Dr. Aggarwal is a Partner at Panorama Capital and focuses on life sciences investments. He currently serves on the board of directors of Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Hyperion Therapeutics and Nextwave Pharmaceuticals, and was previously on the board of directors at Flowcardia, PIramed and Microscience Investments Limited. Dr. Aggarwal was closely involved in the firm’s investments in Amarin Corporation and Presidio Pharmaceuticals. He was previously employed by KBL Healthcare Ventures, where he also focused on venture capital investments in biopharmaceutical and medical device companies. Dr. Aggarwal was involved with KBL's investments in Achillion Pharmaceuticals, ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Neuronetics, and Spinal Concepts, and was a board observer at each company. He was also involved with KBL's investments in Corixa Corporation and Scynexis. From 1997 to 1999, Dr. Aggarwal was in the venture capital group at Wasserstein Perella & Co. Dr. Aggarwal received his M.D. from Columbia University, College of Physicians & Surgeons and his B.S. in Business Management from Cornell University.
Zafrira Avnur, Ph.D., is Global Academic Innovation Partnering Head at Roche Partnering She holds a post doctorate (Cancer Biology) from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from Weizmann Institute (cell Biology). She was based in Palo Alto, California, USA, from 1987 until 2006, in various positions in the Research and Development area at Roche. Amongst the positions she held are Distinguished Scientist in Roche Bioscience; Disease Area Head for Osteoporosis and Head of Dept. of Musculoskeletal Research. From 2006 she has been based in Basel Switzerland. She held positions of Director of Scientific evaluation and Director of Biomarker Alliances. Zafrira Avnur has published more than 30 peer-reviewed manuscripts and holds a number of patents.
Mr. Bankosky joined Tranzyme Pharma as Vice President, Business Development in August, 2011. Previously, Mr. Bankosky was employed by Takeda Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. as Senior Director, Global Licensing & Business Development where he was responsible for in-licensing and out-licensing of key programs across several therapeutic areas including Diabetes, Obesity, Cardiovascular and Gastrointestinal Diseases. Mr. Bankosky began his career in the pharmaceutical industry in 1992 with Schering Plough and later held a number of positions in Research, Biopharmaceutical Development and Marketing with GlaxoSmithKline. Mr. Bankosky was responsible for business development and financing activities for PlantGenix and later led licensing and corporate development activities for STERIS Corporation until joining Takeda in 2008. Mr. Bankosky holds a B.S. and M.B.A. from Pennsylvania State University and a M.S. from Lehigh University.
Mr. Barrett has 15+ years of experience in business development, corporate strategy, and research in pharmaceutical and biotech companies and research institutions. Since 2002, Mark has been a member of Janssen’s worldwide Pharmaceutical Business Development group with responsibility for leadership and execution of global transactions across therapeutic and technology areas including commercial and clinical stage product and company acquisitions, in licensing, R&D collaborations, out-licensing, divestments, and spin-outs. Mr. Barrett’s areas of expertise include structuring and negotiating complex transactions, risk sharing and option deals, venture capital and company financings, and strategic and commercial assessments. Recently, Mark led the spin-out of IONSYS® into Incline Therapeutics in conjunction with a $43 Series A financing. Mark’s other deal experience includes acquiring rights to XARELTO® and NORATAK®, divestment of RETAVASE®, and numerous licensing and research collaborations. Prior to joining Janssen, Mark worked in drug discovery and biology research at Harvard University, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, and Digital Gene Technologies. He earned his MBA at University of California, Berkeley and holds a BS in Biology from Duke University.
Jeffrey P. Brennan joined Targacept in September, 2003, as Vice President of Business and Commercial Development. Mr. Brennan has more than 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, and has held Executive Management positions at : Sanofi-Synthelabo, Inc., from 1996-2003, and most recently at Targacept. Throughout his career, Mr. Brennan has demonstrated success in both strategic development and key operations roles. He has developed and expanded the capability and capacity of sales and marketing teams, strategic market research and business analysis divisions, product life cycle management and business development departments. Mr. Brennan received a B.S. in Marketing from Central Connecticut University. He has been a member of the Licensing Executive Society (LES) since 1991 and is a former Board member of the Health Care Committee for the LES. He is currently a member of the American Marketing Association Mr. Brennan has completed over 35 mid to late stage business development deals and has been involved in more than 25 product launches in his career. As a member of Sanofi’s Executive Management team, he played an instrumental role in helping the company achieve a nearly 10-fold increase in sales, profits, sales force and headquarter expansion over the past six years. In his role as Targacept’s Senior Vice-President of Business and Commercial Development & Chief Business Officer, Mr. Brennan is a member of Targacept’s Executive Committee and is playing a key role in turning “Science into Business” through key partnerships with AstraZeneca & GlaxoSmithKline.
Douglas D. Cary has over 30 years of pharmaceutical industry experience. This includes injectable products R&D, and new business development. At Abbott (Hospira) he was instrumental in defining and developing IV pre-mixed drugs, Add-Vantage drug delivery system and patient controlled analgesia (PCA).
Additional industry experience was gained in senior management roles at LyphoMed (injectable generics), and Fusiz Technologies (drug delivery). In 2000 he co-founded Cary Pharmaceuticals Inc., a privately funded specialty pharmaceutical company. He is the patent holder for a fixed dose combination, QuitPak®, indicated for smoking cessation. The product is currently being tested in clinical trials. The Company also has a pending 505(b)(2) NDA for ForFivo XL®, a high dose formulation of bupropion. A patent is pending for Duo-Lok® a solution containing sodium citrate as a replacement for heparin in lock flush solutions. Cary Pharmaceuticals is a co-founder of Handa Pharmaceuticals focused on the development of PIV generic drugs. Handa Pharmaceuticals has been recognized by FDA as having two” First to File” ANDA’s.
Mr. Cary holds a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Nebraska and an MBA from Roosevelt University.
Sylvaine is currently Director of External Innovation in the sanofi-aventis department of Prospective & Strategic Initiatives. In this position, she is responsible for various scouting and partnering activities with academic centers and biotech in the Bay Area as well as the Oregon and Washington states.
Prior to joining sanofi-aventis, Sylvaine has been working for 16 years in the San Francisco Bay area in academia and biotechnology and her experience covers basic and pre-clinical research and development in oncology and metabolic disorders. She held an academic appointment at the Gladstone Institutes and most recently the positions of Sr Group Leader at Cytokinetics and of Director of Pharmacology at Arete Therapeutics.
Sylvaine Cases received a MS in bioengineering from the French engineering school AgroParisTech in Paris, majoring in Biochemistry, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Oncology from the University of Paris 7. She completed post-doctoral studies at the Gladstone Institutes/UCSF.
