Thomas Hanke

Head of Academic Partnerships, Evotec

Thomas is an immunobiologist and drug discovery expert with 30 years of hands-on experience across academia, biotech and pharma. Since 2017, he has served as Executive Vice President and Head of Academic Partnerships at Evotec International in Hamburg, where he oversees academic BRIDGEs and grant management and build pre-seed incubators, alliances and spinouts with universities, pharma companies and venture capital firms worldwide. Their track record includes initiating more than 150 drug discovery projects and co-creating over 100 collaborations, partnerships and investments. At Evotec, he has co-initiated 11 pre-seed accelerators on three continents, attracted more than EUR 300m in committed capital for project derisking, acceleration and company creation, and approved and initiated over 125 first-in-class discovery projects across therapeutic areas and formats. Earlier in their career, he spent 12 years in executive roles in biotech, 8 years sourcing innovation in major pharma and 10 years in academic immunology research. He focuses on identifying and deploying breakthrough science, accelerating translation and technology transfer and building trust in teams and organisations.