Special guest Jaromír Zahrádka

Jaromír Zahrádka is the co-founder of i&i Prague, a bio-innovation centre associated to the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Based on a successful development of i&i Prague, he also became the founder and CEO of the i&i Biotech Fund, the very first Technology Transfer fund of its kind in the CEE/V4 region (backed by EIF). The Fund focuses on investments in Central European scientific startups in the field of life sciences and biotech.  Under his leadership, both companies have developed into respected partners of several Czech and European scientific institutions, spin-offs and other international investors.

During his carrier, Jaromír has been involved in development of a series of spin-offs and technology transfer projects, from incubation to successful exit. Together with his team, they supported (established or participated on a development) more than 15 biotech spin-off companies from more than 5 countries, the two of them were already successfully exited. Jaromir also participated on multiple out-licensing deals including Drug Discovery, Diagnostics or other technologies licensed to international companies. Jaromir combines his dual background in biochemistry and economics, and he teaches (among others) at UCT School of Business focusing and broadening his academic expertise in methods for determining the market potential of early-stage technologies and risk-adjusted valuation methods of scientific spin-offs.