Dr. Patrik Frei is founder and CEO of Venture Valuation AG, Switzerland. He started the company in 1999 when he noticed a need for independent valuation services in high growth industries during a collaboration with Novartis Venture Fund, which became his first client. Since then he has been involved in over 450 valuations for investors as well as biotech, pharma and medtech companies. Patrik graduated from the Business University of St. Gallen and completed his Ph.D thesis (”Assessment and valuation of high growth companies”) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL Lausanne. Patrik was a board member and one of the original founders of Ineo, a holding company of the Swiss dental implant VC-backed firm Thommen Medical and also the Chairman of Ophthalmopharma, a Swiss-based biotech ophthalmology company, where he successfully out-licensed a portfolio of 4 products. Furthermore, Patrik was member of the board of Aventron AG (AVEN:Berne), a publicly quoted cleantech company, which raised over USD 160m during his time as board member. Patrik’s articles have been published in a number of scientific journals including “Nature Biotechnology”, “Chimia” and other business publications (“Starting a Business in the Life Sciences: From Idea to Market” and “Building Biotechnology: Starting, Managing, and Understanding Biotechnology Companies”). He has also lectured at Seoul National University, South Korea, EPFL Lausanne, University of St. Gallen and gives regular workshops on valuation.