Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United States based CEO’ operating in the Life Science space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Anne Wojcicki
Co-Founder and CEO of 23andMe
Anne co-founded 23andMe in 2006 after a decade spent in healthcare investing, focused primarily on biotechnology companies. Her hope was to empower consumers with access to their own genetic information and to create a way to generate more personalized information so that commercial and academic researchers could better understand and develop new drugs and diagnostics. Presently, 23andMe has built one of the world’s largest databases of individual genetic information. Its novel, web-based research approach allows for the rapid recruitment of participants to many genome-wide association studies at once, reducing the time and money needed to make new discoveries, and the company has created a proven and standardized resource for finding new genetic association and confirming genetic loci discovered by others. Under Anne’s leadership 23andMe has made significant advances in bringing personalized medicine directly to the public. Anne graduated from Yale University with a BS in Biology. Getting access to and understanding her own genetic information had always been one of her ambitions.
Follow Anne Wojcicki:
About 23andMe, The Brin Wojcicki Foundation: 23andMe is a DNA testing technology company that enables its users to access their ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits.
_______
Anthony P Mack
Founding Chairman & CEO of Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Anthony P. Mack has more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and finance industries. Prior to founding Virpax in 2016, Mr. Mack founded Scilex Pharmaceuticals and served as President and CEO until February 2018. Scilex was sold to a publicly-traded company. Mr. Mack founded his first pharmaceutical company ProSolus Pharmaceuticals in 2009, where he served as President before selling the company to Mission Pharmacal in 2015. Mr. Mack has held high-level management positions with Purdue Pharma, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, and EKR Therapeutics. He has led training, marketing, and commercial distribution for billion-dollar pain management products and has forged key strategic alliances. Mr. Mack holds an Executive MBA in Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing from Saint Joseph’s University.
Follow Anthony P Mack:
About Virpax Pharmaceuticals Inc.: Our product candidates are being developed to manage global unmet needs in the areas of cancer and non-cancer pain, PTSD, and CNS Disorder.
Trevor Martin
Co-Founder and CEO of Mammoth Biosciences
As co-founder and CEO of Mammoth Biosciences, Trevor Martin is focused on creating the world’s first CRISPR-based platform for disease detection, taking impactful CRISPR technology out of the lab and into the hands of doctors and consumers. Prior to co-founding Mammoth, Trevor completed his PhD in Biology at Stanford University, where he worked at the intersection of statistics and genetics. In addition to having taught a course in Statistics at Stanford, Trevor has penned educational guides for university courses across the globe. His work has been featured in outlets like FiveThirtyEight and The Atlantic.
Follow Trevor Martin:
About Mammoth Biosciences: Mammoth Biosciences develops novel CRISPR applications for disease detection, research, agriculture, biodefense, and more.
Eric Marcotulli
Chief Executive Officer of Elysium
Follow Eric Marcotulli:
About Elysium: Elysium Health offers health products built with science such as dietary supplements and anti-aging drugs.
Thomas Joyce
President & CEO of Danaher
Thomas Joyce is President and Chief Executive Officer of Danaher Corporation, a position he assumed in September 2014. Thomas is responsible for the company’s strategic vision and leads the development and growth of Danaher’s global science and technology portfolio. Thomas has more than 20 years of Danaher leadership experience. Prior to his appointment as President and Chief Executive Officer, he served as Executive Vice President of Danaher Corporation, responsible for Danaher’s Water Quality platform and Life Sciences & Diagnostics segment. In this role, Thomas increased Danaher’s Water Quality revenue by over $1.5 billion and led the company’s major acquisitions of Beckman Coulter and AB SCIEX. Throughout his tenure, Thomas has also played a key role in developing and evolving the Danaher Business System, Danaher’s common operating philosophy. Thomas began his Danaher career in 1989 as a Project Manager in the Danaher Tool Group, and later transitioned into a manufacturing role. In 1995, Thomas became President of Delta Consolidated Industries. Following this assignment, he became President of Hach Company, the world leader in analytical instrumentation for drinking water and wastewater applications in 2001. In 2002, Thomas became a Group Executive and Corporate Officer with Danaher Corporation, which led to his transition to Executive Vice President in 2006. Prior to joining Danaher, Thomas worked as a management consultant at Anderson Consulting, where he worked with a large number of manufacturing businesses to implement lean tools and optimize transactional processes. Thomas was born and raised on the north shore of Chicago and earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the College of the Holy Cross in 1982. He and his wife, Claire, live in Washington, D.C. and have four children.
Follow Thomas Joyce:
About Danaher: Danaher is a global science and technology innovator committed to helping their customers solve complex challenges and improve quality.
Chris Mirabelli
President & CEO of Leap Therapeutics
Dr. Mirabelli has served as the Chairman of our Board of Directors since 2016 and has also served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since our inception in 2011. Dr. Mirabelli has been a managing director of HealthCare Ventures LLC since 2000. From December 1999 to May 2000, Dr. Mirabelli served as president of pharmaceutical research and development and member of the board of directors of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., following its merger with LeukoSite Inc., where Dr. Mirabelli had been serving as president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors since 1993. He was a co-founder of Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IONS), where he held several positions including senior vice president of research, from 1989 until 1993. Dr. Mirabelli started his career at SmithKline and French Laboratories (now part of GlaxoSmithKline Plc) R&D Division. He is a member of the board of advisors of the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator Fund at Harvard Medical School and the Boston Biomedical Innovation Center. Dr. Mirabelli is a member of the Board of Trustees of Guilford College. He received his Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine and a B.S. degree in biology from State University of New York at Fredonia.
Follow Chris Mirabelli:
About Leap Therapeutics: Leap Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company.
Jonathan Montagu
President & Chief Executive Officer of HotSpot Therapeutics
Follow Jonathan Montagu:
About Atlas Venture, HotSpot Therapeutics: HotSpot Therapeutics is a developer of a therapy platform designed to discover medicines and provide proper treatment.
Osman Kibar
CEO & Founder of Biosplice Therapeutics
Dr. Kibar is an entrepreneur and an inventor, with numerous successful start-ups under his belt. He was the Scientific Founder of Genoptix (an oncology diagnostics company), which went public in 2007 (NASDAQ: GXDX) and was later acquired by Novartis in 2011. Dr. Kibar was also a Co-Founder of E-Tenna, whose assets relating to wireless antennas were acquired by Titan and assets relating to thermal management of microprocessors by Intel. He was a Vice President at Pequot Capital’s venture capital and private equity team. Dr. Kibar received his M.S. and Ph.D., specializing in Biophotonics and Optoelectronics, from University of California, San Diego, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech and a B.A. in Mathematical Economics from Pomona College.
Follow Osman Kibar:
About Biosplice Therapeutics: Biosplice Therapeutics is in the medical research and development for tissue-level regeneration.
Paul Dabrowski
CEO of Synthego
Follow Paul Dabrowski:
About Synthego: Synthego is a genome engineering company that enables access to CRISPR to accelerate life science research and development.
Alexander Ford
CEO of Karius
Alexander Ford has over 30 years of experience in the genomics, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries, and has a proven track record driving commercial growth and performance for businesses in highly competitive and regulated biomedical markets. He was previously the Chief Operating Officer for Myriad Genetics, a molecular diagnostic company. During his time at Myriad, he launched new products and scaled new business units in Women’s Health, Oncology, Urology, and Prenatal screening. Previously, Alec has held leadership positions at Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Nektar Therapeutics, and Pfizer.
