Bernhard Hostettler

Dr. Bernhard Hostettler, Head of Intellectual Property, originally is an organic chemist. After his Ph.D. at ETH Zürich, Bernhard was active in research for more than 20 years with companies Roche, CIBA, Syngenta and Givaudan. His research areas were agrochemistry, UV-filters, flavors and fragrances.

He then moved to Business Development and IP Management. In 2002 he joined Prionics AG – a diagnostic startup from the University of Zürich - where he was head of Intellectual Property Management and a member of the extended executive management. He also headed an independent business unit dealing with sophisticated DNA sampling systems.

In 2013 Bernhard founded his own company IPROMA GmbH which is specialized on supporting startups, spin-offs and SMEs in setting up their Intellectual Property Management. He is also certified as a special coach IP with Innosuisse where in the meantime he coached more than 80 startups being active in chemistry, diagnostics, pharmaceutics and MedTech. He is named as first or co-inventor of several patents protecting chemical compounds, flavors and forensic tools. Bernhard is regularly giving workshops on IP Management at ETH Zürich, University of Zürich, HSG St. Gallen and ZHAW Winterthur.