Erich Mayer Managing Partner

Erich Mayer has many years of international experience as an investor, entrepreneur and consultant. It spans in particular financing, operational and strategic supervision, consulting, reorganisation and divestment of companies in different industries, with a focus on the sectors life sciences and other high technologies. His professional career started in 1978 at the German aerospace companies MBB and Dornier as a development engineer. Subsequent stations include Management Consulting at A.T. Kearney with key aspects in efficiency improvement, logistics and technical management, and Venture Capital / Private Equity / M&A at TVM (Partner), German Treuhandanstalt (Lead Negotiator) and IMH Venture (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Head of the Life Sciencs Division). In total, his experience comprises five years in high tech engineering in the aerospace industry, and more than 25 years in high level consulting, investments, M&A and private placements.

He saw way above a thousand business plans and reviewed hundreds thereof. In 70 cases he completed due diligence including contract negotiation. His personal investments belonged to the sectors biotechnology, bioinformatics, medical electronics, industrial electronics and software. In over 20 of the portfolio companies in his responsibility he had a seat in the supervisory board, in nine thereof as their chairman. Apart from personal investment responsibility for € 36m in total, he executed ten successful M&A transactions and was in charge of raising a number of Venture Capital funds with a total volume of approx. EUR 150m.

His membership in the Euro-India Centre, provides him with direct access to an exclusive network of European and Indian Personalities well known in the political, industrial, scientific and institutional circles. In addition, he is active in Venture Capital clubs and other associations. He has held numerous speeches and interviews, and has contributed to a number of reknown specialized magazines, inter alia covering the Indian Biotech Industry.

Erich Mayer has a Masters degree in Engineering (Diplom-Ingenieur) in Aerospace Technology from Munich Technical University.

	Dr. Amal K. Mukhopadhyay Director, India Operations

Dr. Mukhopadhyay has been active for over thirty years as a scientist and entrepreneur in the areas of healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biology and biotechnology. He has a longstanding experience in Business Development, in directing research and development work and in corporate leadership.

After obtaining the doctorate degree from Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, India, he worked for several years at the Institute of Medical Sciences as a member of the faculty. He was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to carry out a research project at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. On invitation from Prof. Dr. Freimut Leidenberger, a famous specialist in gynecological endocrinology and reproductive medicine who has been awarded several times, he joined the Institute for Hormone and Fertility Research at the University of Hamburg in 1982 and was involved in building it up, of which he became a Director.

Dr. Amal Mukhopadhyay has years of experience in managing projects in basic research as well as in applied research partly in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies like Schering and Jenapharm. For the excellence of his research he received the prestigious award, KL Laumas Oration Award in 2002 from the All India Institute of Medical sciences, New Delhi, one of the foremost medical institutions in India. As an organiser of many successful scientific congresses in Hamburg, Cambridge, Krakow und New Delhi he has become internationally well known. He was co-founder and managing director of Agelab Pharma GmbH, Hamburg, a Company involved in development of diagnostics and therapies in age-related diseases. In 2005 he established the company ELGA Biotech, Hamburg which complements and supports the activities of Gateway Knowledge Partners. His publication list includes more than 80 publications and he has edited or authored several books and has several patents credited to his name.

Dr. Amal Mukhopadhyay has wide-ranging business contacts in India and in Europe especially in areas of Healthcare, Biotechnology, Diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and clinical research. He is founder and a member of the Executive Board of the EuroIndia Centre, La Rochelle, and of the Europe India Chamber of Commerce, Brussels. Moreover, he is a visiting professor of the University of Pune, India .

Amal Mukhopadhyay has a doctorate in Biochemistry from the Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, India.