Operational Unit

The operational unit is a permanent body charged with the coordination and management of the cluster’s day-to-day activities.

It acts as an interface between BioWin and all public and private sector stakeholders, in Belgium and abroad, that can contribute to the accomplishment of Biowin’s objectives and development strategy.

Its main responsibilities are as follows:

• implementing the decisions of the General Assembly and the Governance Board;
• partner networking and offering services to the cluster’s members;
• coordinating thematic Task Forces;
• managing the portfolio of approved projects;
• monitoring the cluster’s performance;
• relations with the administration and the government;
• mobilizing private and public sector financing;
• strategic monitoring and benchmarking;
• sharing best practices and standardisation;
• partnerships with other international clusters;
• promoting the cluster at national and international levels.

BioWin’s operational unit is currently composed of 10 people:

France Fannes - General Manager
France has a master’s degree in medical biology. She started her career as an academic researcher in virology at ULB, before joining Biolab, a Walloon-based company specialised in biomedical diagnostics. During the ten years she spent at Biolab she held various positions as head of R&D, production and market­ing. Then, in 1996, she set up BIO ART, a Flanders-based company specialised in the development and production of diag­nostic kits. At Bio ART she gained experience in particular in filing patents and negotiating partnership agreements with both small and large-sized biomedical companies. During her time with BIO ART, France was a member of the steering committee of Flanders­Bio and also become an accredited independent expert to the IWT (the Flemish regional agency for innovation). 

Sylvie Ponchaut – Scientific Director + IP and Valorization expert
Sylvie Ponchaut is co-founder and managing director of IPinnova. From 2000 to 2008, she was working for Sopartec SA, the technology transfer company affiliated to the catholic University of Louvain and for Vives SA, a private fund investing in high tech start-up. She was responsible for the management, development and commercialisation of the patent portofolio of the catholic University of Louvain, in the field of life sciences. Sylvie is a pharmacist. She holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences and a PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Louvain (Christian de Duve Institute of Cellular Pathology). She was member of the Board of Directors of several start-up companies.

Marianne Ghyoot - Associate Director, R&D and Process Management
Marianne Ghyoot has a PhD in Biology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The first step of her career was devoted to scientific research in Belgium and abroad. She then joined the pharmaceutical group UCB as Senior Group Leader of Non-Clinical Operations. She set up a team in charge of centralized services in document management, QC, planning, and coordination of regulatory submissions. She was also member of the GLP test facility management. During this 11 year period at UCB, she acquired a solid experience in project and team management, GLP, regulatory activities, and implementation of processes and IT tools. In the BioWin organisation, Marianne is acting as Associate Director for the R&D projects and process management and reports to Sylvie Ponchaut.

Frédéric Druck – Director, Communication & International Relations
Frédéric Druck has a degree in journalism and communication from the Université Libre de Bruxelles where he began his carer as an assistant lecturer. He then developed his professional expertise in corporate communication and public relations in positions of responsibility at employer organisations (UPEDI, Federgon). He acquired his knowledge of the health sector while working at Merck Sharp & Dohme and Interel, a Belgian pubic relations consultancy that works with various pharmaceutical companies, where he was in charge of the medical department. At BioWin, Frédéric has responsibility for the cluster’s communication, networking activities and international relations.

Damien Lambert  - International Projects Officer
Damien Lambert is graduated in biochemistry from the University of Liège, and has an Advanced Master in biotechnology, option “Biotechnologies Management”. He has developed his international experience while travelling and with a training in international business (Explort) during which he represented Wallonia Biotech Coaching at Texas A&M university for 3 months.

Severine Van Houcke – Office Manager/Managers Assistant
After having held various positions of responsibility during 6 years in the hotel sector, followed by a period where she managed a secretariat at an SME, Séverine joined the BioWin team in order to assist the 3 directors. She also has responsibility for managing the cluster’s web site, organising events/meeting/travel and ensuring the smooth administrative running of the unit (accounting, human resources, back-office management, etc.)

Rose-May Delrue - Coordinator of business traineeship programs for graduate students

Isabelle Rausin- Technologies Transfer Officer