With a career spanning venture investing, company building, strategy consulting and basic research in the life sciences, Jan joined Apollo in September 2021. At Apollo Jan focuses on Company Creation, one of the cornerstones of Apollo’s investment thesis. Prior to joining Apollo Jan was heading commercial activities at the Merck KGaA Innovation Center in Darmstadt, looking to operationalize all market-related topics of the business model canvas of up to a dozen project teams, from within the Merck Group, at a time. Before that he was a Managing Director with EMBL Ventures, a Seed and Early-stage VC that was working closely with the EMBL, Europe’s flagship laboratory in the life sciences.

Notable companies that Jan has been involved with on board level and as investor include Endoart (acquired by Allergan), ViraTherapeutics (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), Lipid Therapeutics (licensing to Nestlé Health Science and Falk Pharma), Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Arsanis Bioscience (both with an IPO at NASDAQ). Jan is trained as a biochemist with an MSc from Tübingen University and a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Cambridge, UK. He additionally obtained a dual MBA degree from ESSEC (Paris) and Mannheim University with distinction and is a Class 11 Kauffman Fellow. Jan is furthermore a recipient of each, a Boehringer Ingelheim PhD, and an Ernst-Schering Post-doctoral Research Fellowship.