David Benathan was appointed Global Head Business Development for Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), a Novartis Company, in October 2019. He is also a member of the Business Development Management Team at Novartis. Prior to joining AAA, David served as Head of Business Development at AC Immune in 2018 and 2019, a publicly traded biotechnology development company active in the neurology field. From 2005 to 2018, David was Corporate Finance Director, and later Senior Director Global Business Development, for Ferring Pharmaceuticals in Switzerland, then a private company, where he led and closed multiple transactions in urology, oncology and gastro-enterology, and later developed the business units in China and Latin America. From 2000 to 2005, David was at Merck Serono, where he worked in the business planning, pipeline strategy and marketing functions within the New Therapeutic Area business unit. During his professional career, David has held increasing roles of responsibly in a broad range of healthcare industry functions, including busines operations, research, commercial and technology collaborations. Following graduation from Business School, David started his career in the financial industry as an auditor at Arthur Andersen from 1997 to 2000. David holds a Master of Science in Business and Economics from the Haute Ecole de Gestion (HEG) Lausanne, Switzerland, and completed an Executive Education program at the Oxford Business School.