About Your Speakers

Dr Lee is currently the Executive Director of the Biomedical Research Council, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore. He holds a concurrent appointment as Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the National University of Singapore. He was a past Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He is currently a Senior Consultant in Orthopaedic Surgery at the National University Hospital and the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and is a Senior Consultant in the Ministry of Health. Dr Lee received his medical and postgraduate medical training in Canada and specializes in Paediatric Orthopaedics. His research interest is in stem cells and musculoskeletal tissue engineering and he currently leads a team of researchers at the NUS Tissue Engineering Program. He is a member of the editorial boards of several international refereed journals in orthopaedic surgery and basic research and reviews regularly for high impact journals in orthopaedics, stem cells and tissue engineering. He has over 150 publications in refereed journals and over 300 conference papers. He has co-authored a book with Ariff Bongso entitled “Stem Cells: from Bench to Bedside” which has been adopted by many centres internationally as a standard text for stem cell courses and is in its second edition.

As Executive Director & Head, Global Licensing - Commercial Opportunities, Dr. Hill's responsibilities include identifying and executing Business Development & Licensing opportunities that enable Boehringer-Ingelheim's Prescription Medicine and CHC franchises in both mature and emerging markets. Following extensive Therapeutic Area R&D experiences at Sterling Winthrop Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer Global Research & Development, Dr. Hill transitioned to Business Development at Pfizer, and in 2008 joined Boehringer Ingelheim, based in Ridgefield, CT, USA. As a Business Development & Licensing executive Roger has expertise in product sourcing, due diligence, contract negotiations and legal transactions. Prior to 2007 Dr. Hill was a Research & Development Therapeutic Area Director at Pfizer with leadership responsibility for multiple CardioMetabolic disease areas, including Cardiovascular and Frailty. Dr. Hill was recently nominated to the Irish Government’s 2010 "Life Science Top 50" recognizing influential Irish Americans in life sciences. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Pharmacology from University College Dublin, Ireland, and an MBA in Hi-Tech Finance from Northeastern University, Boston.

Shakil Ohara is currently Business Strategy Director for Abbott Nutrition covering Pacific Asia. He has over 25 years’ experience in banking, investment, and health care spread over three geographies,that is,India, Japan, and Singapore. During his career he has handled many M&A transactions as well as development of strategic partnerships. During his tenure with Abbott in Japan he was instrumental in acquisition of Hokuriku Seiyaku, a Pharma company listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange. He is an India born Japanese citizen who has vast experience in bridging the gap between Japanese and Western perspective in business. He has spoken at many business forums and was a key note presenter in US-Japan Investment Initiative Seminar 2007 held in Osaka Japan.

Venkatesh handles Strategy and Business development at Pfizer. He has an extensive experience of over 18 years in multiple industries (pharmaceuticals, consumer products) and multiple functions (marketing, business development and commercial operations). Venkatesh has worked in organizations like P&G, Dr Reddys and Zydus Cadila prior to Pfizer.Venkatesh is an Engineering graduate. After completion of his Masters in science from Washington State University, he went on to complete his MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.

Abdulkadir Keskinaslan, MD, MBA, MPH is Pricing Director for the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and African Countries at Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland; leading price implementation for the whole Novartis portfolio in his region.

Dr. Keskinaslan gained his Medical Degree from Cerraphasa School of Medicine, Istanbul University, Turkey, and went on to complete his residency training in Family Medicine at Sisli Etfal Research and Training Hospital, Istanbul before studying for Masters Degrees in Business Administration at the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, and Public Health in Health Care Management at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA.

He has practiced medicine both in public and private settings - as a primary care physician, as a resident in tertiary care hospital and as an emergency room physician - before he joined the pharmaceutical industry focusing on health economics and pricing. His professional experience encompasses health economics activities across a range of therapy areas and his most recent appointment prior to his current role was as Senior Health Economics Manager in CVM at Novartis. His work focusing on “Observational and Real Life Effectiveness Studies” and “Compliance to Medicine” has been published in the international press and has been presented at national and international meetings. His recent areas of research are “Use of Health Economics for Pricing and Reimbursement Decision Making” and “Outcomes Based Innovative Pricing Schemes”.

