Dr. Juergen Frevert, Head of Botulinum Toxin Research at Merz Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Frevert studied chemistry at the Philipps-University, Marburg (Germany) where he got his PhD in biochemistry. In his thesis work, he investigated the biosynthesis of plant organelles and enzymes of fatty acid metabolism. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley (USA), he started his career in 1983 at the Battelle Institute in Frankfurt (Germany). Between 1995 and 2006, Dr. Frevert was Project Manager for biochemical projects and later Chief Scientific Officer of BioteCon Therapeutics GmbH, and during this time he started a cooperation with Merz Pharmaceuticals to develop the pure clostridium botulinum neurotoxin as a pharmaceutical which was licensed as Xeomin in 2005 in Germany for the treatment of cervical dystonia and blepharospasm and in 2009 for the treatment of glabellar frown lines.  In 2007 he was employed by Merz Pharmaceuticals as Head of Botulinum Toxin Research and was responsible for the development of next generation botulinum toxin products with new pharmacological properties. In 2017 he retired and is now working as a consultant for Merz Pharmaceuticals.