Follow Alexander Ford:
About Karius: Karius provides genomic insights for infectious diseases to enable clinicians to make life-saving treatment decisions.
Cheng Liu
Founder, CEO of Eureka Therapeutics
Cheng Liu is the founder and CEO of Eureka Therapeutics, a California biotech company dedicated to antibody research and discovery for cancer immunotherapy. Prior to founding Eureka, Dr. Liu was a Principal Scientist in antibody drug discovery at Chiron (now Novartis), where he championed anti-CSF1 antibody program for treatment of bone metastasis to human clinical trials. He is the inventor of multiple issued US patents in drug discovery. In 2007, he was awarded Special US Congressional Recognition for his contributions to improving human health. Dr. Liu received his B.S. in Cell Biology and Genetics from Beijing University and a Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Follow Cheng Liu:
About Eureka Therapeutics: Eureka Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focusing on immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.
Hesaam Esfandyarpour
Founder and CEO of Genapsys
Hesaam is the Founder and CEO of GenapSys Inc. He is an inventor of electronic DNA sequencing, a technology he developed during his PhD work at Stanford. Hesaam has dedicated the past decade of his life to the development of this novel DNA sequencing technology, which has at its core the convergence of multiple fields of science – engineering, chemistry, biology, and computing. Hesaam incubated the technology at the Stanford Genome Technology Center for a period of six years before securing licenses to the IP and incorporating GenapSys in January of 2010. He has grown GenapSys from just a handful of employees working out of Menlo Labs incubator space, to over 50 employees across seven functional teams. In 2012, Hesaam partnered GenapSys with StartX, an accelerator for the development of Stanford’s top entrepreneurs. He has raised approximately $50M for GenapSys in Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds of financing. Hesaam holds a PhD and MS in Electrical Engineering, and MSc Management degree, all from Stanford University. He earned his BS in Electrical Engineering with Honors from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. When he is not at GenapSys HQ (which is rare!) you can find Hesaam spending time outdoors, hiking or spending time with family and friends. He is also a great lover of poetry, his favorite of which are poems by the Persian poet Saa’di.
Follow Hesaam Esfandyarpour:
About Genapsys: Transform the human condition by building a scalable, affordable genomic sequencing ecosystem that will support research and diagnostics
Fred Aslan
President & CEO of Artiva Biotherapeutics
Born and raised in Brazil, Fred Aslan is the founder of Adavium Medical (previously known as ADVANCE Medical). He is also affiliated with Venrock, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm he joined in 2006. While a full-time investor at Venrock prior to founding Adavium, Fred Aslan was a co-founder and board member of Receptos Pharmaceuticals, a NASDAQ-listed biotech company, which was subsequently acquired by Celgene for more than $8 billion. He also led Venrock’s investment in Zeltiq, a NASDAQ-listed medical device company that was valued at more than $1 billion. Prior to Venrock, he was Director of Business Development and led Investor Relations at CuraGen, a NASDAQ-listed oncology-focused biotech company, and was a strategy consultant with Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He was named the “2014 Business Professional of the Year” by the Brazilian government, recognizing the achievements of Brazilian professionals living outside of Brazil. He is also a board member of Femasys, a US-based women’s health medical device company, and BayBrazil, a Silicon Valley-based not-for-profit organization promoting ties between Silicon Valley and Brazil. Fred Aslan received a B.S. in Biology from Duke University, an M.D. from Yale and an M.B.A. from Harvard.
Follow Fred Aslan:
About Adavium, Artiva Biotherapeutics: Artiva Biotherapeutics is a biotech company focused on developing and commercializing allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapies.
Michael Goettler
CEO & Executive Director of Viatris
Michael Goettler is the chief executive officer of Viatris and serves on the company’s board of directors. Originally from Germany, Goettler graduated from the Koblenz School of Corporate Management in Germany and then earned an MBA at the University of Texas at Austin. Goettler started his career at Hoechst in Germany, quickly growing to become the executive vice president and CEO of Hoechst Marion Roussel Korea. He joined Pfizer in 2009 as part of the Wyeth acquisition and served in many roles there. Most recently, he was the group president of Pfizer’s Upjohn division and a member of Pfizer’s executive leadership team after previously serving as the global president of Pfizer Inflammation & Immunology; the global president, Rare Disease Business; the senior vice president, global commercial officer, and president of Europe, Specialty Care among other roles. As the CEO of Viatris, Goettler’s responsibilities include executing the company’s strategy and focusing on leveraging the commercial capabilities that Viatris has in China and other key markets. Goettler has extensive experience leading in the global marketplace, having lived and worked in multiple markets in both Asia/Pacific and Europe. He is on the advisory board for Tshingua School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Follow Michael Goettler:
About Viatris: Viatris is a global pharmaceutical company formed in 2020 through the combination of Mylan and Upjohn, a legacy division of Pfizer.
Matthew Putman
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Nanotronics Imaging
Matthew Putman Co-Founded Nanotronics Imaging, LLC in 2008 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Matthew Putman is a Professor and Researcher at Columbia University. He was an owner and Vice President of Development for Tech Pro, Inc., which was acquired by Roper Industries in March 2008. During his time at Tech Pro, he lead two acquisitions, and the transformation of the instrument manufacturer into new global markets, having formed partnerships or subsidiaries in 15 nations. He serves as a Director of Nanotronics Imaging, LLC. He has lectured at The University of Paris, USC, University of Michigan, and The Technical University of Sao Paulo. He has also produced several plays and films, and is an accomplished composer. He is a founding member of the World Science Festival. He is on the Executive Board of the Montauk Observatory, and is an Artist in Residence for Imagine Science Films. He holds 5 patents, and has published over 20 technical papers, and in 2002 he won the ACS Best Paper Award. He has a Ph.D. in Applied Physics.
Follow Matthew Putman:
About Nanotronics Imaging, The Thiel Foundation: Nanotronics Imaging is a microscopy and software company delivering rapid testing and analysis solutions.
Nick Davis
Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Theonys
Nick Davis is the Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Theonys — a therapeutics company developing new small-molecule medicines to selectively stop the translation of disease-causing proteins in cancer, chronic inflammation and other serious human diseases.
Follow Nick Davis:
About Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Theonys: Theonys is harnessing the power of tRNA to pioneer an entirely new class of genomic medicines.
Landy Toth
CEO, Founder & CTO of LifeLens Technology
Follow Landy Toth:
About Autonomix Medical, DavosPharma, LifeLens Technology: LifeLens Technology is a biotechnology company that leads in innovative next generation treatment devices for personal health monitoring.
Melonee Wise
CEO of Fetch Robotics
Melonee Wise is the CEO of Fetch Robotics, which is delivering collaborative robotic solutions robots for the logistics industry. Melonee was the second employee at Willow Garage, a research and development laboratory extremely influential in the advancement of robotics. While there, she led a team of engineers developing next-generation robot hardware and software, including ROS, the PR2 and TurtleBot. Melonee is a recipient of MIT Technology Review’s TR 35 award for technology innovators under the age of 35, and has been named to the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Women of Influence and 40 under 40 lists. Under her leadership, the company won the MODEX Innovation award for the materials handling industry, as well as being named to RBR 50, a listing of the 50 most innovative robotics companies in the world.