In addition to his operational role in Novartis, Dr. Keskinaslan has been collaborating with Universities and Health Authorities in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa in organizing workshops and seminars to address health care priority issues.

Dr Tabiin who has a PhD and an MBA, is the Senior Vice President of the Biomedical Sciences Division. He leads a team of 20 Commercialisation Officers of which 85% have either a PhD, Medical Degree or Masters degree in Biomedical Sciences. The team is responsible for the commercialization of A*STAR’s Biomedical technologies. The Biomedical Sciences Division in collaboration with other ETPL Divisions also provides technology management services such as intellectual property filing and management, technology and competitive intelligence, managing incubation and spin-off companies, and providing legal advice to A*STAR research institutes. Prior to joining ETPL, Dr Tabiin had a balanced career spanning 18 years in academia as well as in the industry. He held research and development positions at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School and the Genetic Immunotherapy Laboratory at the Division of Johns Hopkins in Singapore. He also held product development positions at Genelabs Diagnostics and Merck.

Dr Phil Kearney joined Merck Sharp & Dohme Australia in 2007 as the key scout for innovative research and development in Australia, New Zealand and some parts of South East Asia. The Sydney-born scientist has the challenge of uncovering and commercialising discoveries by local researchers that have strong potential to benefit the health of people around the globe. Prior to joining Merck, Phil spent 7 years in small to medium biotech companies in Scandinavia. Phil held project and executive management positions in Active Biotech Research (Sweden) and Santaris Pharma (Denmark) during this time. Before leaving Australia he had been the head of the Research Laboratory in one of Australia’s leading Haematology Departments, at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney for over 10 years. The theme of the laboratory was antisense and ribozyme mediated ablation of bcr-abl expression in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia. As an adjunct position Phil also ran the Molecular Medicine Diagnostic Laboratory for the hospital pathology service, SydPath. Phil holds a Ph.D. from Monash University, which was followed by post-doctoral training at the Murdoch Institute in Melbourne and University College London. He also holds a MBA from the University of Sydney.

Peter is a pharmacist by training where he graduated from Westfaelische Wilhelms University, Muenster Germany. HE worked in retail pharmacy for several years before joining Bayer in 2008 in global strategy as Business Consultant for M&A and Licensing. Peter moved to Singapore in 2011 as regional Business Development and Strategy Manager for Bayer SEA. He obtained his MBA at European School of Management and Technology, Berlin Germany in 2007.

Dr Carl Firth is Founder and CEO of ASLAN Pharmaceuticals, an Asia enabled pharmaceutical company that develops novel medicines for global markets. Previously, he was Head of Asia Healthcare at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, supporting public and private financing of healthcare companies across the region and advising on M&A transactions. Prior to joining the banking industry, he worked for AstraZeneca for nearly 10 years. In 2007, he was the Regional Business Development Director, AsiaPac, and a member of the regional management team. From 2004-6, Carl led new product development and business development in AstraZeneca China, based in Shanghai, where he was responsible for the development of new products for the China market and local inlicensing activities.

Carl has held positions in other commercial areas in the UK, including acquisitions, licensing and competitive intelligence, and has over 5 years of pharmaceutical R&D experience.
Carl is an advisor to the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Innovation Centre and several life science companies in Asia. He is a regular speaker and chair at international conferences.
Carl holds a PhD from Cambridge University in Molecular Biology (Trinity College), an Executive MBA from London Business School and a degree in Molecular Biology from Cambridge University.

Dr. Jan-Anders Karlsson took over the helm as the company’s CEO from January 2005. He has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with many proven successes in the drug discovery area. Dr. Karlsson combines his exceptional technical knowledge with strong business acumen and an ability to build entrepreneurial drug discovery cultures, helping S*BIO to achieve its vision of becoming an internationally competitive drug discovery and development company. Dr Karlsson is also a member of S*BIO's Board of Directors. Prior to joining S*BIO, Dr. Karlsson was the Executive Vice President, Global Research of Bayer Pharma, where he was a member of the Executive Management Committee and responsible for the company’s global drug discovery organization.

Based in Shanghai, Yi oversees Lilly Asian Ventures operations and has been instrumental in managing the fund's investments in China since its founding. Prior to his current role, Yi worked at Eli Lilly and Company with a diverse set of experiences including venture start-up, operations, business development licensing, and international strategy. He was a founding member of InnoCentive, Inc., a Lilly Ventures portfolio company. Yi began his career as a management consultant with Ernst & Young in the US, where he specialized in life sciences practice. Yi’s education includes a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and a Master of Business Administration degree, both from Duke University. He also earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Science and Technology of China. He is a member of the Board of Directors of HD Biosciences, Chipscreen, Beta Pharma, and BrightGene Biomedical. He also serves as a board observer at Novast and CITIC Pharma.

Dr. Wu Ke is the President and Founder of Shanghai BravoBio Co., Ltd. He has 23 years of experiences in biopharm industry and had successfully developed 7 products being approved by SFDA and marketed in China. Dr. Wu Ke was Executive President of Shanghai Zerun Biotechnology Co., Ltd., in charge of management of QA/QC, Manufacture, Engineering and Maintenance, Regulatory Affairs, Marketing and Sales, also extensively experienced in R&D management, business development, technology transfer, facility evaluation, etc. Prior to join Zerun/Wison in 2004, Dr. Wu Ke was Director of R&D in Wuhan Institute of Biological Products (WIBP) of China National Biotec Group (CNBG). He was department manager of Blood Products, department manager of Cell Biology and project manager for Tumor Biology in WIBP. He hold a BA degree in Biochemistry and a PhD degree in Immunology, also had Certificates of Senior Management from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB).

Madhu heads the business operations for Stempeutics in the South East Asia region. He was handpicked by the group to start-up the operations for Stempeutics in Malaysia when the group decided to expand the operations. Stempeutics Malaysia has progressed substantially in the last two years and has obtained all the necessary approvals for starting the commercialization phase for a stem cell based drug from Malaysia. Madhu comes with over 18 years of rich and diverse healthcare industry experience. He started off his career with Johnson & Johnson in India and worked with them for about 14 years in different roles and was last designated as Group Product Manager.

Dr Mark McHale is Chief Scientific Officer and Founder of ASLAN Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Mark was the Head of Molecular Sciences at AstraZeneca Respiratory & Inflammation and in this role supported small molecule and therapeutic antibody projects from target identification to phase IIa. Mark was a core member of the respiratory strategy team for the the research area (comprising 720 staff across 3 sites) for half a decade and personally lead all new target identification in asthma. In 2006, he led a $136M investment in the AZ/Dynavax collaboration to produce inhaled TLR9 agonists for the treatment of asthma and led the ongoing preclinical / phase I projects.

Prior to 2001, Mark worked for 7 years at SmithKline Beecham, where he supported lead optimisation projects in serotonin and dopamine receptors as well as working on leptin and the PPAR gamma agonist Avandia with Dr Steve Smith. In 1994, he transferred to the Neuroscience Department working with Dr Jackie Hunter, during which time he set up two new molecular science laboratories and formed a successful team to support molecular analysis of stroke and pain in order to characterise disease and identify new targets from a large strategic collaboration SmithKline had initiated with Human Genome Sciences. Mark trained at the University of London and University of East Anglia UK in Molecular Biology.

Dr Shermal Perera is a co-Founder and Managing Director of SIOGEN Biotech. The Company’s strategic focus is in the area of Nano-Drug Delivery and has proprietary rights for its breakthrough Siosomes® Technology. The flexibility in design and robustness of the Siosomes® NanoVesicles structure promotes an aggressive drug development pipeline. Shermal has initiated aggressive efforts to redefine and create new ways for drugs to travel to its site of action. In 2009, SIOGEN Biotech was awarded "Most Innovative Start-Up" in Asia and in 2011, it achieved the “Most Innovative Biotech Company in Asia”. Shermal is a driven, passionate and experienced individual who has built a solid foundation for the future success of this Company. Previously, he had also invested and raised funds for several Biotech start-ups which are currently operating successfully. His key strength is being able to identify and ‘unlock’ valuable IP/know-how and to structure businesses around this. Shermal obtained his PhD from the University of Aberdeen in UK. Thereafter, he worked for the University and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Centre in the areas of Antibody and Peptide Engineering.

Mr. David Dally qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst and Young in London, UK. He joined Amersham plc in 1991 and held a number finance roles including Manager of Strategic Planning, which included undertaking M&A activity in Japan for Amersham's diagnostic business. This was followed by the role of VP Finance North America for Amersham Bioscience, managing the merger of Amersham Life Science with Pharmacia Biotech. Since 2002 David has held CFO positions at Kudos Pharmaceuticals Ltd, an early-stage drug discovery and development in Cambridge, UK, which was sold to Astra Zeneca for $210m, and Rhytec Ltd, a medical devices company.

Goro Takeda joined Sofinnova Ventures in 2007 as a Kauffman Venture Fellow with a focus on identifying Life Science spin-out opportunities in Asia. Goro holds the honor of being the first person from Japan to be selected as a Kauffman Venture Fellow. He is also a co-founder of FinTech Global Capital, an early stage venture capital firm in Tokyo, where he currently serves as Managing Partner.
Before arriving at Sofinnova Ventures, Goro was the Deputy General Manager of NIF SMBC Ventures, a Japanese venture capital firm with $2 billion under management. Goro was responsible for life science investments across multiple geographic regions. Goro was involved with investments in biotechnology and specialty pharmaceutical companies including Arrow Therapeutics, Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, and Orexigen Therapeutics. Prior to launching his career in venture capital, Goro spent nine years in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as Corporate Officer of the U.S. subsidiary of Tanabe Pharmaceuticals. While in this position, Goro worked on global business development and marketing assignments.

More than ten years of experience in private and public equity investment management and research. Former senior sell-side analyst at Lombard Odier for the biotech and medical technology industries; researcher in asymmetric synthesis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in collaboration with Roche. Honoured MSc and PhD in chemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, (ETH) Zurich. Former board observer at PharmaSwiss SA (acquired by Valeant Pharmaceuticals).

Mr Damien Lim is co-founder and General Partner of BioVeda Capital. He has more than 21 years experience in private equity and investment banking. Prior to BioVeda, he was Director, Investments with Prime Partners, a boutique fund in Singapore. Before Prime Partners, Mr Lim was Executive Director of Vickers Ballas Asset Management where he was responsible for structuring, raising and managing various direct investment funds in Southeast Asia and India. Concurrently, he was Senior Vice President of Vickers Ballas Holdings Ltd. (now part of DBS Bank Ltd) where he evaluated and structured strategic acquisitions, joint ventures and proprietary investments by group. Mr. Lim was also with Morgan Grenfell Asia (now part of Deutsche Bank AG) where he was an Associate Director, Corporate Finance, carrying out various corporate funding and advisory transactions. Mr. Lim sits on the Proof of Concept grant committee of the NRF and was a two-term Committee member of the Singapore Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.

Simon founded Team Ventures Ltd, the European operation of BSG Team Ventures, and leads the Biotechnology and Cleantech practices for BSG Team Ventures worldwide. He also founded European early stage investor IPSO Ventures PLC and uses this experience to lead our Fundraising activities.

Simon trained with Arthur Andersen in the UK, focussing on MBO and related special work and established the research and real estate finance functions for Savills plc (now FPD Savills). He has founded 11 companies either directly, or through venture capital investor IPSO Ventures and has been involved in numerous fundraisings and mergers. Simon and colleagues raised hedge fund backing for IPSO within 18 month of incorporation, and completed IPSO's London Stock Exchange listing within three years.

Dr Syed Aljunid is a Professor of Health Economics. Previously he served as the Head of Community Health Department, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). His main interest is in the strengthening of healthcare systems of developing countries through research and development in health economics and financing. He is currently involved in supporting developing countries to implement the Case-Mix system, a health management and information tool to enhance quality and efficiency of healthcare services. He heads the International Training Centre on Case-Mix and Clinical Coding in UKM founded in 2006. Currently he serves as the co-chair of Morbidity Technical Advisory Group of International Classification of Disease Revision 11 (ICD-11) for the World Health Organisation (WHO). He is actively involved in teaching health economics and health management courses in MPH, MBA and PhD programmes jointly run by UNU-IIGH and her partner universities. He is also an advisor to WHO, UN-AIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, GAVI, Asian Development and the World Bank.

Brian leads the business development activities at Inviragen, an international vaccine company that is focused on developing life-saving vaccines to protect against emerging infectious diseases worldwide. He is responsible for pipeline partnering and licensing projects, building strategic collaborations in line with the company’s goals, and evaluating potential business opportunities. Previously, Brian worked at Nabi Biopharmaceuticals in Florida, USA as a Business Development Manager where he was involved in several successful outlicensing initiatives. His past experience includes working in the life sciences and aviation industries where he held similar business development positions.

Brian has a liberal arts degree with a major in biology from St. Lawrence University, New York. He obtained his joint M.Sc. in medical sciences / M.B.A. in finance and strategy degrees from the University of Florida.

Sanjay Sehgal is a founder and Managing Partner & CEO of East West Capital Partners, a healthcare-focused private equity firm based out of Singapore, Malaysia, India and London. Sanjay also serves on the Board of ITL Limited (www.itl-limited.com), an Australian listed company and chairs the audit committee. He is on the steering committee of a Scandinavian oncology drug delivery company and is a Senior Advisor to Visterra, Inc – a biotech spin-out from MIT.

Prior to EWCP, Sanjay was a Partner and member of the investment committee at Symphony Capital Partners (Asia) (f.k.a Schroder Capital Partners) which managed in excess of US$860 million. While at SCP, Sanjay represented the Funds' interests on the Boards and committees of several portfolio companies, both listed and unlisted, throughout the region and focused on investments in the life sciences and healthcare. Sanjay has served as the elected Hon. Treasurer and Hon. Secretary of the Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. He is an accomplished speaker and has spoken at over 20 different private equity and healthcare conferences across the world.

As a seasoned professional, Geoff has significant hands on understanding of the APAC markets. With over 20 years of Asia experience, Geoff brings insights and expertise to business partnerships and has a deep understanding of the growth and development needs for each unique geography. With a career summary including, Business Unit Head for Novo Nordisk Australia Biopharmaceuticals, General Manager Novo Nordisk New Zealand, Asia Pacific Director Novo Nordisk, Country President Novo Nordisk Korea, General Manager Schwarz Pharma Korea, General Manager IMS Asean + Pakistan, Chairman EUCCK Pharma Group Korea, Board Member KRPIA Korea; Geoffrey is well equipped to drive business opportunities in Asia.

Geoffrey has a Masters of Science Degree Marketing and Post Graduate Diploma in strategic marketing and holds Chartered Marketer Status with the CIM UK. Singapore office is a newly created wholly owned subsidiary of Douglas Pharmaceuticals New Zealand. It is from this platform that Douglas will build out its business offerings covering prescription and non prescription compounds as well as contract manufacturing and technical collaboration with Asia partners.

Dr. Chang, the Board Chairman of Medigen Biotechnology Corporation, with a Bachelor degree in Medicine from Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in Laser Medicine from London University , was once the Chairman of Medicine Department of Tzu-Chi Medical College and a doctor of Taiwan University Hospital.