Ms. Hemmie Chang, Partner Foley Hoag LLP. Hemmie chairs Foley Hoag’s Licensing & Strategic Alliances Group where she focuses on complex collaboration and licensing transactions. She has over two decades of experience advising both pharmaceutical and emerging biotech companies, recently advising Translational Therapeutics in a BioWorld International Deal of the Week with Clavis Pharma, representing Arisaph Pharmaceuticals in a major reset of royalty and other payments in a Royalty Pharma deal and closing for a start-up a research and development deal with equity co-investment and option to purchase features with a major device manufacturer. She is currently advising on a major discovery deal with Johnson & Johnson, a biofuels deal with a major European partner and partnership with a major blood bank.
Phil Gutry joined MPM's San Francisco office as a Principal in 2011. He previously worked for five years in Corporate Development at Gilead Sciences where he focused on M&A and licensing in antiviral, respiratory, and liver disease. His deal experience includes Gilead's acquisition of Arresto Biosciences and partnership with MicroDose Therapeutx. Prior to Gilead, Phil was a Principal at Riverside Partners where he spent six years focused on private equity investments in life science instrumentation, diagnostics, and medical products companies. Phil began his career with The Wilkerson Group, a healthcare focused consulting firm. Phil holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and an A.B. from Dartmouth College.
Dr. Donabedian is Vice President, Global New Deal Strategy and Development and is a member of the ceedd leadership team. In this role, he is accountable for setting the ceedd new deal portfolio strategy and composition and working closely with GSK worldwide business development to establish new alliances. Prior to this position, Dr. Donabedian was the Vice President of Strategic Alliances in GSK's Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (ceedd) where he was responsible for identifying and evaluating new business opportunities for the U.S. ceedd and supporting the current network of external alliances. Prior to joining the ceedd, Dr. Donabedian built a successful consultancy practice providing business development services to both public and private biotechnology companies. He has sourced and closed several agreements with biopharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. Dr. Donabedian's previous senior level positions include CEO, COO and VP of Business Development for Tutorzilla, BioChemics, and Surface Logix. Dr. Donabedian also worked as a Sr. Manager in Accenture's Strategic Services Consulting Group serving both in the U.S. and internationally, with assignments focusing on R&D post-merger integration, business unit strategy, and resource planning. Prior to Accenture, Dr. Donabedian held senior level positions at Sentry® Products, a Union Carbide life science venture (now Dow Chemical), where he headed a product development team specializing in developing and patenting a broad range of technologies to the life sciences industries. Dr. Donabedian began his research career as a scientist with SciMed Life Systems, a division of Boston Scientific. Dr. Donabedian is an inventor/co-inventor on several patents and has published several papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of polymer science. Since 2006, Dr. Donabedian has served as a member of University of Massachusetts Lowell Plastics Advisory Committee. He is also as an Alumni Network Advisor for the University of North Carolina Business School. He received an A.B. from St. Anselm College, a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where he was a Deloitte Case Cup Challenge Winner.
Ron Eastman has over 30 years of experience in building healthcare businesses. He began his career at American Cyanamid Company where Mr. Eastman spent 15 years managing various pharmaceutical products, divisions and subsidiaries in the U.S. and overseas. Since then, he has helped build three private healthcare companies—Geron, HCORP, and Rinat Neuroscience. Under his leadership, Geron became a cutting-edge biotech company which grew from a venture-backed startup to a publicly traded pioneer in the fields of regenerative medicine and cancer. HCORP quickly established itself as the technology and market leader in the emerging field of hospital-based, interactive patient services and was sold to a diversified competitor. Most recently, at Rinat, a private biotech company spun out of Genentech in late 2001, Mr. Eastman led the effort to build the first company dedicated to discovering and developing large molecule drugs for treating nervous system disorders. Rinat was acquired by Pfizer in 2006. Mr. Eastman joined Essex Woodlands in the Palo Alto office in October 2006 and is a Managing Director.
Mr. Ertel joined Acceleron in January 2006 to lead the business development, market development, and investor/public relations functions. Mr. Ertel began his career in venture capital at Oxford Bioscience Partners and subsequently worked at several leading biotechnology companies including Genentech and Biogen Idec where he led project teams of preclinical and clinical stage programs, ran a market development department, launched a novel biologic agent, and directed business development activities. At Acceleron, he has secured several major collaborations with Celgene, Alkermes and Shire. He has a B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Paul Eynott, PhD, is Head of Partnering & Innovation, sanofi-aventis U.S. In this role, Paul is responsible for identifying external opportunities within the scope of “early-to-candidate”, working with both internal and external partners to ensure the integration of opportunities into the R&D portfolio. Prior to his new role as Head of Partnering & Innovation, sanofi-aventis U.S, Paul held various positions within sanofi-aventis (& Aventis) including; Project Manager / Leadership roles in Research & Development, ensuring the scientific coordination and implementation of the strategy for sanofi-aventis on various projects from discovery through preclinical development up to Phase 1. Prior to joining sanofi-aventis US in 2002, Paul completed postdoctoral assignments at the National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London. Paul holds a PhD in Pharmacology from Imperial College London, a BSc in Pharmacology from The University of Manchester and has published 24 articles in the area of Pulmonary Pharmacology and Immunology.
Wael has more than 17 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry where he held positions of increasing responsibility in sales, marketing, new product development and business development. Wael joined Forest in 2001 and he currently heads the Business Development group responsible for all licensing and M&A activity. Prior to Forest, Wael worked at Schering Plough in Kenilworth in the Oncology-Biotech business unit where he was responsible for evaluating licensing opportunities and managing early commercialization activities of the oncology pipeline. Prior to that Wael was at Novartis/ Sandoz in Montreal for more than 5 years where he held sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility. Wael holds a bachelor degree in Biology from the American University of Beirut and an MBA from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.
Kerry Flynn is Vice President for Intellectual Property at Shire. She has over 20 years of experience in the Intellectual Property and Licensing field, and has recently earned the newly released designation of Certified Licensing Professional from the Licensing Executives Society. Ms. Flynn was previously Vice President of Business Development and Intellectual Property at Transkaryotic Therapies, now known as Shire Human Genetic Therapies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shire. Prior to joining the company, Ms. Flynn was Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Associate General Counsel at Biogen, Inc. She was also an Intellectual Property Associate at the law firm of Testa, Hurwitz and Thibeault and the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner. She is the Past Chair of the Greater Boston Chapter of the Licensing Executives Society, and the Biotechnology Committee of the Boston Patent Law Association. Ms. Flynn is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Boston University Law School. She has a J.D. from Western New England College School of Law and a B.A. in Biology from Smith College.