Follow Melonee Wise:
About Fetch Robotics: Fetch Robotics provides the market’s only cloud-driven Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) solution for warehousing intralogistics environments.
Taylor Schreiber
Chief Executive Officer & Co-founder of Shattuck Labs
Follow Taylor Schreiber:
About Shattuck Labs: Shattuck Labs is a biotechnology company that provides novel class biologic medicines for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease.
Suresh Katta
Founder & CEO of Saama
Suresh founded Saama Technologies, Inc. with a vision to turn raw data into actionable insights that enable enterprise leaders to make timely and reliable decisions for critical business discovery. As the CEO of Saama, Suresh is responsible for the strategy, vision and the execution of the company’s long-term plan. Suresh applied his lifelong love of mathematics to solve complex data analysis well before the term “big data” became ubiquitous. Today, Saama is made up of intelligent, helpful people with a passion for math, data, and analytics. Since the company’s launch, Suresh and his team have built an extensive history of providing data scientist led solutions and services in the big data and business analytics market for top enterprise companies, and public sector agencies. Suresh has successfully launched two start ups, including co-founding GVI, which developed groupware applications and was sold to Netscape in 1995. His work has earned industry-wide recognition and he can frequently be seen at IT conferences as a discussion panel member and featured speaker. Suresh earned his M.S. in Computer Engineering at the University of Southwest Louisiana, and his B.S. in Electronics Engineering at the University of Bangalore in India.
Follow Suresh Katta:
About Saama: Saama is the number one AI-powered clinical analytics cloud platform company delivering actionable business insights for life sciences.
Greg Verdine
Co-Founder, President & CEO, CSO of LifeMine Therapeutics
Greg Verdine is the Founder of Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute & he attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986.
Follow Greg Verdine:
About FogPharma, Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, LifeMine Therapeutics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wave Life Sciences: Discovering powerful new drugs from eukaryotic microbes by combining Genomics with AI and Synthetic Biology.
Daniel Levitt
Founder & CEO of Bioz
Daniel Levitt is the CEO & Founder at Bioz.
Follow Daniel Levitt:
About Bioz, StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund), Stemrad: Bioz is a disruptive startup at the intersection of information technology and scientific research.
Joao Siffert
Chief Executive Officer of Design Therapeutics
Joao Siffert is the Chief Executive Officer at Design Therapeutics.
Follow Joao Siffert:
About Design Therapeutics: Design Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing a new class of therapies for serious degenerative disorders.
Jeffrey A. Bailey
Chief Executive Officer of BioDelivery Sciences International
Follow Jeffrey A. Bailey:
About BioDelivery Sciences International: BioDelivery Sciences is a pharmaceutical company that focuses on pain management and addiction medicine.
Harven DeShield
Chief Executive Officer of Vivacelle Bio
Dr. Harven DeShield is an Intellectual Property Attorney (JD with concentration in intellectual property and technology law) with experience in start up fund raising, patent litigation and prosecution, intellectual property transactions encompassing licensing and assignments of patents and trademarks, due diligence with respect to mergers and acquisitions, FDA law, commercialization and business development, contracts and business agreements. He also have a doctorate in Biochemistry, Masters in Biological Sciences and completed Graduate level course in the Business of Biotechnology Management.
Follow Harven DeShield:
About Vivacelle Bio: Vivacelle Bio is a clinical stage biotech company focused on bringing to market a new paradigm in resuscitation fluids.
Michael T. Heffernan
President , CEO & Chairman of the Board of Collegium Pharmaceutical
Michael Heffernan has 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and related healthcare industries. He is currently Co-Founder, President, CEO of Collegium Pharmaceutical. Collegium is specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of chronic pain. He was also previously the founder, President and CEO of Onset Therapeutics, a dermatology focused company that develops and commercializes products for the treatment of skin related illnesses and was responsible for the spin-off of this business to create PreCision Dermatology. Michael held prior positions as Co-Founder, President and CEO of Clinical Studies Ltd., a pharmaceutical contract research organization that he successfully sold. He also served as President and CEO of PhyMatrix, a public $400 million integrated healthcare services company where he was hired to restructure the company. Michael started his career at Eli Lilly and Company and served in numerous sales and marketing roles. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors, Advisor and Angel Investor in a number of healthcare companies. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of TyRx, a venture backed medical device company, Cornerstone Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRTX), a specialty pharmaceutical company and PreCision Dermatology. Michael earned his B.S. Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Connecticut and is a Registered Pharmacist.
Follow Michael T. Heffernan:
About AvengeBio, Collegium Pharmaceutical: Collegium Pharmaceutical is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development of products for the treatment of chronic pain.
Joseph Ciaffoni
President and Chief Executive Officer of Collegium Pharmaceutical
Joe Ciaffoni was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Collegium Pharmaceutical in July 2018. Joe Ciaffoni joined Collegium Pharmaceutical in May 2017 as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining Collegium, he served as President, U.S. Branded Pharmaceuticals of Endo International plc. Before that, Joe Ciaffoni held various positions of increasing responsibility at Biogen, including Senior Vice President, Global Specialty Medicines Group, Senior Vice President, U.S. Commercial and Vice President, U.S. Neurology Field Operations and Marketing. Prior to joining Biogen, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Shionogi Inc. and President of Shionogi Pharmaceuticals. Joe Ciaffoni also previously served as Vice President, Sales for Schering-Plough (now Merck) and held several commercial leadership roles at Sanofi-Synthelabo (now Sanofi) and Novartis. Joe Ciaffoni received a B.A. in Communications and an M.B.A. from Rutgers.
Follow Joseph Ciaffoni:
About Collegium Pharmaceutical: Collegium Pharmaceutical is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development of products for the treatment of chronic pain.
Fabian Gerlinghaus
Co-Founder & CEO of Cellares
Fabian Gerlinghaus is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cellares.
Follow Fabian Gerlinghaus:
About Cellares: Cellares is a life sciences technology company that develops the Cell Shuttle to automate cell therapy manufacturing.
David Mittelman
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Othram
Follow David Mittelman:
About Othram: Othram enables human ID from difficult evidence like touch DNA, mixtures, and decades-old bones.
Ayub Khattak
Founder & CEO of Cue
Ayub Khattak is the CEO and founder at Cue.
Follow Ayub Khattak:
About Cue: Cue helps users track their health at the molecular level, revealing the interplay of activity, food, and sleep.
Frank Laukien
President & CEO of Bruker
Frank Laukien is the Chairman, President and CEO of Bruker Corporation and he is also President of Bruker Daltonics. Dr. Laukien holds a B.Sc. in physics from MIT, and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University.
Follow Frank Laukien:
About Bruker, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences: Bruker is a manufacturer of analytical and medical instruments covering NMR, ESR, FT-IR, X-RAY spectroscopy.
Zachary Hornby
Chief Executive Officer & President of Boundless Bio
Zachary Hornby brings a dozen years of life sciences business experience to Ignyta. Prior to joining Ignyta, Mr. Hornby was senior director of business development at Fate Therapeutics where he was responsible for pharmaceutical partnerships and non-dilutive funding. Mr. Hornby has also served in various business and commercial roles at Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: HALO), Neurocrine Biosciences (NASDAQ: NBIX) and TKT (now Shire Human Genetic Therapies), and was a life sciences consultant at L.E.K. Consulting. Mr. Hornby holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Follow Zachary Hornby:
About Boundless Bio, City Hill Ventures: Boundless Bio is a precision oncology company developing therapeutics directed against extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) in aggressive cancers.
