Dr. Ulrich Betz is Senior Vice President Innovation at Merck and has been appointed by the president of Germany as a member of the German Council of Science and Humanities. He is also a member of the LOEWE scientific advisory board for Hessen as well as Chairman of the Board of Future Insight e.V. and a member of the board of the German Chemical Society. Uli is an accomplished R&D manager with >25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry and has worked at various scientific and managerial positions including as a strategic assistant for the heads of R&D at Bayer and Merck. Uli received his PhD in functional genomics and immunology from the University of Cologne, worked for his diploma thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Immunology and studied biochemistry and physiological chemistry at the Univehelvrsity of Tübingen. He is a co-inventor of the anti-viral drugs Letermovir (Prevymis) and Pritelivir and has won several innovation awards such asthe German Industry Innovation Award and two International Business Awards (Stevie Gold Awards Executive of the Year – Pharmaceuticals and Innovator of the Year). Ulrich is author and co-author of ~100 publications and patents (e.g. Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Cell Reports).
