Neil Thomas
Dr Neil Thomas joined Ventac Partners in March 2012 and has worked in the protection and commercial exploitation of academic and industrial intellectual property in the biotechnology sector since 1997, within both legal and business environments. Neil brings extensive experience in company formation, patent drafting, patent portfolio management, business development, licensing and technology exploitation.
Within the Ventac Partners related companies he is Head of IP at CENEXUM Technologies ApS. He was previously CBO of Idogen AB and an IP Strategy Advisor to RhoVac AB in Sweden. In addition, Neil is also CBO of Cube Labs SpA, a listed Venture Builder in Italy, since July 2020. He is also a co-founder (2013) and responsible for business development in the diagnostics company ZipPrime (Estonia and Turkey). Since 2012, he is an advisor to the University of Tartu, Estonia on technology transfer and related matters.
Previously, Neil was Director of Business Development & IP at Genetrix SL, a biotechnology group in Madrid, Spain. Neil was responsible for IP, business development, licensing, and fund raising assistance for the group’s 10 companies, including the IP and licensing elements of two €27M VC funding rounds for Cellerix SA (since merged with TiGenix NV and bought by Takeda) and a large product licensing deal for that same company with Axcan Pharma, Inc. Neil was also responsible for the successful sale of Genetrix group company Imbiosis SL to R-Biopharm AG. He sat on the boards of group companies Genetrix Life Sciences AB, Biobide SL and Sensia SL.
Other experience includes four years working at Roche spin-out bioXell SpA. in Milan, Italy, where he was Director of IP & Technology, expanding the company patent portfolio from 6 to 35 patent families, contributing to the company’s successful IPO. He also managed the IP and licensing aspects of three VC funding rounds totaling €50.5M and worked on a deal with a Top-5 pharmaceutical company having a potential value of US$150M and involving a package of patents he had drafted and managed. Prior to that, Neil worked for six years in London-based European Patent Attorney firms, advising academic and industrial clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors.
Between 2010-15, Neil was the Adjunct Professor of Intellectual Property in the Life Sciences Industry at the IE Business School, Madrid. He was also a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, UK on the MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise (2013, 2014 & 2015). Neil has taught as a visiting lecturer on Ventac Partners’ annual “build a biotech” course for Master’s and PhD students at NTNU, Norway since 2012, and has delivered similar courses in Estonia, Germany, Tunisia and Hong Kong.
Neil holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Birmingham, UK and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Durham, UK. Neil is fluent in Spanish and is currently refreshing his Italian language skills.