Robb Osinski
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bambu Global
Robb J. Osinski is a Co-Founder of Performance Indicator, LLC and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. During his tenure at First Eastern Bankshares Corporation, Robb Osinski coordinated the acquisition of local downtown Boston thrift and restructured the corporation to not only sustain significant growth but also survive the cyclical downturn that devastated the competition. Robb Osinski earned his A.B degree in Economics, Cum Laude, from Harvard University.
Follow Robb Osinski:
About Bambu Global, NowAware: Bambu Global focuses on developing and commercializing breakthrough scientific discoveries.
Marshal Linder
Chairman, CEO of Breethe
Marshal Linder is the Chairman and CEO of Breethe, Inc.
Follow Marshal Linder:
About Breethe: Breethe is a medical device company that develops a compact artificial lung for patients with acute and chronic lung problems.
Angelo Stracquatanio
CEO & Co-founder of Apprentice.io
Angelo is Co-Founder and CEO of Apprentice.io, providing the only intelligent, spatial augmented reality system for Life Sciences teams. As a pioneer of AR and AI for human empowerment, Angelo has positioned Apprentice as the frontrunner of innovative technology. He imagines a world in which in which a synergistic relationship generated between man and technology exists so that meaningful research, lifesaving product development and manufacturing are all executed with greater reliability.
Follow Angelo Stracquatanio:
About Apprentice.io: Our disruptive tech helps pharma manufacturers get medicine to patients faster by providing one platform to turn molecules into medicine.
Arthur T. Sands
Chief Executive Officer of Nurix Therapeutics
Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D. has served as the Chief Executive Officer at Nurix and a member of the company’s board of directors since September, 2014. In 2015, Dr. Sands and his management team completed a strategic collaboration with Celgene for the discovery, development and commercialization of novel small molecule therapeutics in oncology, inflammation and immunology that included an upfront payment of $150 million and significant milestones, royalties and options for commercialization of drugs. Prior to joining Nurix, Dr. Sands co-founded Lexicon Pharmaceuticals and served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director from 1995 to 2014. At Lexicon, Dr. Sands pioneered the development of large-scale gene knockout technology for use in drug discovery and guided the evolution of Lexicon from a research-stage company to a drug development company Dr. Sands holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine and a B.A. in economics and political science from Yale University.
Follow Arthur T. Sands:
About DeCART Therapeutics, Nurix Therapeutics: Nurix develops small molecule inhibitors for the treatment of proliferative and degenerative diseases.
Myron Holubiak
Chief Executive Officer of Citius Pharmaceuticals
Follow Myron Holubiak:
About Citius Pharmaceuticals: Citius Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company dedicated to the development and commercialization of therapeutic products.
Paul Grayson
President and CEO of Bird Rock Bio
Paul Grayson is the Partner at Versant Ventures.
Follow Paul Grayson:
About AccessBioVentures, Bird Rock Bio, Tentarix Biotherapeutics: Bird Rock Bio is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative immuno-inflammatory regulators.
Daphne Koller
Founder & CEO of Insitro
Daphne Koller is CEO and Founder of insitro, a company using machine learning and high-throughput biology to transform drug discovery. Daphne was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years. She was the co-founder, co-CEO and President of Coursera for 5 years, and Chief Computing Officer of Calico, an Alphabet company in the healthcare space. She is the author of over 200 refereed publications appearing in venues such as Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics. Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012. She received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004 and the ACM Prize in Computing in 2008. She was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014 and of the International Society of Computational Biology in 2017.
Follow Daphne Koller:
About Engageli, Insitro: Insitro is a drug discovery and development startup that utilizes machine learning and biology to transform drug discovery.
Sajith Wickramasekara
Co-Founder & CEO of Benchling
Sajith Wickramasekara is the Co-Founder and CEO at Benchling since June 2012. He was a Research Assistant at Liquidia Technologies and Duke University Medical Center. Ms. Wickramasekara received a bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Follow Sajith Wickramasekara:
About Benchling: Benchling is a cloud-based software platform for biology researchers and research and development organizations.
Jaswinder Chadha
President & CEO of Axtria
Jassi founded Axtria with the vision of building cutting-edge analytics and software solutions that will help global companies to effectively manage and get insights from big data. He is a pioneer in building advanced decision support software.He has worked closely with over 100 global companies to improve effectiveness of their commercial operations. Pharmaceutical Management Science Association (PMSA) awarded Jassi with prestigious lifetime achievement award in 2014. This is among several other accolades. Jassi also serves on the Board of many diverse organizations like TIE Global, Ocular Therapeutics, SpectraMedix and others.
Follow Jaswinder Chadha:
About Axtria: Axtria is a big data analytics software and services company for the Life Sciences industry.
Kinkead Reiling
Founder and CEO of Bonneville Labs
Follow Kinkead Reiling:
About Bonneville Labs: Bonneville Labs offers lab equipment setup, training, lab operational, office amenities and autoclaving services to its clients.
Martin Babler
CEO of Principia Biopharma
Martin Babler, chair of Infinity’s Compensation Committee, is chief executive officer of Principia BioPharma, Inc., a start-up company established to develop novel drugs for autoimmune diseases, a position he has held since April 2011. From February 2008 to April 2011, Mr. Babler was chief executive officer of Talima Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held drug delivery company. Prior to joining Talima, from 2000-2006, Mr. Babler was vice president of Immunology Sales and Marketing, and director of Cardiovascular Marketing, at Genentech, Inc. Prior to joining Genentech, Mr. Babler held various roles of increasing responsibility in sales, sales management, marketing and business development with Eli Lilly and Company. Mr. Babler holds a degree in pharmacy/pharmacology from the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland and has attended the Executive Development Program at Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Follow Martin Babler:
About Principia Biopharma: Principia Biopharma is dedicated to bringing oral therapies to patients with significant unmet medical needs in immunology & oncology.
David M. Epstein
Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Black Diamond Therapeutics
David M. Epstein, PhD is founder & CEO of Black Diamond Therapeutics. David is a biopharma leader and executive who has successfully led large and small R&D teams in academic, virtual, start-up, mid-size and global large-pharma settings. His teams have progressed multiple novel agents through development in oncology, cardiovascular disease, and retinal degeneration. David was Chief Scientific Officer at Astellas/OSI Pharmaceuticals, and previously a founder of Archemix Corp. Most recently Vice Dean, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Associate Professor in Cancer & Stem Cell Biology at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, David founded and built Duke-NUS’s Centre for Technology & Development (CTeD). The Centre has developed a pipeline of innovation projects, completing 2 product-development biopharma partnerships, and 7 spin-outs from its technologies. David’s research focuses on RNA splicing and immune-tumor cell interactions in cancer. He earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Brandeis University and completed a joint post-doctoral fellowship leading a collaboration in protein structure, function and NMR dynamics between the labs of Steven Benkovic (Penn State) and Peter Wright at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla.
Follow David M. Epstein:
About Black Diamond Therapeutics: Black Diamond Therapeutics is a precision oncology medicine company pioneering the discovery and development of small molecule.
Robert McIntyre
CEO of Nectome
CEO at Nectome Inc.
Follow Robert McIntyre:
About Nectome: Nectome is a neuroscience startup that aims to preserve the brain and keep all its memories intact.
