About us
Peripal AG is a privately funded start-up from the ETH Zürich and the MedTech industry. The team offers a unique combination of product development capabilities, a longstanding experience in the dialysis market, a successful track record of strategy, sales and marketing positions, and an excellent network in the nephrology community.
Vision:
Allow patients to be treated at home and reduce healthcare costs.
Founder, Dr. Sandra Neumann about PeriSafe®
Peripal - Preisträger W.A. de Vigier 2016
Founder Dr. Sandra Neumann
Founder Dr. Sandra Neumann explaining the benefits of the Perisafe device.
Dr. Sandra Neumann explains what inspired Peripal and how the customer was at the core of product development.
Listen to our podcast on Peripal
Podcast published by Handelszeitung, Upbeat-Serie (03.09.2020)
Our Team
Niels van der Valk
CEO
Christian Steiner
Director RA & Quality Mgmt.
Thomas Thellung
CFO
'Don't wait for it, find it and chase it.'
Niels brings over 20 years of management experience in sales and marketing at a variety of start-ups and enterprise businesses internationally. He has worked in the fields of medtech, consumer goods, software, and cloud services with a focus on go-to-market strategy design and implementation, to enter and grow new markets and develop existing markets. Niels is passionate about creating new routes to market, to enable profitable growth and sustainable bottom-line improvements.
'Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.'
Christian is responsible for Quality Management and Regulatory Affairs. He holds a Ph.D. in natural sciences (physics) from the ETH Zürich. Over the last 15 years, he gained extensive know-how in Quality Assurance and Quality Engineering topics in the medical-device area. In this time, he collected abundant experience in the maintenance of quality systems, the management of product life-cycle, and by involvement in international regulatory activities of low and high-risk medical devices. His recent career position was group leader in quality at Thoratec Switzerland GmbH (part of Abbott Laboratories).
'The future depends on what we do in the present.'
Thomas takes care of the finances – and he does so with true passion and expertise! Over 20 years he gained international leadership and finance expertise in the financial industry. He complements his financial background with his engineering capabilities, having strong roots in quality and supply chain management in the KMU environment. Thomas holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the ETH Zürich and an MBA in Finance & Accounting from the University of St. Gallen. His own company “Thellung AG” provides CFO services to Peripal.
.png)
Dr. med. Faiza Brunner
Head Clinical Affairs
.jpg)
Patrycja Giesner
Quality and Logistics Engineer
'Medicine frequently errs on the side of doing too much, lest it be accused of not doing enough.'
Faiza is keen to see improvement in the quality of care imparted to patients at all stages of life- through a diagnosis of a disease, its management, and treatment hopefully resulting in the rehabilitation of patients but not forgetting palliative care.
She believes that Peripal can offer a better quality of life for RRT patients by keeping them home.
'The sources of knowledge are experience and continuous learning .'
Patrycja supports Peripal with quality and logistics tasks. She has worked for over 6 years in medical devices companies. She is passionate and enthusiastic about working and developing the QMS and SCM. She holds a M.Sc. (medical physics) and gathered quality assurance education in Switzerland.
Board of Directors
Dr. Sandra Neumann
Chairwoman of the Board
Dr. Sandra Neumann founded Peripal AG in 2015. In her previous role as General Manager Renal for Baxter AG in Switzerland, she recognized the need for a simpler and safer way to perform home dialysis. Sandra is a trained biochemist and received her PhD from ETH Zürich in 2003. Sandra has worked for McKinsey & Company Inc. and Geistlich Biomaterials AG, before joining Baxter Healthcare Inc. in its EU headquarter. She brings 8 years of experience in the home dialysis field and her entire network as an asset.
Dr. Erich Platzer
Member of the Board
Dr. Erich Platzer was lead investor of the series A of Peripal in 2016 and has since been a member of the board of directors of the company. He has more than 20 years of experience in financing and developing life sciences companies. He is President of StartAngels, and was a founding member of HBM HealthCare Investments until 2015. Prior to that, he was Head of Roche's Strategic Marketing (Product Launches) in Oncology. He is chairman or board member of several MedTech and Biotech companies, listed or private, and holds an MD.PhD. (Habilitation) in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology.
Reto Koch
Member of the Board
Reto Koch acts as an Investor, Business Angel and Healthcare Expert and is a Seed Investor in Peripal AG. He has a Master's Degree of Economics from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and has more than 23 years of experience in the Medical Device industry. Reto worked 13 years in leading roles for Johnson & Johnson in EMEA, USA and Korea/Asia and for more than 5 years as Regional VP for Bauerfeind in France. Currently, Reto is the VP International Sales and a Member of the Executive Board of Mathys.
Felix Rübel
Member of the Board
Felix Rübel has been an entrepreneur and investor in various industries over the last 20 years. Before, he worked as an Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Co. in Zürich and London. Felix holds a MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the ETH Zürich, a MBA from Northwestern / Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a MA from the University of Zürich.
Advisory Board - Nephrology
Prof. Dr. Peter Rutherford
Scientific Advisor
Prof. Dr. Stephan Segerer
Medical Advisor
Prof. Segerer is the doctor in charge and elected head physician for Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation at the Cantonal Hospital Aarau.
Prior to that he was Director of the Program for Chronic Kidney Failure in the Department for Nephrology at the University Hospital Zurich. Prof. Segerer studied Medicine in Regensburg and at the Technical University Munich. He graduated and habilitated at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich. He is specialized in Nephrology, Inner Medicine and Angiology.
His habilitation and scientific publications address inflammatory mechanisms in congenital kidney disorders, transplantation and the role of the peritoneum in peritoneal dialysis.
Prof. Segerer is a member of nephrology societies in Switzerland, Germany and the USA. Additionally, he is a member of the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis. His clinical expertise is focused on renal replacement therapy and peritoneal dialysis.
Our Awards
