Leadership Team

chief Executive Officer

Barbara Brunnhuber, Ir MSc

Barbara graduated in International Business Management (MSc.) at Vienna University after obtaining a Technical College Engineering degree in Chemistry (Ir.).
Barbara is a multi-disciplinary facilitator with an entrepreneurial spirit for progressing life sciences ventures. She has numerous years of professional experience at the interface of science and business. Equipped with a pronounced understanding of people and processes, Barbara supported the growth of to-BBB, a Dutch biotech company, from biotech start-up to clinical stage company. Most recently, life sciences start-ups at Leiden Bio Science Park benefited from her creativity and pragmatism in shaping young enterprises. In addition, Barbara gained major managerial and executive insights early on in her career as CEO of orphan drug biotech start-up Orphanetics. Her mindset and skills perfectly suit for unfolding Mireca’s potential along with scientific and pharmaceutical team members.

Scientific Founder

Prof. François Paquet-Durand, PhD

François studied Biochemistry, Tropical and Marine Biology, Cell Biology, and graduated in Biochemistry. After finishing his PhD in neuroscience in 2003, he went on to do a postdoc in the ophthalmology de-partment at the University of Lund in Sweden, where he first got in contact with retinal research.
In 2008, he moved to the Institute for Ophthalmic Research at EKUT in Tübingen, where he is currently group leader of the Cell Death Mechanisms group. His research activities are centered around photore-ceptor death in inherited retinal neurodegeneration, in particular in retinitis pigmentosa and achroma-topsia.
François studies cell death mechanisms underlying photoreceptor degeneration using human homologous animal models and sophisticated, custom-developed biochemical assays to resolve pathogenic processes at the cellular level. His research aims to identify novel therapeutic targets which may form the basis for innovative neuroprotective treatments.
François served as a coordinator of the EU-funded DRUGSFORD consortium, which laid the scientific foundation for Mireca’s planned activities.
He has produced more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and serves as reviewer for more than 20 scientific journals and international funding agencies.
François is a member of the German Neuroscience Society (NWG), the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), and the Association for Research in Vision and Oph-thalmology (ARVO).

Chairman of the Supervisory board

Pieter J. Gaillard, PhD

Pieter graduated in Neuroscience at Utrecht University and got a PhD in pharmacology from Leiden university.
Pieter is a scientist, inventor and entrepreneur. He founded Dutch neuroscience start-up company to-BBB in 2003 and successfully conducted six rounds of equity investments, ranging from seed to series C venture capital, as well as numerous non-dilutive credits and grants. As to-BBB’s chief scientific officer, he effectively licensed-in the core technology (G-Technology®) from the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, and led the company through the discovery and preclinical phases of drug development, delivering the company’s lead product 2B3-101 in a clinical phase I/IIa brain cancer trial in 2011, and the company’s second product 2B3-201 for acute relapses in MS in a phase I trial in 2013.
After to-BBB was discontinued in 2015, Pieter led the re-start of the venture, now operating as 2-BBB Medicines BV (2-BBB). In 2017, he licensed-out 2B3-101 to Oncology Venture Sweden AB, a listed Swedish company, and established a joint venture around the 2B3-201 program with TTY.