Paul Holzer
CEO and Co-Founder of XenoTherapeutics
Paul Holzer serves as CEO and co-founder of XenoTherapeutics. He is a scientist, engineer, and entrepreneur with over fifteen years of experience in various leadership and team management roles, and most recently in the fields of scientific research and new venture formation. Prior to founding XenoTherapeutics, Paul served as an Officer in the United States Navy SEAL Teams, with four decorated combat deployments to theatres such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and other undisclosed locations. He left the Navy in 2013 as a Lieutenant Commander (0-4) in the USNR.
Follow Paul Holzer:
About XenoTherapeutics: XenoTherapeutics is a clinical-stage cell and gene therapy company engineering immune-compatible cells, tissues, and organs.
Wes Kaupinen
President and CEO of Palvella Therapeutics
Wes Kaupinen has served as president and CEO since Palvella’s inception. Mr. Kaupinen brings more than 15 years of entrepreneurial life sciences experience as an operating executive and early stage investor. Prior to Palvella, Mr. Kaupinen was a senior executive at Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ: INSM), a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the unmet needs of patients with rare diseases, where he served as senior vice president of corporate development and commercialization. While at Insmed, he led the global corporate development and U.S. commercial functions, with key responsibilities including corporate strategy, acquisitions and in-licensing, R&D pipeline strategy, patient advocacy, marketing, and pricing and reimbursement. Previously, Mr. Kaupinen was a principal at Quaker Partners, a life sciences venture capital firm with $700mm under management, where he worked on several public and private venture capital investments in the life sciences space. At Quaker, he was responsible for the recruitment of new senior leadership to Insmed to execute on the company’s rare disease strategy, and he was involved in Quaker’s investments in Horizon Pharma (NASDAQ: HZNP) and Achillion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACHN). In addition, he led Quaker’s Series A investments in Intact Vascular (backed by NEA, Quaker, and HIG) and TELA Bio (backed by OrbiMed, Quaker, and Signet), playing a key role in the investor syndication, leadership recruitment, and corporate strategy development for each. Mr. Kaupinen has operating experience at two Johnson & Johnson operating companies, including Cordis Cardiology where he worked on the CYPHER sirolimus-eluting stent, the first drug-eluting stent ever launched which leveraged the multi-modal therapeutic properties of sirolimus to significantly improve outcomes for patients with coronary ischemic disease. Earlier in his career, Mr. Kaupinen was an associate at Apax Partners, a global private equity firm, and an analyst in the Life Sciences Investment Banking Group at Robertson Stephens. Mr. Kaupinen has served as a board director or observer for more than ten companies, including Palvella, Intact Vascular, and TELA Bio. He is currently the chief strategy officer for The Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, a non-profit dedicated to finding a cure for Castleman Disease, a rare autoimmune disease. Mr. Kaupinen earned an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he was the recipient of the William L. Kissick MD Scholarship Award. He holds a B.A. in economics from The University of Virginia.
Follow Wes Kaupinen:
About Palvella Therapeutics: Palvella Therapeutics focuses on relentlessly and selflessly serving abandoned patient populations with therapies.
David Stavens
CEO & Co-Founder of Nines
David was CEO of Udacity from founding in June 2011 through May 2012 and President until April 2013. As CEO, he built the team to 30 employees, enrolled the first 250,000 students in 195+ countries, and launched the first 12 classes, the first jobs program for MOOC graduates, and the first certified exams for MOOCs in partnership with Pearson VUE. At Stanford, he co-founded the robotic car team that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge — which later became the Google Car — and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Sebastian Thrun. He also raised the first $100K in funding and recruited the founding team for WiFi SLAM, which was acquired by Apple.
Follow David Stavens:
About Nines: Nines is the first-of-its-kind radiology practice. Radiologists + Data Scientists + Engineers. Trusted partner.
Steven Kelly
President & Chief Executive Officer of Carisma Therapeutics
Follow Steven Kelly:
About Carisma Therapeutics: Carisma Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing cellular immunotherapies to treat solid tumors.
Lisa Alderson
Co-Founder & CEO of Genome Medical
Dedicated and highly successful executive with extensive start-up experience in technology, web services, consumer Internet, digital media and personalized medicine. I am a serial entrepreneur with a passion for creating innovative businesses. I have been a company founder and have joined the start-up team at several early stage, high-growth technology ventures. I am an energetic leader with a proven track record of success. My broad expertise includes strategy, business development, marketing and operations. I have significant functional experience identifying, negotiating and closing strategic partnerships and raising capital for early stage companies. Specialties Corporate strategy; Innovating traditional businesses through technology leadership; Strategic partnership alliances; Social media and social media marketing; Mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; Digital convergence; Content distribution Consumer marketing
Follow Lisa Alderson:
About CrossLoop, Genome Medical: Genome Medical is a telegenomics technology and services company allowing access to genomic-based medicine.
David-Alexandre Gros
Co-Founder, Director and Chief Executive Officer of Imbria Pharmaceuticals
David-Alexandre is the co-founder, director and chief executive officer at Imbria Pharmaceuticals.
Follow David-Alexandre Gros:
About Imbria Pharmaceuticals: Imbria Pharmaceuticals is a biotechnology company with locations in San Diego, CA, and Boston, MA.
Rizwan Koita
CEO of CitiusTech
As the Chief Executive Officer, Rizwan Koita drives CitiusTech’s worldwide business strategy, including healthcare technology innovation and healthcare domain expertise development. Under his leadership, CitiusTech has become one of the fastest growing healthcare technology solutions providers, serving more than 60 leading healthcare organizations worldwide. Before CitiusTech, Mr. Koita was the CEO and founder of TransWorks (now Aditya Birla Minacs), a leading BPO with over 15,000 employees today. Earlier, he was a senior consultant with McKinsey & Co., where he consulted transnational clients on exploiting remote service opportunities. Mr. Koita is a winner of the 2013 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is also a recipient of the Indo-American Society’s ‘Young Achievers Award in Business.’ He has a Master’s Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).
Follow Rizwan Koita:
About : Major provider of technology services and solutions to healthcare technology companies, providers, payers and life sciences organizations
Romesh Wadhwani
Chairman and CEO of SymphonyAI
Romesh Wadhwani founded Symphony Technology Group in 2002 for one reason: he is passionate about building companies. After a 30-year career as an entrepreneur in the enterprise software sector, Romesh launched STG to lend his expertise and passion to investing. Before starting STG, Romesh was the founder, chairman and CEO of Aspect Development, Inc. until 1999, when the company was acquired by i2 Technologies. For nearly a decade, Romesh grew Aspect Development into a leader in business-to-business commerce software, which culminated in the merger of Aspect with supply chain software company i2 Technologies. At that time, this combination was one of the largest enterprise software mergers.
