

Paolo is also founder and CSO of Enthera Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company developing first-in-class biologics for selected autoimmune conditions.

Paolo obtained a medical degree from the University of Milan in 2004. He continued his training through a combined Internal Medicine/PhD program in Immunology at Parma University.