Andrew J. Fromkin joined Clinical Data, Inc. on October 12, 2005 and was elected President, Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Director on May 12, 2006. Clinical Data, Inc. (CLDA) was rapidly transformed into a public pharmaceutical company developing first-in-class and best-in-category therapeutics, with a focus on advancing late-stage products and developing related companion diagnostics. On January 21, 2011, the Company received first pass approval from the FDA for its new molecular entity (NME), Viibryd, for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder. On April 13, 2011, the Company finalized its merger with Forest Laboratories (FRX) for over $1.2 Billion in cash and an additional $6 per share in contingent value rights.
Mr. Fromkin has over twenty years of senior leadership experience in major areas of the healthcare industry with an emphasis on healthcare information and services, pharmaceutical services and biotechnology. Prior to Clinical Data, Mr. Fromkin held senior management roles at leading and emerging healthcare companies. Most recently he was President and Chief Executive Officer of DoctorQuality, Inc., a leading provider of patient safety and condition management products that was acquired by Quantros, Inc. and served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Endo Surgical Devices, Inc., an early stage surgical device developer. Mr. Fromkin spent most of the 1990’s in two leadership roles with the industry’s leading prescription benefit management company (PBM), Medco, which became Merck-Medco Managed Care, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. His leadership roles at Medco included Vice President, Business Development (Corporate Development focus from 1995-2000) and before that, Vice President, Sales to Major Health Insurers, Employers and Government Agencies. Mr. Fromkin began his career at Health Information Technologies (1989-1992), a leader in the then emerging field of electronic data interchange between payers, providers and consumers.
In a career spanning nearly 20 years, George has held senior positions in R&D and Business Development. In his most recent two positions, he has led business development functions at leading oncology companies. He has a strong record of closing significant in-licensing and M&A transactions. George is currently Senior Vice President of Business Development for Celgene Corporation, where he is responsible for the full array of business development activities (identification & evaluation of opportunities, structuring & negotiating transactions, in-licensing, M&A, outlicensing, and alliance management). At Celgene, these activities are focused within the therapeutic areas of oncology and inflammation. Prior to Celgene, George served as Vice President of Business Development, Licensing and Strategy for Novartis-Oncology. During his tenure at Novartis, George’s group closed a significant number of collaboration agreements which bolstered the development pipeline. Earlier in his career, George held senior positions at Elan Pharmaceuticals and at Schwarz Pharma, where he led the effort to in-license rotigotine and lacosamide (both now approved agents). In most of his positions, George has served on the R&D and/or Corporate Leadership Teams. George received a BA in Biology from the University of Virginia, a PhD in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has spoken frequently at industry conferences and leading business schools on a variety of topics related to the collaborations within the biopharmaceutical industry.
Roger D. Graben, Ph.D., R.Ph. is Senior Vice President, Operations & Business Development, at Kowa Pharmaceuticals America (KPA) in Montgomery, AL. Dr. Graben is responsible for Business Development, Alliance Management, Quality Assurance, Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory Affairs, Trade, Distribution, Operations, Facilities, Fleet, and IT. Dr. Graben joined KPA in 2006 and has previously served as Vice President of Operations and Business Development, Vice President of Business Development, and Director of Manufacturing. He began his career with Solvay Pharmaceuticals in 1987 as a Formulation Scientist. He later joined Chelsea Labs (a Rugby Generics/Marion Merrill-Dow Company) as Manager of Pharmaceutical Technology and later served as Director of QA/QC. He received a B.S. in Pharmacy, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics, all from Auburn University. He currently serves as an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics at Auburn University, as a member of the Auburn University Research Advisory Board, and on the Dean’s Advisory Council, School of Sciences, Auburn Montgomery. Dr. Graben is a licensed pharmacist. In addition to owning a successful independent retail pharmacy, he has experience in hospital, clinical, and academic settings as well.
Milt Grannatt is Vice President and Head, Negotiations for Respiratory in Global Business Development and Licensing at Novartis. Prior to Novartis, he held senior positions at Sterling Winthrop and Lex Service, an acquisitive UK-based company. Dr. Grannatt has an extensive deal sheet.
Dr. Green is a globally-recognized expert in the development and use of transgenic mice for the discovery of human therapeutic antibodies. He is an inventor of more than 40 issued patents on antibody discovery technologies, antibody development technologies and therapeutic product candidates. He joined Aliva Biopharmaceuticals as chief executive officer in September 2008, closing a $12 million Series A financing round in December 2009, concomitant with the formation of Ablexis and at which time Aliva Biopharmaceuticals Inc. became a subsidiary of Ablexis.
He began his professional career at Cell Genesys in 1992 and was a scientific founder of its spin-out, Abgenix, serving in an executive leadership role at the time of Abgenix's $2.2 billion acquisition by Amgen in 2006. He is a co-inventor of Abgenix's (now Amgen's) XenoMouse® technology and led the successful design and creation of multiple enhancements to that technology platform. While serving as director of antibody operations at Abgenix, his department instituted process improvements that resulted in a 200-fold increase in recovery of antigen-specific antibodies while reducing the effort and timeline, culminating in a greater than 95 percent average annual success rate in generating leads that met or exceeded drug candidate design goals. During his tenure at Abgenix, Dr. Green led or significantly contributed to at least 60 therapeutic antibody discovery projects that resulted in lead candidates in clinical trials, pre-clinical development or research for the pipelines of Abgenix or its partners. He has consulted for biotechnology companies, legal firms and venture capitalists in areas of antibody and biologic drug discovery and development, platform technology creation and use for biologic drug discovery and enhancement, target identification and validation, product and technology in-licensing, and matters of intellectual property.
Dr. Green received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and conducted post-doctoral work at the University of Colorado-Boulder and Stanford University. He has a B.S. with honors in chemistry from the University of Kentucky. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi.
Enlight Biosciences is a Boston-based venture creation firm, established in partnership with major pharmaceutical companies to develop breakthrough innovations that will fundamentally alter drug discovery and development. Dr. Harris manages Enlight’s day-to-day operations and is responsible for providing management support to Enlight’s portfolio companies. Prior to joining Enlight, Dr. Harris was Executive Director and Head of Business Strategy and Operations for Novartis Biologics; Senior Manager in Novartis Pharma AG’s strategic planning group; and an Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Company’s healthcare practice, where he advised clients across the healthcare spectrum including biotech / pharma, hospitals & health systems, and private equity. Dr. Harris also worked as a research associate at the University of California, Davis, the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Sankyo Ltd., and as an Intern at Burrill & Company. Dr. Harris received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from the University of California, San Francisco, where he was a Howard Hughes predoctoral fellow, and his Sc.B. in Biophysics from Brown University with Honors, magna cum laude, where he was initiated into Sigma Xi.
