Jürgen studied biology/molecular biology in Osnabrück and Aberdeen (UK). After his diploma thesis at the EMBL in Heidelberg, he worked at Genentech, Inc. (USA). He undertook his PhD-thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. He joined Cellzome AG (Heidelberg, now part of GSK) as the first employee where he was instrumental in setting up the company and was later responsible for IP-issues. After a stint in the patent department of Baxter AG in Vienna, he changed to technology transfer. At Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH, Vienna, he was managing life science inventions developed at Austrian universities.

In 2007, he moved to PROvendis, the central technology transfer agency of the universities of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where during most of his time he served as a head of the Life sciences team. In between, he stayed for another one and a half years in Vienna, as head of technology transfer at the University of Vienna and furthermore for about one and a half years as Managing Director of Life Science Nord, the cluster organisation of the life science industry in the German states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.

He also holds a Master´s degree in Pharmaceutical Business Development and Licensing from the University of Manchester.