Merck appoints Jasper Bos as Managing Director of venture capital arm M Ventures

Germany: Merck, in their recent press release announced the appointment of Jasper Bos as the new Managing Director of its strategic corporate venture capital arm M Ventures. He will follow Roel Bulthuis as the Senior Vice President and Managing Director of M Ventures. Bulthuis will be leaving the fund at the end of the year.

“We thank Roel for his immense contribution in building M Ventures as a leading corporate venture fund and wish him all the best for his future endeavours,” said Isabel De Paoli, Chief Strategy Officer at Merck, also responsible for M Ventures.

“M Ventures is an important strategic lever in Merck’s ambitions to push the edge of science and technology. We are glad to be able to fill the role with an internal talent and experienced investor. Jasper Bos has been with M Ventures since 2009 and is crucial to the success of the healthcare fund, which he will continue to lead.”

“What excites me most about my work for M Ventures is the active role we play in our portfolio companies, which is all about supporting our entrepreneurs in realizing their ambitions and dreams,” Bos said.

Jasper Bos joined Merck’s previous biopharma fund of M Ventures in 2009 and transitioned to Vice President leading the healthcare team for the current fund in 2016. At M Ventures, Bos supported (amongst others) the early successful investments and exits in ObsEva (NASDAQ-IPO), Epi Therapeutics (sale to Gilead), and was an initiator of Prexton Therapeutics, which was acquired early 2018 by Lundbeck for close to US$ 1.1 billion. He holds a PhD in Pharmacy from the The University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and has previously worked in private equity and at the Netherlands Vaccine Institute.

In alignment with the strategic interests of Merck’s business sectors, though formally separated by a “Chinese Wall”, M Ventures has the mandate to invest into the four sector-focused areas Healthcare, Life Science, Performance Materials and New Businesses. The total volume of M Ventures is € 300 million in an evergreen structure. Recent investments of M Ventures include, among numerous others, Artios, Galecto, Ribometrix, CLEARink Displays, DNA Script, Mosa Meat and Akili Interactive.