Follow Romesh Wadhwani:
About ConcertAI, National Entrepreneurship Network, Symphony RetailAI, Symphony Summit, Symphony Technology Group, Symphony Technology Group, SymphonyAI, Terarecon, Wadhwani AI, Wadhwani Foundation: SymphonyAI is an enterprise AI company focused on delivering AI solutions for vertical sectors
Aldo Carrascoso
Co-Founder and CEO of InterVenn
Aldo is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of InterVenn Biosciences. InterVenn combines next-generation glycomics (carbohydrates), instrumentation (LC/MS), and deep machine learning to augment cancer diagnosis, biomarker, and target discovery for the development of more efficacious molecular diagnostics. Venn was founded by a team of serial entrepreneurs with repeated and proven track record of success (value creation of half a billion dollars) and execution in the fields of Machine Learning, Analytical Chemistry through Liquid Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry and in Oncological Glycoproteomics. Prior to Venn, Aldo was the Founder and COO / CTO of San Francisco based Veem (formerly Align Commerce), a next generation replacement for outdated wire and telegraphic transfer systems. Align uses the blockchain and its proprietary multi-rail systems to change the way global cross border payments are done – making the process simpler, faster and more transparent to over 60 countries. Some of the company’s investors include Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, Byers (the same venture capital responsible for Google, Twitter, Amazon, Uber, Waze, Slack, and Snapchat among others), Google Ventures, Softbank Ventures, National Australian Bank, Silicon Valley Bank Ventures, Recruit Strategic Partners, and NYCA Investment Partnership LP (led by Hans Morris, former President of Visa and Max Levchin, founding CTO of PayPal). Prior to founding Veem, Aldo was the Founder and CTO of Jukin Technologies / Jukin Media – one of the world’s largest User Generated Content (UGC) payments and licensing platforms with over 60 billion global views, 50 million platform shares and over 10 million active contributors and subscribers in 221 markets. Jukin is currently being used by some of the world’s largest television networks and production companies including ABC, BBC, CBS, Comedy Central, CNN, Discovery, ESPN, FOX, HBO, MTV, NBC, TruTV, Vh1, and hundreds of other websites, and platforms throughout the world. Jukin’s main properties include FailArmy, JukinVideo, People Are Awesome, The Pet Collective, World’s Funniest on FOX and That are Funny! on UK’s Channel 5. Samsung Investments, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments Inc., Launchpad LA, and Maker Studios are some of Jukin’s lead investors. Aldo is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and technology disruptor. Prior to Jukin, he founded a number of ventures in global B2B matchmaking, international trading/finance, and business process outsourcing. Aldo has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Babson and a degree in Psychology from Ateneo De Manila University.
Follow Aldo Carrascoso:
About InterVenn, Jukin Media, Jukinvideo, Veem: InterVenn Biosciences identifies, quantifies, and classifies Glycoproteomic and other PTM signals found in human blood and tissue.
Rolf Ehrhardt
Co-Founder , President and Chief Executive Officer of BioCision
Dr. Rolf Ehrhardt co-founded BioCision in 2007, after more than 25 years of experience in leadership and innovation in medical research and product development. Prior to growing BioCision into the leading provider of temperature-sensitive sample and drug handling solutions, he was responsible for the early (phase 1a) clinical development of a novel HCV protease inhibitor at Intermune. Before that, Dr. Ehrhardt was the vice president of preclinical development at Corgentech. He was the founding president of BioSeek, where he raised close to $20 million in private financing. Prior to founding BioSeek, Dr. Ehrhardt led a scientific group focused on new target discovery and immuno-therapeutics development at Protein Design Labs (now PDL BioPharma Inc.). Dr. Ehrhardt was a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG: German Research Foundation) and Fogarty Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where his focus was on mucosal immunology and inflammatory bowel disease. He has authored more than 40 peer reviewed publications and holds multiple patents. Dr. Ehrhardt earned his M.D. and Ph.D. with distinction from the Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Follow Rolf Ehrhardt:
About BioCision: BioCision develops laboratory tools to standardize pre-analytical sample handling, cryopreservation, and storage.
Frank Pica
CEO & Co-Founder of Native
Frank is the president and co-founder of Native AgTech. Previously, Frank was the vice president at ADYOULIKE for over one year.
Follow Frank Pica:
About Native: A platform using A.I. to understand consumer preferences and helping companies create products that people love!
Joshua Yang
Co-Founder and CEO of Glyphic Biotechnologies
Hi, I’m Josh, the co-founder and CEO of Glyphic Biotechnologies, a VC-funded biotechnology startup commercializing a next-generation protein sequencing platform. My first startup Nephrosant has raised over $22M in funding to commercialize a low-cost, non-invasive diagnostic assay for kidney injury. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, and Summa Cum Laude from the University of California, San Diego, which I attended fully-funded on the Jacobs School Scholarship. I double majored in Bioengineering: Biotechnology B.S. and General Biology B.S where I was a Barry Goldwater Scholar and the Valedictorian in the Department of Bioengineering. Subsequently, I completed a Master of Translational Medicine degree through the University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Bioengineering, from where I spin-out my first startup. I am currently on leave of absence from the MSTP MD-PhD at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Department of Biomedical Engineering. I subsequently graduated with an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where I was the Henry Ford II Scholar (Valedictorian), a Siebel Scholar, and an Arjay Miller Scholar. My first-author, peer-reviewed publications have been published in top-tier journals such as Nature Reviews Genetics and Science Translational Medicine. I am also an inventor on 6 issued/filed patents and author on 18 research articles. I was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list in 2021. In my free time, I enjoy going to farmer’s markets on Sunday mornings, sipping on dirty chai lattes, and creating pastries from scratch.
Follow Joshua Yang:
About Glyphic Biotechnologies: Next generation protein sequencing.
Arman Motiwalla
Chief Executive Officer of ADM Labs
Arman Motiwalla is an accomplished entrepreneur and a recognized thought leader in the hospitality and luxury industries. Mr. Motiwalla currently serves as Chairman of ADM Group, following a decade of experience in the hospitality and HNW sector. A global business group, ADM Group’s footprint spans the globe from manufacturing and agribusiness to venture capital & private equity. ADM’s flagship is ADM Labs, a recognized leader in CBD/hemp manufacturing and product development. Today, ADM Group has quickly grown to become a recognized and trusted partner for clients navigating the complexities of a fast paced, global marketplace no matter where their business takes them. Prior to his work in the hemp industry, Mr. Motiwalla founded One Concierge, a global luxury concierge and lifestyle management company recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States by Inc. magazine. Today, One Concierge, and parent company Aurae Lifestyle, are the producers of the world’s only bespoke solid gold MasterCards providing access to the world’s most exclusive and sought-after events in over 115 countries. Mr. Motiwalla also serves as Vice-Chair of the NCIA Hemp Committee and as an industry stakeholder for Colorado’s Hemp Advancement & Management Plan (CHAMP). Mr. Motiwalla has also been featured in numerous publications including Men’s Journal, Inc. Magazine, The Travel Channel, the Denver Post, Forbes India and The National to name just a few. He holds a degree in Aeronautics and Aviation Safety from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Follow Arman Motiwalla:
About ADM Labs, FiveWest Ventures: ADM Labs’ specific focus is on extraction, manufacturing/processing and wholesale of extract-based products from industrial hemp & CBD.
Mark Gurney
Chairman / CEO of Tetra Discovery
Mark Gurney founded Tetra Discovery Partners as a drug development company in 2011 to develop meaningful medications for large unmet needs including Alzheimer’s disease. He has held positions in academia and within the pharma industry. Dr. Gurney was named one of two leading inventors in the field of Alzheimer’s Disease therapeutics for his discovery of the beta-secretase, a key enzyme in the amyloid pathway that releases the A-beta peptide from the amyloid protein precursor. Dr. Gurney’s resume with biotech companies includes work in drug discovery and development as Senior Vice President at deCODE genetics, Inc.; Director Genomics, Pharmacia Corporation; Associate Professor, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; and Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Medical School. In addition to his work on Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Gurney developed the SOD1-G93A transgenic mouse model of ALS. Dr. Gurney has authored 117 peer reviewed papers that have been cited over 18,000 times and holds 36 issued patents. He earned a PhD in neuroscience from the California Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Follow Mark Gurney:
About Tetra Discovery, Tetra Therapeutics: Tetra Discovery provides consulting services and research on drug discovery for diseases affecting the central nervous system.
