Pascal Brandys (born 30 November 1958, in

Roanne Roanne (; frp, Rouana; oc, Roana) is a commune in the Loire department, central France. It is located northwest of Lyon on the river Loire. It has an important Museum, the ''Musée des Beaux-arts et d'Archéologie Joseph-Déchelette'' (Fren ...

) is a French

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. He is a graduate of the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

and received his M.S. in Economic Systems from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1982. He began his career in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

first in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and then in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where he contributed to the first wave of

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

companies in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. He was the former president and founder of Genset Corporation, which became the European

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...

in the field of

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

and at some point the second largest biotechnology company in Europe. He was also a co-founder and former president of

France Biotech France Biotech is the French trade association of biotechnology companies. It was created in 1997 by a group of French biotechnology entrepreneurs, among whom was its first president Pascal Brandys Pascal Brandys (born 30 November 1958, in Roanne) ...

, the

trade association A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific Industry (economics), industry. An industry tra ...

of biotechnology companies in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. In 2001 he co-founded the biotechnology holding company Biobank in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. In 2020 he co-founded Phylex BioSciences, Inc., a company based in

developing a universal vaccine against the

severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a No ...

(SARS-CoV-2). In 2022 he published positive results of a protection study with the vaccine. In 1999, Brandys was awarded Outstanding Service to Biotechnology Award at the Seventh Annual European Life Sciences conference held in Amsterdam.

References

1958 births Living people École Polytechnique alumni Venture capitalists French investors Stanford University alumni French company founders Technology company founders {{investment-stub