The members of the core team have long standing and successful careers in life sciences, substantiated in start-up companies as well as in multi national enterprises
Dr. Markus Ehrat
Graduated in natural sciences at ETH Zurich and was subsequently engaged in academic research in the USA. He then worked for chemical and pharmaceutical companies in Basel in the field of analytics and diagnostics and was head of a bioanalytical research department.
Together with a team of six scientists, he founded Zeptosens AG in 1998, which he led as CEO and member of the Board of Directors. After the acquisition by Bayer, Dr. Markus Ehrat was Head of Zeptosens - A Division of Bayer Schweiz) AG and a member of the general management team of Bayer (Schweiz) AG.
In 2012, he founded EK Biosciences GmbH, where he is a partner and managing director.
Since 2012 he is mandated by CTI as one of the three head innovation mentors. In this function he is responsible for the support of SMEs in the Basel / Eastern Switzerland region setting-up joint research projects.
Dr. Markus Ehrat is author / co-author of over 70 scientific publications and 18 patent families.
Dr. Gerhard M. Kresbach
Graduated in analytical / natural products chemistry at the University of Heidelberg and spent three years as visiting scientist at Northeastern University in Boston performing research in ultratrace analysis of biologically active / potentially cancer-causing compounds.
In pharma industry he was heading several R&D groups focused on developing and adapting new bioanalytical approaches suitable for pharma industry demands utilizing mass spectrometry, novel chromatographic approaches, and microarrays and was project leader in several nationally and internationally funded research and development projects.
As cofounder of Zeptosens AG he was responsible among others for research and development of high performance DNA microarray solutions. In his function as Head of Operations of Zeptosens - A Division of Bayer (Schweiz) AG his activities covered strategic planning, finances, controlling, quality management, information technology, and logistics.
Since 2012 he is partner of EK Biosciences GmbH.