Who we are

Robert Palm

Co-foundator and Chairman

My youngest son was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in 2006, when he was 5 years old . Two years later, I have created Progena Foundation with my  ex-wife Huguette Palm, in order to take part to the international Duchenne Network. During two years, my son took part to a clinical trial in France (exon’s kipping), stopped very early unfortunately.

I’ve got 30 years of experience as entrepreneur and I am a member of board of directors in Switzerland and Europe. I took the opportunity to broaden my network internationally and to meet experts working in the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy field, so that Switzerland can participate to the international efforts against this terrible disease.

I have taken the initiative to create the Swiss Registry for Neuromuscular Diseases in 2008 in collaboration with the Swiss Téléthon.

In 2009, I took part to the first Treat-NMD conference in Bruxelles and proposed to organise the second 4-day international conference in Geneva in 2011 which attracted more than 400 attendees from the whole world. Since then the Treat-NMD conference is hold every two years.

In 2015 with Maria Fries, the idea of organising the first Swiss Duchenne Conference in German germinates and the first one in 2016 met a great success. So it encourages us to organise the second one two years later – and since then, every two years! This was possible thanks to the attendees and to the support of our sponsors and I am deeply grateful!