European Union-Latin America and the Caribbean Business Round Table

European Union-Latin America and the Caribbean Business Round Table

Carlos Batthyany

Executive Director, Institut Pasteur de Montevideo (Uruguay)

Dr. Carlos Batthyany; Executive Director of the Pasteur Institute of Montevideo & Founder and General Partner of LAB+, the Cmpany Builder of the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo.

Carlos is a Medical Doctor (M.D.) and Doctor of Science (Ph.D.) from the University of the Republic (UdelaR), he did a post-doctorate at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Later he worked in the Department of Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA. He was a professor and researcher in the Department of Biochemistry of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of the Republic for more than 20 years and finally principal investigator of the Laboratory of Vascular Biology and Drug Development of the Institut Pasteur in Montevideo. He is a specialist in analytical biochemistry, pharmacology & drug development, has published more than 60 papers in international scientific journals and is co-inventor of eight international patents. Founder and CMO of EOLO Pharma Inc., a startup specialized in drug development that is currently conducting the first clinical study (phase 1) in the country’s history for its first leading compound that seeks to prevent and treat obesity and type 2 diabetes.

In December 2018, he assumed as the Executive Director of the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo. His first challenges were: a) “to humanize the institute” (be human beings first and then scientists) to reduce the conflict and frustrations of the institute staff; b. create a management Direction team made up of three directions (Executive, Administative and Scientific) with specific tasks and c. to strengthen the Human Capital area. At the same time, during this period, he managed to promote an academic leveling program, salary improvement with a gender perspective, while making the institute available to the country by generating national tools to help manage the country’s health crisis (diagnostic kits [RT- PCR samples, serological kits to evaluate the immune response to vaccines and we carried out real-time genomic surveillance of the different variants of the virus that were entering our country).

In parallel, it was an important objective to try to make the Institute less dependent on state subsidy and to increase the Institute’s own funds. For doing that, he is starting a flagship project to position the Institute as a pioneer in our country in the valorization of knowledge driven together with a private fund. Carlos is the founder and General Partner of the LAB+ initiative, the Company Builder of the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo). And also, he launched the donation campaign “Friends of the Institut Pasteur” to raise funds from private sponsors to support the careers of young scientists.

EU-LAC Business Round Table

Brussels, Belgium – 17 July 2023