James Hattersley has over 22 years of successful leadership experience within biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. From 1986 through 1995 Jim was responsible for R&D advancements in drug delivery at Alza Corp and Abbott Labs. From 1995 to present day 2011 Jim has led the execution of growth strategy at Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, in addition to several transactions of significant value at Eurand and Antares. Assignments throughout his career include NCE drug research, alliance management, and business development targeting proprietary drug products. In his current position, as Vice President of Business Development at Sun, Jim leads a dedicated team of experts working together to identify acquisition, licensing, and partnership candidates who can help execute Sun's financial objectives. Jim received undergraduate and graduate degrees in Neurobiology, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, respectively, both from University of California.
John manages Achaogen's business development, strategic marketing, and legal activities, including in particular its non-dilutive financing strategies and its relationships with government agencies. Prior to joining Achaogen, John was the Vice President of Operations, Strategy & Corporate Development, and Chief Privacy Officer for Acurian, Inc., a clinical services company. There he built Acurian’s clinical data services and was responsible for the overall management of client projects and the establishment and maintenance of industry-leading data management standards and procedures. John was the General Manager in charge of wireless strategy and product development for Shared Medical Systems Corp, now Siemens Medical Systems (SMS). Prior to his business career, he was an attorney at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. He holds a J.D. with honors from the George Washington University Law School, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Robin Jackman is President and CEO of Zacharon Pharmaceuticals, a company discovering and developing first-in-class small molecule drugs targeting glycan biosynthesis for the treatment of rare lysosomal storage diseases and cancer. Dr. Jackman has 18 years of experience in business development, finance, clinical development, and scientific research. During that time he led or participated in over 80 life science partnership, financing, and M&A transactions collectively valued at over $11 billion. Prior to joining Zacharon he was Senior Vice President of Business Operations at the biotechnology company Vical, where he formed a partnership for the company's lead drug, and ran the oncology division with two orphan-indication drugs: including both a Phase 1 clinical trial with 3 sites and launching and enrolling a worldwide Phase 3 registration clinical trial encompassing over 120 clinical sites in 15 countries. Earlier in his career he was an investment banker with the Robertson Stephens unit at Bank of America as Vice President of Corporate Finance, Life Sciences. While at Robertson Stephens, he worked closely with life science companies ranging from small venture-backed startups to large multinational pharmaceutical companies, providing strategic advice and managing private and public transactions. Dr. Jackman holds graduate degrees from Harvard Medical School and Harvard University, and an undergraduate degree from Stanford University.
Neena S. Kadaba, Ph.D. is the Director of Industry Alliances at QB3 (the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences), a state institute that accelerates the commercialization of innovations from UCSF, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. Her goal is to initiate collaborations between industry and faculty from these three campuses and to expand QB3’s pre-commercial funding programs. She manages QB3’s alliance with Pfizer and runs an industry speaker series designed to foster academic-industry partnerships. Previously, she co-founded Cypress Innovations and was an Associate and Kauffman Fellow in the venture capital group at Itochu Technology. She completed her PhD in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology and received a BS in Chemistry and a MS in Bioengineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information about QB3, please visit
www.qb3.org.
Kiva Kolstein is vice president, and global head of corporate new business development at Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), where his team works with more than 175 corporations worldwide. In his 4 years at GLG, he has extensive experience partnering with executives in strategy and development, marketing, finance, pricing, reimbursement, research and development, and compliance.
In his current role Kolstein has grown the Corporate Markets business ten-fold to nearly $20MM from 2008 to 2011. In additional to Fortune 500 clients in other sectors, currently nine of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies and eight of the top 20 global medical device and diagnostics companies use Gerson Lehrman Group to conduct diligence and primary research. Through this service, clients have successfully executed multinational mergers and acquisitions, accelerated their rates of innovation, avoided bad investments and partnerships, and engaged with the world’s most prestigious thought leaders in gathering cutting edge insights
Kolstein was instrumental in building the GLG Corporate Markets team from the start, successfully forging relationships with 5 of the top ten global pharmaceutical firms before taking over as head of the team, and building a business that now includes the largest global pharma, biotech, device, and diversified industrials companies in the world.
Mr. Kolstein graduated from the University of Delaware with degrees in Political Science and Marketing.
Hari Kumar brings to Panmira almost 20 years of big pharmaceutical experience. Hari spent a total of 17 years at Hoffmann-La Roche, where he began his career in basic research, moved to sales and marketing, lifecycle management, and finally, business development. In 1996, Hari moved to Eisai Ltd, where he served as the company’s European Marketing Director before returning to Roche in 1999.
During his career, Hari has overseen the launches of the immunosuppressive CellCept®, the Alzheimer’s drug Aricept® and the gastric ulcer drug Aciphex®. He was also involved in guiding cross-functional teams at Roche for the Transplantation franchise, during which time the products in the franchise achieved billion dollar sales. In his role as lead in-licensing manager for inflammation at Roche, Hari identified and partnered valuable products that significantly enhanced Roche’s global portfolio. He was instrumental in securing partnerships with Isotechnika, Biotie, Biocryst and Actellion. Experience in almost all aspects of the pharmaceutical industry has given Hari a unique understanding of the elements that contribute to a successful drug.
Hari trained as an immunologist at University College London, where he completed his Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor N A Mitchison. Hari then completed post-doctoral fellowships at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston and at the Marie Curie Cancer Research Centre in the United Kingdom.
Juergen Lasowski, Ph.D., executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, joined Onyx in May 2008 as senior vice president of corporate development. Recognizing the important role that corporate development has in shaping the company’s pipeline and strategic direction, Dr. Lasowski’s role was expanded to include corporate strategy in January 2011. While at Onyx, he has been the architect of many transactions, most notably the acquisition of Proteolix and the out-licensing of carfilzomib and ONX 0912 to Ono Pharmaceutical for Japan. Before joining Onyx, he was the senior vice president of corporate development at NPS Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Dr. Lasowski spent 17 years at Sanofi-Aventis and its predecessor companies in business development, strategy and marketing positions in the U.S., Japan and Germany. Dr. Lasowski earned his MBA from INSEAD, France, and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Mainz, Germany.