Osh. Agabi
Founder & CEO of Koniku
Follow Osh. Agabi:
About : Koniku merges synthetic biology with silicon to build machines that detect smells. We cyborgs capable of detecting smell.
Wei Zhou
Founder and CEO of Centrillion Technologies
Dr. Wei Zhou is Founder, President and CEO of Centrillion. While a student at Stanford, he joined the pioneering genomic technology start-up Affymetrix (now NASDAQ: AFFX) where a generation of future industry leaders and scientists were inspired to change the world for the better through genomics. He continues to be fascinated by the profound and positive impact of genomic technologies in scientific research, health care, agriculture and other fields despite the severe limitations of current genomic technologies and is passionate about making genomic technology accurate and accessible. Prior to founding Centrillion, Dr. Zhou was a partner at the technology law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where he advised life sciences, clean tech and digital media companies and venture capital investors. He also served as a senior advisor to the global law firm Covington and Burling. At Affymetrix, he was a vice president of intellectual property and advanced technology until 2008. He was also credited with building Affymetrix’ rapidly growing China business. Dr. Zhou received his PhD from Virginia Tech (John Lee Pratt Fellow), his postdoctoral training from Emory University Medical School and his JD from Stanford University Law School (Associate Editor, Stanford Law Review). He is also a graduate of Harvard Business School’s General Management Program.
Follow Wei Zhou:
About Centrillion Technologies: Centrillion Biosciences develops genomics and DNA analyses technology for personalized medicine, life sciences research, and bioinformatics.
Russell Cox
President & CEO of Epirium
Russell J. Cox was appointed our Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer in March 2012. He has served in a variety of escalating senior management roles since joining the company in 2010. From January 2009 to January 2010, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of Ipsen Group and from 2007 until December 2008, he was Vice President of Marketing at Tercica, Inc. (acquired by Ipsen Group), a biotechnology company. From 2003 to 2007, he was with Scios Inc. (acquired by Johnson and Johnson later in 2003), where he also held the role of Vice President, Marketing. Prior to 2003, Russell Cox was with Genentech, Inc. for 12 years, where he was a Product Team Leader (PTL) responsible for the Growth Hormone franchise and led numerous product launches as a Group Product Manager. Russell Cox received a B.S. in Biomedical Science from Texas A&M University.
Follow Russell Cox:
About Epirium: Epirium Bio is a clinical stage bio pharmaceutical company.
Jared Seehafer
Co-Founder & CEO of Enzyme
Jared is an 11 year veteran of the medical device and biopharma industries, with a background in product management, medical device software, design assurance and regulatory strategy. His experience ranges from leading spinal cord stimulator programs at St. Jude Neuromodulation (now Abbott), to the UI/UX for the first hybrid closed loop insulin pump at Medtronic Diabetes, to the regulatory strategy for numerous combination drug-device products, including Amgen’s Neulasta Onpro and Repatha Pushtronex. Prior to his experience in the life sciences he trained and worked as a software engineer. He holds a BA from the University of Colorado and an MS in Medical Device Engineering from USC.
Follow Jared Seehafer:
About Enzyme, Village Global: Enzyme is building software to help life sciences companies with FDA approval and regulatory compliance.
Tanay Tandon
Founder & CEO of Athelas
Tanay founded Clipped in the summer of 2012 as a high school sophomore. He developed the Natural Language technology, and researched the grammatical analysis patterns for information retrieval. As a debater, Tanay found the process of reading evidence files unnecessarily long. Thus, he began work on a data-mining project to extract the most relevant information. He works day-to-day on the algorithm and further improvements on the technology.
Follow Tanay Tandon:
About Athelas: Athelas develops technology to monitor chronically ill patients in their homes.
Neil Kumar
Co-Founder & CEO of BridgeBio Pharma
Neil Kumar, Ph.D. has served as Eidos’ Chief Executive Officer and a member of its board of directors since March 2016. Neil Kumar founded BridgeBio Pharma, LLC and has served as its chief executive officer since September 2014. Prior to that, he served as the interim vice president of business development at MyoKardia, Inc. from 2012 to 2014. Prior to that, Neil Kumar served as a principal at Third Rock Ventures from 2011 to 2014. Before joining Third Rock, he served as an associate principal at McKinsey & Company from 2007 to 2011. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering from Stanford University and received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Follow Neil Kumar:
About BridgeBio Pharma, Eidos Therapeutics, QED Therapeutics: BridgeBio Pharma focuses on genetic disease therapies and develops those assets with the right approach in supporting R&D.
James Peyer
CEO & Founder of Cambrian Biopharma
James Peyer is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Cambrian Biopharma. James was previously Founder and Managing Partner at Apollo Ventures, the first global longevity-focused venture capital firm, investing across the US and Europe. He led investments in Cleara Biotech, Aeovian Pharmaceuticals, and Samsara Therapeutics, and served on the Board and/or in executive roles for all three companies. James has led companies that have raised over $100M. He serves on the board of Sensei Biotherapeutics, Vineyard Therapeutics, and several more stealth-mode companies. Prior to Apollo, James was a consultant at the New York office of McKinsey & Company, serving major pharmaceutical clients. He earned his PhD in stem cell biology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as a National Science Foundation Fellow and received his B.A. with special honors from the University of Chicago.
Follow James Peyer:
About Cambrian Biopharma, Samsara Therapeutics: Cambrian is a distributed development company building therapeutics to lengthen health span.
Yongwei Zhang
Group VP, CEO of Americas Region of BGI Group
Yongwei Zhang, Ph.D., serves as Executive Director of BGI Research, the R&D arm of BGI-Shenzhen, world’s largest genomics service company. He is also Chief Operating Officer of Complete Genomics (San Jose, CA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of BGI. Yongwei Zhang has over 20 years of experience in optics-based instruments and systems. He began his career in Quinta Technologies developing optically-assisted computer hard drives. Quinta was later acquired by Seagate. He was a Co-Founder of telecom component startup company iolon, Inc, which has raised ~$100million VC funding. He joined biotech startup Guava Technologies in 2005, where he held positions with increasing responsibilities. Guava was later acquired by Millipore, subsequently by Merck KGaA. As Head of New Product Introduction at Merck Life Science division, he helped to develop and manufacture several generations of Guava flowcytometry instruments and reagent kits, including the award-winning Muse Cell Analyzer. In 2013, he joined Complete Genomics as Sr. Director of Engineering, responsible for the development of NGS sequencing platform BGISEQ series. Yongwei Zhang is also a strong advocate for STEM education. He served as a Board Member of US nationally top-ranked Saratoga School Union District. Yongwei Zhang received his B. Eng in Precision Instruments and B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, M.S. in Computer Sciences, M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.
Follow Yongwei Zhang:
About BGI Group: BGI Group is one of the world’s largest DNA sequencing service providers.
