Riccardo Cortese

Biography

 Prof. Riccardo Cortese, Ph.D., M.D., Co-Founded Okairos AG in 2007 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Prof. Cortese is a co-founder of Nouscom AG and serves as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He continues to lead the related service and GMP manufacturing company in the field of infectious diseases, Keires AG in Basel. He was the founder and first Director of the Gene Expression Program of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg and founder and Scientific Director of IRBM, which subsequently became a subsidiary of Merck, Inc. He has been instrumental in the development of several novel antiviral drugs and vaccines, ranging from various stages of clinical development to fully marketed drugs, including Isentress® for HIV. He served as an Independent Director of MolMed S.p.A. from April 22, 2013 to April 01, 2015. Prof. Cortese has published in leading scientific journals including Nature, Science and Cell, on a range of topics in immunology, molecular medicine and drug discovery. He is a full Professor of Molecular Biology at the Medical School of the University of Naples and he is an elected member of several international associations, including the Académie Française, the Academia Europea and EMBO. Prof. Cortese received his medical degree from the University of Naples, Italy and his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, USA.

Research Interest

  Immunology, molecular medicine and drug discovery