Casey Logan joined Anaphore in January 2011. Prior to joining Anaphore, Mr. Logan led corporate development and strategic planning efforts at Anadys Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, he was with Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, IN, in the corporate business development group. During his career, Mr. Logan has led transactions in both in-licensing and out-licensing of assets across a range of therapeutic areas, including the creation of two startup companies. Prior to Lilly, Mr. Logan was an officer in the US Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. Mr. Logan received his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Ms. Lu has more than 20 years of technical and business experience in life science and in vitro diagnostics. At Crescendo Bioscience, she serves as a member of the executive team that sets the company’s strategic direction. She spearheads business development initiatives that consist of portfolio planning, strategic partnering, licensing negotiation and geographical expansion to support the company’s overall growth strategy. Prior to joining Crescendo, she was Vice President, Technology Management and Head of the U.S. Chief Technology Office for Roche Diagnostics, where she built a global team focusing on technology scouting and assessment to support strategic planning and M&A. Her scouting focus covered life sciences, diabetes care, centralized testing, near-patient testing, and molecular diagnostics. Lucy has also held various marketing, product development and R&D management positions at Applied Biosystems, Genentech and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Ellen Lubman is a Group Director in the Strategy, Alliances and Transactions Group at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Ellen focuses on M&A execution and strategy, identification of new transaction opportunities, and initiation of “String of Pearls transactions, as well as spearheading novel business initiatives. Prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ellen worked with Celtic Pharma, L.P., a private equity fund that acquires direct ownership or controlling stakes in commercially attractive pharmaceutical products in the late stages of clinical and regulatory development, and VIA Pharmaceuticals, a start-up cardiovascular disease biotechnology company incubated at Bay City Capital in San Francisco. During the heyday of the Human Genome Project, Ellen was a Biotechnology Equity Research Analyst at Robertson Stephens where she focused on Genomics, Proteomics, Drug Discovery and Technology Platform companies, and developed research pieces on Genetic Intellectual Property, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms and other discovery technologies. Ellen holds a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Rutgers College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, including a Certificate in Global Management. She is a Director on the Board of Gilda's Club of NYC and the Investment Board of Springboard Enterprises.
Dr. MacQuitty has headed up Abingworth’s West Coast office since 1999. Abingworth is a leading life science investor in both US and Europe having invested in over 100 companies with over $1.3B currently being managed. Before Abingworth, Dr. MacQuitty was CEO for 9 years of GenPharm International, a biotech firm he co-founded in 1988 to develop transgenic animal technology. Prior to GenPharm, he held management positions at Genentech and Genencor. He has an MA in Chemistry from Oxford University, a Ph. D. in Chemistry from the University of Sussex (UK), and a Stanford MBA. He has served on the Board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization ("BIO") and the Boards of 16 private companies, 10 of which have already gone public or been acquired.
Prior to joining Avila, Dr. Mahanthappa was a founding employee and subsequently Vice President of Scientific and Strategic Development at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Serving as a management team member, he initially served as interim head of research during the company’s first year and led business development efforts that resulted in partnerships with Merck, Medtronic, and Novartis. Prior to joining Alnylam, Dr. Mahanthappa was Manager of Business Development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and held a series of positions with increasing scientific and commercial responsibility at Ontogeny (now Curis). Dr. Mahanthappa earned his PhD in neurobiology from the California Institute of Technology, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mahanthappa is also an MBA graduate of the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Management at Babson College.
Rich Masterson is President of Valeant International (Barbados) SRL and Chariman of its Board. He leads Valeant’s wholly owned subsidiary in Barbados, which is the locus of the majority of the asset purchase transactions completed by the Company. He has more than twenty-two years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry spanning a broad range of commercial responsibilities in numerous therapeutic areas and most recently lead Valeant’s business development function. Before joining Valeant Mr. Masterson worked at TAP Pharmaceuticals Inc. where he was General Manager of the Lupron franchise, a $900M business, and Vice President of Licensing. Prior to assuming responsibility for licensing at TAP, Mr. Masterson held positions of steadily increasing responsibility in the marketing and business development departments. During his career as a marketing and business development professional he has completed dozens of transactions involving companies, marketed products and development programs, and participated in the launch of numerous NCE’s. . He holds a BA degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a Masters of Management degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. Before joining industry, Mr. Masterson served seven years in the Special Operations group of the U.S. Navy.
Teri Melese is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and is Director of Research Technologies and Alliances in the UCSF School of Medicine Dean’s Office. Before joining UCSF in 2001, she ran an independent research laboratory in yeast genetics and molecular biology at Columbia University from 1988-1997 and in 1997 left Columbia to be founding member of Iconix Biosciences (recently acquired by Entelos), in Silicon Valley. She has 4 patents for biomedical technologies and small molecule inhibitors and is the author of numerous scientific articles. In 1988, she was awarded a National Science Foundation Young Presidential Investigator Award. Melese holds an A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley, a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from UCSF (Regents Fellow), and was an American Cancer Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles. She can be contacted at meleset@medsch.ucsf.edu.
Matthew Meyer is the Vice President of Corporate Development and Legal Affairs. Mr. Meyer has over 15 years of business development, marketing and commercial legal experience in the domestic and international life sciences industry. Prior to joining XDx, Mr. Meyer was Vice President, Business Development and General Counsel at Cerimon Pharmaceuticals where he led the in-license and partnering of prescription products to treat pain and inflammation. Prior to that, Mr. Meyer held senior management positions at Draeger Medical Systems, the U.S. subsidiary of the German-based global medical device company, most recently serving as Vice President and General Counsel. Prior to Draeger, Mr. Meyer held positions of increasing responsibility at Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, Switzerland, including serving as Head of Global Marketing Channel Innovations, a role in which he helped foster greater marketing and sales effectiveness through the use of innovative technology-based initiatives. Previously, Mr. Meyer was the Vice President, Global Business Development and Legal Affairs at Allscripts’ Physician’s Interactive division, which was a leader in online marketing programs to physicians, and spent five years as a commercial and transactional attorney at Pfizer Inc, working in New York, Connecticut and the United Kingdom. Mr. Meyer graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from Villanova University School of Law.
Suzanne Mandala received her BA degree from Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania) and her PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Human Genetics at Yale University. Suzanne joined Merck research biologist in 1989 in the Infectious Disease Department. She distinguished herself as an expert in sphingolipid biology as applied to the development of antifungal agents. In 2000, she joined the Immunology and Rheumatology department and leveraged her expertise in sphingosine metabolism to the development of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor agonists as immunosuppressive agents. Suzanne managed a diverse portfolio of projects in immunology, inflammation, and hematology as a director in the Immunology Department until 2008, when she assumed a position in External Scientific Affairs. In her current position as senior director in the Worldwide Licensing and External Research department, Suzanne has responsibility for identifying and scientifically assessing licensing opportunities for the Respiratory and Immunology franchise.
Dr. Monroy is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Morrison & Foerster with a focus on patent law and biotechnology. She formerly served as co-chair of the firmwide Patent group as well as co-chair of the Life Sciences practice.
Dr. Monroy’s practice includes strategic counseling and comprehensive patent portfolio management for small, medium, and large companies. She has special technical expertise in molecular biology, immunology, biochemistry, cell-based clean technology, diagnostics, therapeutics, virology, drug delivery systems, high throughput screening, microarray technology, gene therapy, liposomal technology, small molecules, proteomics and bioinformatics. Dr. Monroy’s practice includes writing and carrying on all matters related to prosecuting patent applications, including interferences, re-examinations, and reissues. Dr. Monroy’s practice also includes conducting due diligence studies in connection with venture capital, private and public financing, mergers and acquisitions, opinions on patentability, non-infringement and patent validity, and counseling during product development.
