Dr Neil Thomas joined Ventac Partners in March 2012. Dr. Neil Thomas has worked in the protection and commercial exploitation of academic and industrial intellectual property in the biotechnology sector since 1997, within both legal and business environments. Dr. Thomas brings extensive experience in company formation, patent drafting, patent portfolio management, business development, licensing and technology exploitation.

Prior to joining Ventac Partners, Dr. Thomas was Director of Business Development & IP at Genetrix, a biotechnology fund in Madrid, Spain. Dr. Thomas was responsible for IP, business development, licensing, and fund raising assistance for the group's 10 companies, including the IP and licensing elements of two €27M VC funding rounds for Cellerix SA (now TiGenix NV) and a large product licensing deal for that same company with Axcan Pharma, Inc. Dr. Thomas was also responsible for the successful sale of Genetrix group company Imbiosis SL to R-Biopharm AG. He established and ran a business development subsidiary of the group, Genetrix Life Sciences AB, based in Uppsala, Sweden, of which he was the sole representative and a member of the board. He also sat on the boards of group companies Biobide SL and Sensia SL.

Other experience includes four years working at Roche spin-out bioXell SpA. in Milan, Italy, where he was Director of IP & Technology, expanding the company patent portfolio from 6 to 35 patent families, contributing to the company’s successful IPO. He also managed the IP and licensing aspects of three VC funding rounds totaling €50.5M and worked on a deal with a Top-5 pharmaceutical company having a potential value of US$150M and involving a package of patents he had drafted and managed. Prior to that, Dr. Thomas worked for six years in London-based European Patent Attorney firms, advising academic and industrial clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors.