Cancer patients of Swiss Rockets AG will benefit from new treatments developed using innovative and disruptive methods. The Swiss Rockets’ executive management team combines the necessary specialist knowledge and experience to efficiently and sustainably break new ground in cancer medicine. Swiss Rockets AG, Basel, founded in 2018, is implementing a paradigm shift in healthcare.
Dr. Vladimir Cmiljanovic
Chief Executive Officer & Founder
Dr. Vladimir Cmiljanovic is Switzerland’s leading serial pharma entrepreneur, a medicinal chemist, and cancer scientist with more than fifteen years of experience in oncology drug development. Vladimir founded the company PIQUR Therapeutics AG in 2011, as a spin-off of the University of Basel, to develop BIMIRALISIB, a dual PI3K/mTOR drug for anti-cancer treatment. Vladimir led PIQUR as CEO and Vice-Chairman and made it an international biotech company. In 2015, PIQUR was awarded the Swiss Economic Forum Award. In 2016, Vladimir founded TargImmune Therapeutics AG; a biotechnology company focused on cancer cell-targeted immunotherapies.
Dr. Natasa Cmiljanovic
Chief Scientific Officer & Founder
Dr. Natasa Cmiljanovic is a medicinal chemist and clinical scientist with more than ten years of experience in oncology drug development. She is the co-author of various scientific articles and abstracts and inventor of numerous patents. Natasa was the first to synthesize BIMIRALISIB, a triazine derivative, which is a highly selective, brain penetrant, and orally bioavailable anti-cancer drug. Natasa was also responsible for the early clinical development of BIMIRALISIB in solid tumours.
Dr. Andreas Voss
Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Andreas Voss is an internist and oncologist with in-depth expertise in all phases of oncology drug development and commercialization. Before joining Swiss Rockets, Andreas was the General Manager of Caris Life Sciences International, a leader in molecular profiling and personalized cancer medicine. Until 2010, he worked at F. Hoffmann-La Roche where he was responsible for global clinical development of Avastin® and a member of the Corporate Drug Safety Board. Prior to that Andreas has built the Lung Cancer Disease Area organization at AstraZeneca and served as Medical Director for Anti-infectives and Oncology at Bayer GmbH. He was responsible for clinical development of all oncology compounds at ASTA Medica and practiced medicine at the University Hospital in Hamburg for 8 years after a postdoctoral fellowship in immunology at the University of California at San Diego.
Dr. Josef Künzle
Chief Quality Officer
Dr. Josef Künzle is an expert in corporate quality control, quality assurance and quality management. Before he joined Swiss Rockets AG he was Head of Global QM at Basilea. He joined Basilea in 2007 as a Quality Assurance Project Manager and was promoted in May 2009 to Head Quality Unit Technical Operations, a position in which he led the GMP/GDP QA group. In 2013, he became Head of Global QM. Since 1989, Josef has held various positions in the pharmaceutical industry with increasing responsibilities, from 1989 to 1998 as Analytical R&D/QC at Sandoz Pharma AG/Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, from 1998 to 2003 in QC/QM at Carbogen AG in Aarau, and from 2003 to 2007 in QC/QM at Permamed AG in Therwil.
About Swiss Rockets AG
Swiss Rockets AG, Basel, founded in 2018, is implementing a paradigm shift in healthcare. Cancer patients will benefit from new treatments which will be developed using innovative and disruptive methods. The Swiss-Rockets team combines the necessary specialist knowledge and experience to efficiently and sustainably break new ground in cancer medicine.
The Board of Directors of Swiss Rockets AG is chaired by Veselin Jevrosimovic, a successful entrepreneur and the founder of Comtrade, one of the largest IT companies in south-eastern Europe. Other board members are Prof. Dr. Michael N. Hall, a renowned researcher, and Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, and André Debrunner, a financial expert and fund manager at Northern Trust Corporation Switzerland.
Founder and CEO of Swiss Rockets is Dr. Vladimir Cmiljanovic, a medicinal chemist with more than 15 years’ experience in the development of cancer drugs. Together with his sister Dr. Natasa Cmiljanovic, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Swiss Rockets, he developed oncology drugs at the University of Basel and subsequently founded and successfully led several biotech companies. Manuel Ebner, Strategic Advisor of Swiss Rockets and CEO Switzerland at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Dr. Thomas Sander, Scientific Advisor and one of the first employees of the biotech company Actelion, are co-founders of Swiss Rockets AG.