Dr. Monroy is a past President of the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Association and has served as chair or co-chair as well as a member of the Board of Directors for a number of intellectual property law associations. Dr. Monroy has received public recognition for her work including listings as a leading attorney in Health Sciences by Global Practical Law, Co., as the top lawyer in intellectual property in the Bay Area in 2011 by Best Lawyers in America, as Band-1 in Life Sciences IP by Chambers USA 2011, and has been selected to be named in the International Who’s Who of Life Sciences Lawyers 2011.
Jonathan Mow is Vice President, Business Development for Amylin Pharmaceuticals located in San Diego, CA since he joined the company in 2007. Prior to joining Amylin, Mr. Mow was Co-founder, Vice President, Commercial and Business Development, and Secretary of Corus Pharma, Inc. until their acquisition by Gilead Sciences in 2006. From 1997 to 2000, Mr. Mow led the Business Development efforts for PathoGenesis Corporation, culminating with the company’s acquisition by Chiron Corporation in 2000. Prior to those roles, he held positions in Worldwide Oncology Marketing and Strategic Business Planning at Bristol Myers-Squibb, Marketing at Wyeth/Lederle International and Sales and Marketing Research at Syntex Laboratories. Mr. Mow received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.B.A. from the Tepper School of Management at Carnegie Mellon University.
Jon Norris is a managing director with SVB Capital's Venture Capital Relationship Management team, specializing in life sciences. Norris oversees strategic relationships with select life science venture capital firms on the West Coast, sourcing and advising on direct equity co-investment, limited partnership, and portfolio company banking and lending opportunities. In addition, he helps life science companies with equity fundraising strategy. Norris has more than eleven years of banking experience working with life science companies and venture capital firms. Prior to joining SVB Capital, Norris was a founding member and senior vice president of Square 1 Bank, an early stage technology bank, where he was an account officer responsible for sourcing deals and managing regional and national venture capital relationships. Norris also served more than six years at Imperial Bank (subsequently acquired by Comerica Bank), most recently as senior vice president and group manager of the Northern California Life Science Practice. Prior to banking, Norris was a practicing litigation attorney, specializing in employment defense and toxic tort litigation. Norris earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of California, Riverside and a Juris Doctorate from Santa Clara University.
Michael O'Donnell is a partner in the firm’s Palo Alto office, specializing in corporate and securities law. He has more than 25 years of experience providing general corporate representation to biopharmaceutical and other life sciences companies. He offers particular expertise in venture capital financings, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, technology licensing, and corporate spin-out transactions. Michael represents numerous public and private biopharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic, and instrumentation companies. He is a member and also Co-Chair of the Bio Screening Committee of Life Science Angels, a premier angel investment group focused solely on biotechnology and medical device companies.
Michael was the founding and lead attorney on the initial public offerings for companies such as Illumina, Pain Therapeutics, Cytokinetics, NeurogesX, Neurocrine Biosciences, Sequana Therapeutics, Ciphergen Biosystems, Argonaut Technologies, and Microcide Pharmaceuticals. He also has extensive experience with negotiating strategic alliances, representing clients in major collaborations with GSK, Amgen, Schering-Plough, J&J, Daiichi, Astellas, Valeant, and King Pharmaceuticals and most recently with Pfizer and Eisai.
Michael was also the lead attorney responsible for negotiating a number of notable biopharmaceutical spin-outs, including Onyx Pharmaceuticals (Chiron-Cetus), Tularik (Genentech), X-Ceptor (Ligand Pharmaceuticals), Metabasis (Gensia Sicor), and Iconix (Microcide Pharmaceuticals) and as well on the reverse merger of Transcept Pharmaceuticals with Novacea, creating a new publicly traded entity.
Dr. Julia C. Owens brings to Lycera extensive experience in establishing corporate partnerships, in-licensing transactions and strategic planning. Prior to joining Lycera in 2010, Dr. Owens served as head of business development at QuatRx Pharmaceuticals for six years. During this time, Dr. Owens led QuatRx’s partnering processes, which resulted in a licensing deal with Galderma Labs and most recently a significant transaction with Shionogi Pharma for QuatRx’s lead product. Dr. Owens was also responsible for several in-licensing transactions, which were instrumental in building the QuatRx product portfolio. Prior to QuatRx, Dr. Owens worked at Tularik Inc. (now Amgen San Francisco, following a $1.8 billion acquisition) in business development, where she led partnering for the oncology and immunology areas. She also headed a committee tasked with evaluating and acquiring cutting-edge technologies in the research and drug discovery areas. Dr. Owens began her business career at the University of California, San Francisco Office of Technology Management. Dr. Owens received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and has a B.S. in chemistry and B.A. in molecular and cellular biology from University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Patel is Director, External Research for Abbott Laboratories with responsibility for identification and evaluation of discovery-stage collaboration and licensing opportunities in the Western US. In addition, Dr. Patel serves as the therapy area liaison for oncology, partnering with senior management to create the overall strategy for the pipeline, conducting pro-active searches for assets and collaborators, and assessing all incoming opportunities worldwide for technical robustness and strategic fit.
Dr. Patel has over seventeen years pharma/biotech industry experience with small molecules and biologics from early stage discovery through IND filing, with a focus on oncology and ophthalmology. Most recently, she led Preclinical and Translational Medicine at Poniard Pharmaceuticals where she established the biology department and jointly created a preclinical product pipeline with the head of chemistry. Prior to Poniard, Dr. Patel served in drug discovery management positions of increasing responsibility at Genentech, SUGEN/Pharmacia, and Roche Bioscience. Dr. Patel was also a key member of several start-up company teams to establish the overall business and scientific strategies and to seek funding, including securing a total of $37M in Series A for Optherion, Inc.
Dr. Patel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a B.S. in Biology and B.A. in Humanities (with Honors), and holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She completed her post-doctoral training at DNAX/Schering Plough.
Dr. Pellini joined Foundation Medicine as President and Chief Executive Officer in May 2011, bringing a breadth of experience in life sciences and the clinical diagnostics and laboratory industries to the company. Dr. Pellini came to Foundation Medicine from Clarient, a GE Healthcare Company, where he held the position of President and Chief Operating Officer. Dr. Pellini joined GE Healthcare through the integration of Clarient, Inc., where he worked with the company’s leadership team to drive critical regulatory and reimbursement strategies in parallel with the development and commercialization of multiple diagnostic tests. Dr. Pellini’s leadership was instrumental in building Clarient to the highly successful acquisition by GE Healthcare in October 2010. Prior to his tenure with Clarient, Dr. Pellini served as Vice President, Life Sciences at Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. where he leveraged his business and medical expertise to explore new market opportunities and to support Safeguard’s partner companies. Prior to Safeguard, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Lakewood Pathology Associates, a national molecular and pathology services company, which was acquired by Water Street Healthcare Partners in 2006. Prior to that, Dr. Pellini was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at BioAdvance, where he was responsible for reviewing and evaluating early-stage life science companies. He also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Genomics Collaborative, Inc., a Boston-based biotech firm that was acquired by SeraCare Life Sciences, Inc. in 2004. Dr. Pellini received a B.A. from Boston College, an M.B.A. from Drexel University and an M.D. from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Pellini serves as a member the Boston College Technology Council, the Executive Committee of the Jefferson Medical College Alumni Association, and the Board of Trustees for the Coriell Institute of Medical Research.
Deanna Petersen joined Shire in 2009 as Vice President of Business Development for Shire Human Genetic Therapies (HGT). Deanna is a broadly skilled senior executive with 15 years of leadership experience in strategic planning and global business development. Deanna is a member of Shire HGT’s senior leadership team and is responsible for identifying, evaluating and negotiating business opportunities. Prior to joining Shire, Deanna was a Vice President at Anitgenics’ Inc. and Coley Pharmaceutical Group. Deanna is on the Board of Directors for American DG Energy and Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. Deanna holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Iowa State University and a Master of Business Administration from The University of Iowa.
Debanjan Ray, Head of Business Development at CytomX Therapeutics, has more than 10 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, including strategic consulting, venture capital, and business development. Prior to joining CytomX in August of 2011, he was Vice President of Business Development at Itero Biopharmaceuticals, where he helped drive several collaborations including the company's partnership on its lead product with Watson Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Itero, Mr. Ray was an Associate Director of Business Development at Portola Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Mr. Ray was an Associate in the Life Sciences Venture Practice at J.P. Morgan Partners and a Business Analyst in the Healthcare Practice at McKinsey & Company. He received his M.B.A. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and holds a dual B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mr. Risser has 15 years of strategy and transaction experience across both small biotechnology and large pharmaceutical companies. Prior to joining MacroGenics, he served as Senior Director, Business Development, at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals, which he joined in 2003. He was responsible for leading global transactions in the pharmaceuticals area, including company acquisitions, product licenses and research collaborations. Before Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Risser started and built a successful consulting practice that provided counsel to emerging life science companies in the United States and Europe. He has also worked as a venture capitalist with BankAmerica Ventures and as an investment banker with Lehman Brothers, where he began his career in their New York and London offices. Mr. Risser holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Yale University.
Dr. Jim Schaeffer joined Merck Research Laboratories (MRL) in 1986. During his first 16 years at MRL, he directed research groups focusing primarily on neuroendocrine-related projects. Jim joined the Department of External Scientific Affairs in 2003 with primary responsibility for all neuroscience licensing opportunities and during the next 18 months, he was directly involved in the signing of four major agreements. Jim moved to San Diego in 2004 to assume the role of Merck's "Science Scout" on the West Coast, with the responsibility to identify new opportunities across all therapeutic areas at all stages of development including enabling technologies. During the past four years, Jim has been directly involved in the execution of 7 major agreements with West Coast based organizations including recent agreements with AmbrX, Marcadia, MediVas, the Gladstone Institute, the University of California in San Francisco and the University of Texas-Southwestern. As of July 2008, Jim is also responsible for Merck's scouting efforts in China.
Alex leads the partnering activities in the neuroscience field at Genentech. His team is responsible for screening scientific opportunities, leading due diligence and negotiating contract terms to access new therapies for neurological and psychiatric diseases. Transactions span across a broad spectrum of deal structures, including product in-licenses, research collaborations, co-development agreements and spin-offs. Alex joined Genentech in 2005 and previously worked in the investment banking group at Merrill Lynch in London, where he was involved in several capital market transactions in the health care sector. He is a physician by training and completed his medical degree at the Charite Medical School in Berlin, Germany. He also holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School.
Kevin Skol leads the business development activities at Isis Pharmaceuticals as the Director of Business Development. Kevin is primarily responsible for implementing Isis’ innovative partnering structures including its Preferred Partner Alliance model and Satellite Company strategy which now includes over a dozen technology and drug development collaborations. Prior to Isis, Kevin was a marketing director, neuroscience at Valeant Pharmaceuticals leading its migraine franchise. Kevin also spent several years in business development at Valeant where the team completed the $280M acquisition of Xcel pharmaceuticals and numerous other transactions including product acquisitions, co-promotions, in-licenses, out-licenses and divestitures. Prior to Valeant, Kevin was Vice President of Corporate Development at Digital Gene Technologies, a private genomics based company, who oversaw Corporate Development and the Investor Relations team. Kevin was responsible for identifying, initiating, closing and managing strategic alliances with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Prior to DGT, Kevin served in the New York-based business development group at Elan, a publicly held biopharmaceutical and drug delivery company. In that position, Kevin helped direct U.S. business development activities, specializing in drug development and drug delivery partnerships and joint ventures between Elan and a wide range of U.S. biotechnology companies that completed over 50 transactions. Kevin personally closed eight licensing and joint venture transactions totaling over $100 million in revenue. Kevin was also a key member of the team that built and managed Elan's significant portfolio of investments assisting with the management, fundraising and business development needs of the portfolio companies. Prior to joining Elan, Kevin spent a number of years at Goldman, Sachs & Company as a financial analyst within the Structured Finance and Real Estate Groups. He performed in-depth analyses and advised companies involved in the telecommunications, metals, healthcare, railroads, sports management, real estate, and financial industries. Kevin serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Ingredient Innovations International (3i), a nutraceuticals company based in Ohio. Kevin holds a BA in Economics from Yale University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Dr. Jeremy P. Springhorn is Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Alexion, where he is responsible for managing Corporate Strategy, Licensing, Business Development and Competitive Intelligence for the Company. He also chairs the company's Licensing committee.
Dr. Springhorn was one of the original scientists at Alexion and played an integral role in the engineering and development of Alexion's antibody therapeutics, including Soliris® (eculizumab). Over the past several years, Dr. Springhorn has transitioned from Research to Business Development, leveraging his drug development experience into the review of licensing opportunities. Dr. Springhorn has led many of the recent and current deals for Alexion. He has also served in other key positions in the company including Head of Business Development and Corporate Strategy; Senior Director of Protein Therapeutics and Head of Collaborative Research; Director of Small Molecule Drug Discovery, and Principal Scientist. He also served as a scientific advisor to Arradial, Inc and currently serves as a director of the Greater New Haven Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Prior to 1992, Dr. Springhorn was an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Cardiovascular Division of the Department of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is a member of the Licensing Executives Society and Biotechnology Industry Organization.
Dr. Springhorn received a doctorate degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Louisiana State University Medical Center and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colby College.
Brad Prosek currently serves as Senior Director, Corporate Development for Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. In this role, Brad sources and structures transactions supporting Cubist’s pipeline buildout. Previously at Cubist, Brad started and led the Market Access group, a sales organization focused on developing non-hospital markets for the company’s flagship product CUBICIN (daptomycin for injection). He joined Cubist in 2005 from BiogenIdec, Inc. Brad holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.S.F.S from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Mr. Tinmouth joined Vertex Pharmaceuticals as Director of Corporate Development in 2002 and has since been promoted to Vice President, Business Development & Alliance Management. His role at Vertex involves managing a group of professionals that source and execute licensing transactions and manage the various research and development alliances. Mr. Tinmouth has also had significant involvement in strategic and long range planning.
Prior to joining Vertex, Mr. Tinmouth worked at Bain & Company (a Boston-based strategy consulting firm) as a Senior Manager in its Healthcare practice, serving both Fortune 50 pharmaceutical clients as well as smaller biotech companies. These engagements included post-merger integration, growth strategy and mergers and acquisition.
Mr. Tinmouth received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree, with Honours, in Mechanical Engineering, from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Mr. Tinmouth lives in Boston with his wife, Brit Dewey, and their children Julian and Erika.
Samantha Truex is Vice President, Business Development at Biogen Idec. She has been with Biogen Idec since 2006 and is currently leading business development for Biogen Idec’s hemophilia/hematology areas. Prior to this role, Samantha managed Biogen Idec’s long-lasting Factor IX and Factor VIII programs and the associated alliance with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum. From 2006-2008, Samantha was responsible for Biogen Idec’s M&A activities, leading its 2007 acquisition of Syntonix and instrumental in its sale process later that year. Samantha held multiple positions in Corporate and Business Development across multiple divisions at Genzyme from 1998-2006, with responsibilities including acquisitions and alliances for Genzyme Molecular Oncology and Genzyme Genetics. Prior to Genzyme, Samantha held positions in business development at Chiron’s Diagnostics division and in strategy consulting at Health Advances. Samantha holds an MBA from The Tuck School, a BE in biomedical engineering and a BA in biology, both from Dartmouth College.
Guy Van Meter is Head of Business Development for Adimab, LLC, an antibody discovery company. In the first 2 years from platform launch, Mr. Van Meter has helped build Adimab into one of the most successful antibody platform companies in the industry, generating deals with Merck, Roche, Pfizer, Lilly, Novartis, Genentech, Novo Nordisk, BiogenIdec and other top pharma companies. Prior to Adimab, Mr. Van Meter was in a business development and strategic alliances role at Pfizer, focused on early stage biologics. Mr. Van Meter also spent 6 years helping develop the licensingand funded research business at Dyax Corp, producing more than 45 revenue generating deals. Prior work experiences include a product development role at Alkermes, and research at Yale and Harvard. Mr. Van Meter has a MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Management at Babson.
Ben Bonifant is the leader of Campbell Alliance’s Business Development practice. In that role, Mr. Bonifant assists leaders in large and small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on key licensing and acquisition initiatives. He also acts as a strategic advisor to venture capital and private equity decision makers. Prior to joining Campbell, Mr. Bonifant was a partner in the Strategy Practice at Mercer Management Consulting. Mr. Bonifant’s perspectives on life-sciences market developments are frequently published in industry and strategy journals, including Nature Biotechnology, Scrip, InVivo, and Pharmaceutical Executive. Mr. Bonifant is a member of the faculty of BIO’s Business Development Basics and Advanced Business Development Professional Development Courses, and he is the co-chairman of the biannual LES Royalty Rate Survey Committee. He is currently serving on the National Program Committee for the 2011 BIO International Convention. Mr. Bonifant earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS from Duke University.
Paul Barker is a partner in Finnegan’s Palo Alto, California office. For more than 20 years, Mr. Barker has practiced patent law, with a particular focus in the fields of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. In his patent prosecution practice, he prepares applications and responses to office actions, represents clients in reexamination and reissue proceedings, and prepares briefs to the appeal board. He has prepared numerous validity and infringement opinions and represented clients in due diligence analyses related to technology in-licensing opportunities and business acquisitions. He has represented companies in interferences related to immunoassays, proteins, nucleic acids, methods of treatment, and DNA sequencing techniques, machines, and reagents. His broad experience in various fields includes antibodies, nucleic acid amplification and detection techniques, protein chemistry, gene therapy, and transgenic plants. Mr. Barker manages numerous patent portfolios for clients in diverse technologies, including antibodies, DNA amplification and sequencing techniques, transgenic animals, and diagnostics.
Mr. Totten is a Vice President of Dean & Company and head of its Life Sciences practice. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Totten was a Principal at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), and one of the founders of its Life Sciences practice. Previously, Mr. Totten worked in Brand Management at the Procter & Gamble Company.
Mr. Totten’s work has spanned corporate level strategy, market entry, customer segmentation, competitive assessment, manufacturing/development, and M&A issues in a broad range of industries.
In Life Sciences, he has assisted large global pharmaceutical companies, small biotech start-ups, and the U.S. DHHS in the areas of pharmaceuticals, generics, vaccines, medical devices, diagnostic testing, and proprietary drugs.
Mr. Totten has testified in front of Congress on vaccine-related issues and has been a speaker at the Sabin Vaccine Institute Annual Cold Spring Harbor Conference and the World Vaccine Congress. He also has presented on M&A and Due Diligence issues at numerous pharmaceutical and medical devices conferences.
Mr. Totten received a BA degree in Business from the University of Michigan, where he graduated with highest distinction, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Matthew Porzio, Vice President of Product Marketing, joined IntraLinks in August of 2003. He is responsible for driving the development and marketing of IntraLinks' Exchanges including virtual dealroom/dataroom solutions for the M&A and restructuring communities.
Before joining IntraLinks, he was a senior associate at Metzler, a German advisory firm, where he focused on cross-border M&A transactions. Prior to Metzler, Mr. Porzio served as an analyst and associate in Equity Capital Markets and Business Services Investment Banking groups at First Union Securities (later Wachovia). Mr. Porzio holds a Bachelor's degree from Colgate University.
Mr. Porzio is widely recognized as a leading authority on virtual datarooms and M&A technology. He has been quoted in several national and international publications related to the investment banking, legal and corporate M&A markets including the Boston Globe's Business Section, Investment Dealers Digest, The Deal and American Lawyer. Mr. Porzio has spoken on numerous industry panels and is a member of the selection committee for the M&A International Media Awards.