Jens Eckstein took over as president of GlaxoSmithKline’s corporate venturing unit, SR One, last year.
He joined having worked at venture firm TVM Capital as a general partner since 2007. Eckstein joined TVM as a principal in 2004. At TVM he became chief executive of SelectX Pharmaceuticals, as he also worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the company.
Eckstein gained a PhD in biological chemistry from University of Konstanz and Harvard University and went on to be a post-doctoral fellow at University of California in San Francisco. Between 1993 and 1999 Eckstein worked at healthcare start-up Mitotix, which was acquired in 2000 by German biotech company GPC. He then worked at Enanta Pharmaceuticals as director of lead discovery and research from 1999 to 2003, before founding Akikoa Pharmaceuticals, where he worked from 2003 to 2005.
He is adviser to the Alzheimer Research Forum, a founding member of the Cure Dystonia Initiative Advisory Council and a Kauffman fellow.