Dr. Lye is the Director of Business Development (Future Health Care) at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is also the CEO of SysteMED Private Limited, a medical technology accelerator wholly owned by NTU, and is a partner at Nairos LLC, a medtech consulting firm. Prior to Nairos, Dr. Lye was CTO-founder of Setagon, Inc., a startup which developed several proprietary stent technologies, including a metallic nanoporous surface modification for medical devices such as coronary stents. Setagon obtained over US$5.5 million in venture financing and was acquired by Medtronic. Whye-Kei is the primary inventor of the acquired technology and has over 28 patents/patent applications. His technical experience includes work in the fields of nanoscale materials, micro-electromechanical systems, and biological nanosystems. He has a B.Sc. (Honors) from the California Institute of Technology, and a PhD from Yale University.

Dr. Jayabaskar Thiyagarajan completed his medical training from Kilpauk Medical College, Dr Tamilnadu MGR Medical University and pursued his Masters degree by research in public health from National University of Singapore (NUS). He has practiced medicine both in public and private settings - as a primary care physician and as an emergency room physician - before he joined NUS for his masters.

Dr Jayabaskar is currently managing the strategic programmes portfolio under National Medical Research Council, Ministry of Health, Singapore. He has gained expertise over 8 years in multiple industries (pharmaceuticals, academic and non profit) and in multiple functions (medical affairs, clinical operations and clinical research management and grants management). He has assisted in designing several new funding schemes under NMRC and played a major role in revamping the peer review system, grant management and knowledge translation activities in NMRC. In his current position at NMRC, he is managing programmes such as Translational Clinical Research flagship grants, research infrastructure grants and working on developing strategic partnerships between academic and industry partners. He is the lead project manager in a project which aims to improve the current clinical trial landscape in Singapore in joint collaboration with Singapore Clinical Research Institute (SCRI).

Adelene Q. Perkins has served as Infinity’s president and chief executive officer since 2009. Ms. Perkins first joined Infinity as chief business officer in 2002 and then served as president and chief business officer of Infinity from 2008-2009. Ms. Perkins has more than 25 years of international business and corporate strategy experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, focused on licensing and business development, strategic finance, product life cycle management, and leading high-caliber, cross-functional teams. Ms. Perkins joined Infinity from TransForm Pharmaceuticals where she served as vice president of business and corporate development. Prior to TransForm, from 1992-1999, she was at Genetics Institute, now a unit of Wyeth, where she was vice president of emerging businesses and the cofounder and general manager of the DiscoverEase™ business unit. From 1985-1992, Ms. Perkins worked at Bain & Company, an international strategy consulting firm, where she provided strategic and operational advice to clients in the healthcare industry. Ms. Perkins received her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and her B.S. in chemical engineering from Villanova University. She is on the Board of Project Hope and the Villanova University College of Engineering Advisory Board.

Dr. Roger Edwards is a versatile and commercially focussed executive with broad experience in business development and all facets of technology innovation, management and commercialisation. He has been closely involved in the creation of seven technology based companies. He has gained this experience at senior technical and commercial levels across a range of industry sectors, including bio-technology, information and communications technology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, chemicals, packaging, paints, plastics, marine engineering and waste management, including therapeutic goods regulatory control. Dr. Roger Edwards holds an honour bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Surrey University in England, as well as a doctorate in Bio-Engineering from Strathclyde University in Glasgow Scotland. His PhD Thesis was on Blood Detoxification, and during the course of his research he was awarded a Medical Engineering Fellowship from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK. He has a diploma from the University of New England Australia for Company Directorship, and gained accreditation as a senior fellowship of the Company Directors Association.

Michael graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and worked for a biotech start up in Silicon Valley before going to Boston University Law School. After graduating Michael was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1996 and the USPTO Bar in 1997. Michael worked as a Patent Attorney at a large multinational FMCG Company, where he specialised in Asian patent matters in the chemical and mechanical fields. Michael specialises in international holistic IP strategy work, especially those involving both the US and Asia.