Amadeus Capital Partners’ Volker Hirsch joins Medicines Discovery Catapult as Chief Commercial Officer

Alderley, Cheshire-based biotech research catapult centre for medicine research and innovation, Medicines Discovery Catapult welcomes long-time tech investor, both with Amadeus Capital Partners and individually as an angel investor Volker Hirsch to the position of Chief Commercial Officer. 

Alongside Hirsch’s investment prowess, he’s co-founded no less than seven companies and is the co-founder and Director of Tech North Advocates, a collection of tech leaders, experts, and investors collaborating to form the most influential independent, private sector group in the North of England. 

In his role with Medicines Discovery Catapult, Hirsch is charged with building the framework that will enable partnerships between private enterprise and academia, as well as raising MDC’s profile, both publicly and commercially, when it comes to contract research organisations (CROs) and/or broadening access to the company’s leading scientific tools, technologies, and processes.

Having a look at Amadeus Capital Partners’ last fundraise, which announced a first close back in 2018 and officially closed in April of 2021 at £110 million, historically speaking, it would make sense that the firm would be in the process of putting together v6, and so the timing around Hirsch’s decision to make a move back into the trenches seems apropos.

In a video interview, Hirsch told me, “I’ve always been more of a building stuff kind of guy, an operator. This is one of the things I missed most about being in the VC world. With Amadeus, I’m still supporting the portfolio, aiding in the deal flow, but doing it more from the Venture Partner perspective now as opposed to full Partner.”

Given that Volker’s focus at Amadeus encompasses artificial intelligence & machine learning, human-machine interfaces, enterprise SaaS, autonomous systems, digital health, and medical technologies, the latter makes the choice to move to MDC a logical progression, and one that fulfills Hirsch’s desires to get back to the hustle of building.

"We are thrilled to welcome Volker to our team as we enter an exciting phase of development for MDC. We have ambitious plans for growth. Volker's longstanding international corporate development expertise will be pivotal as we continue to reshape UK medicines discovery and deliver impact to the sector,” said MDC CEO Professor Chris Molloy. “By building on our current approach and adding further investment in our programmes, we will be in a position to help more companies and drive innovative growth, at the next level, for the sector's benefit."

Hirsch commenced his role as Chief Commercial Officer with Medicines Discovery Catapult at the beginning of September of this year.