Spekaer Helga Rübsamen-Schäff

Helga Rübsamen-Schaeff

Founding CEO, Member of the Supervisory Board | AiCuris, Germany

Prof. Rübsamen-Schaeff, a chemist by training, started her career as Scientific and Executive Director of an academic institution, the Chemotherapeutical Research Institute Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt with a focus on cancer research (tyrosine kinases) and HIV. In 1994, she joined Bayer as Head of Virological Research and later as SVP, heading Bayer´s whole Infectious Disease Discovery.

In 2006 she founded the company AiCuris and lead it as CEO from 2006 until 2015. AiCuris Anti-Infective Cures GmbH is a German Biopharma company dedicated to the research and development of drugs against infectious diseases (viruses and multi-resistant bacteria). The first drug from AiCuris´ pipeline (licensed to Merck Sharpe Dohme, MSD in 2012) was approved by the FDA in 2017 for the prevention of cytomegalovirus infections in patients, who received stem cell transplants. Approvals in other legislations followed. For this scientific breakthrough (all four competitor companies failed in the same indication), but also for her managerial skills in founding and raising the company AiCuris and leading it to commercial success, she received in 2018 the Future Price by the President of the State of Germany and in 2019 the Innovation Price by the country Northrhine Westfalia, in which her company is located.

Presently, Prof. Rübsamen-Schaeff is Member of the Supervisory Board, a member of the Board of Partners of E. Merck KG and Chair of Merck´s Research Council as well as a member of the Supervisory Board of Merck KGaA and 4SC AG.  She also serves in the Scientific Panel on Health (SPH) for the Framework Program Horizon 2020 of the EU. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Germany, Leopoldina.

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