Say the name ‘Oprah’ and everyone knows who you’re talking about. Not only is she famous, but she happens to have a rather distinctive first name. She can go by first name only.

"Tillman"

The same can be said for a few people in biotechnology, at least among industry insiders. Of course, nobody in the business of developing new drugs, diagnostics, devices, or research tools is a household name like Oprah.

With that, here are the people in biotech who the insiders know by first name alone...

...Tillman. Tillman Gerngross, a native of Austria, is another one of these biotech people who wears multiple hats. He’s a Dartmouth College professor of bioengineering, a university tech transfer official, a biotech entrepreneur (first GlycoFi, then Adimab), and a part-time venture capitalist (SV Life Sciences). See this profile from Xconomy last year.