Dr. Axel Polack joined TVM Capital in 2000, and is a General Partner for life sciences in the firm’s Munich office. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Noxxon Pharma AG (Berlin, Germany) and Genetix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Cambridge, MA), and Invendo Medical (Kissing, Germany). He also represents the interests of TVM Capital with f-star. Dr. Polack’s main scientific fields of expertise are molecular and viral oncology, oncogene activation, gene regulation and molecular immunology. He works intensively on the assessment of new investment opportunities in those areas, while also providing support to existing portfolio companies.
Before joining TVM Capital, Dr. Polack was General Manager of Innovative Technologies Neuherberg GmbH (ITN - now known as Ascenion). Ascenion acts as a marketing partner to research institutions of the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, for example, GSF - National Research Center for Environment and Health GmbH, which licenses patents and fosters start-up companies. In the eight years prior to Ascenion, Dr. Polack was the deputy head of the GSF – Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology. He holds a doctorate summa cum laude in medicine from the University of Freiburg and a Second Thesis (postdoctoral lecture qualification “Habilitation”) in the field of virology. Dr. Polack is also a member of the board of the German Vaccine Research Foundation (Hanover).
Dr. Polack’s doctoral thesis was honored with the Goedecke Research prize for outstanding fundamental research in medicine. In 1995 he was appointed assistant professor/private lecturer (“PD”) by the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. Since 1984 he has co-authored more than 50 publications in peer review journals.