Erin Gore
Founder & CEO of Garden Society
Erin Gore is founder and CEO of Garden Society, a cannabis confection company started in early 2016. Alongside her husband, Tom, Erin also runs Gore Family Vineyards, a boutique winery in Healdsburg, Sonoma County. Erin was awarded a Top Business of the Year honor in 2016 and was also given the Most Disruptive Innovation Award.
Follow Erin Gore:
About Garden Society: Garden Society a medical cannabis company focused on products that merge insatiable flavors.
Walter Woltosz
Co-Founder & CEO of Simulations Plus
Walter Woltosz is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at Simulations Plus, Inc. He is a co-founder of the Company and has served as its Chief Executive Officer and as Chairman of the Board of Directors since its incorporation in July 1996.
Follow Walter Woltosz:
About Simulations Plus: Simulations Plus is a developer of Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicity (ADMET).
Daniel Grosu
Founder, Chief Executive Officer & President of PetDx
Dr. Daniel Grosu is the Founder and Managing Partner of GenoPraxis, LLC – a San Diego based specialty consultancy dedicated to enabling the practical implementation of genomic testing technologies. He is also an active angel investor, and sits on the Life Science committee of Tech Coast Angels (San Diego). Dr. Grosu previously served as Sequenom’s last Chief Medical Officer (until the company’s acquisition by LabCorp) and as Illumina’s first Chief Medical Officer. He established the Clinical Development and Medical Affairs functions at Illumina, and led the team that performed the clinical studies supporting the FDA clearance and CE Marking of the MiSeqDx platform and associated cystic fibrosis assay – the world’s first NGS-based in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) product. Earlier in his career, Dr. Grosu held positions of increasing responsibility in medical affairs and clinical development at Siemens Medical Solutions, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, and Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Grosu holds an MD (with Distinction in Research) from Saint Louis University School of Medicine, Missouri, and an MBA from the University of Oxford, UK.
Follow Daniel Grosu:
About PetDx: PetDx is a molecular diagnostics company dedicated to the detection and treatment of cancer in pets.
Janusz Dutkowski
Co-founder & CEO of Data4Cure
Janusz Dutkowski is Co-founder and CEO of Data4Cure, Inc. – a company focused on combining systems biology, machine learning and AI to facilitate continuous translation of biomedical data to knowledge. His background is in mathematics and computer science. For the last 15 years he has been working at the intersection of mathematics, computer science and biology to develop new data-driven technologies to advance the discovery of new biomarkers and precision-based therapies. Before founding Data4Cure he was a scientist at the University of California, San Diego where along with Dr. Trey Ideker he led the development of methods for multiscale analysis of molecular networks and integrative methods for biomarker discovery from multidimensional data. He has co-authored over 20 research papers published in scientific journals including Nature Biotechnology, Science and Cell.
Follow Janusz Dutkowski:
About Data4Cure: Data4Cure combines systems biology and AI to turn big omics and clinical data into a continuously updated biomedical knowledge graph.
Jim Kean
Founder – CEO of WellnessFX
Jim’s concentration is on human health potential, performance sports and nutrition. He founded Sapient Health Network in 1995 which became the foundation of WedMD’s consumer health business. He has worked in finance, health, and hospitality industries and worn hats as an entrepreneur, executive and even a venture capitalist. He is now the founder of WellnessFX, a company focussed on Revolutionizing Personal Health.
Follow Jim Kean:
About WellnessFX: WellnessFX™ is a breakthrough web-based service that empowers individuals to understand and improve their health.
Bryan Brandenburg
CEO, Chief Science Officer and Founder of Zenerchi
Bryan Brandenburg is a scientist, technologist, serial entrepreneur and former game programmer. Brandenburg is best known as co-founder of two of the largest independent game studios in the country; Sculptured Software and EAI Interactive, and Salt Lake Comic Con which is the most attended convention in the state of Utah. He was a technology executive at Zygote Media Group, Symantec Corp. and DAZ3D.com and recently founded a new startup Zenerchi to create a market leading biomedical simulation visualization AI cloud platform.
Follow Bryan Brandenburg:
About Zenerchi: Zenerchi is a life extension and biomedical simulation and visualization AI company
Daniel M. Bradbury
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Equillium
Daniel M. Bradbury is Director at Liquid Grids.
Follow Daniel M. Bradbury:
About Alume Biosciences, BioBrit, Biocon, Equillium, Equillium, Intercept Pharmaceuticals, IQHQ, Keck Graduate Institute, ProSciento, Sensulin, Synedgen: Equillium is a biotechnology company that develops products for autoimmune and inflammatory disorders with an unmet medical need.
Matthew Hill
Founder, CEO of Elegen
Matthew Hill currently serves Elegen as founder and CEO.
Follow Matthew Hill:
About Elegen: Elegen is a biotechnology company that develops microfluidic technology.
David Fuller
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Artificial
David Fuller is the Chief Service Robotics Strategy and R&D officer for KUKA North America. In his role, David is responsible for driving the integration of key IT technology from the cloud, web, and mobiles spaces with the traditional core of KUKA’s operating technologies (OT) in industrial robotics, service robotics, and emerging areas of emphasis such as healthcare and healthcare logistics. David has held previous roles spanning from a professional software engineer to global Vice President of SW R&D with areas of emphasis such as the integration of I/O, deterministic buses, processors and FPGAs and their application within test and measurement in particular. David holds more than 30 patents and was jointly awarded the prestigious 2011 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Technology Innovation from The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST). He graduated cum laude from Texas A&M University in 1995 with a Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering.
Follow David Fuller:
About Artificial, KUKA Robotics: Artificial is a software company that develops a lab automation platform.
Bryan Feinberg
CEO/Founder of Lumatrack Technologies Inc
Bryan Feinberg brings nearly two decades of serial technology & media focus to the equation. With strong ties and an extensive network, Bryan’s added value is measured in his hands on approach to deal positioning, strategic modeling, market analysis & enabling technologies in any data transaction. With over 15 years of Venture Investing in both the private and public markets, Bryan is an expert on how to best position and develop IP. Bryan is a self proclaimed Startup Junkie and at the Matrix of opportunities that flow through the company. Over the past 10 years, Bryan completed over $ 150M in transactional business and was recently part of the team that led a $ 13M Private Placement and public listing for INVIVO Therapeutics (OTC: NVIV). Series 7, 63 , 79 Licensed.
Follow Bryan Feinberg:
About Lumatrack Technologies Inc: Lumatrack Technologies focuses on research and distribution.
Ke Cheng
Founder & CEO of HistoWiz
Ke is a cancer researcher with expertise in mouse histopathology. She received her PhD in the laboratory of Pier Paolo Pandolfi at Harvard Medical School and led a team of investigators to publish papers in journals including Nature and Blood. She was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, a NCCR Molecular Oncology postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Douglas Hanahan at ISREC, and a scientist at a cancer diagnostic company (CGIX). Ke enjoys entrepreneurship and is actively involved in the NYC Bioscience community.
Follow Ke Cheng:
About HistoWiz, SUNY Downstate Medical Center: HistoWiz provides automated histopathology for biomedical researchers.
Susanne Somerville
CEO of Chronicled
Susanne was the program sponsor for implementation of Serialization for the US market for Genentech, which spanned manufacturing implementation of unit level bar coding, case and pallet level aggregation, system management of product movement, warehousing and distribution processes to ship product. They succeeded in delivering serialized product to market 3 years before the DSCSA deadlines. Her team also played a strong role in providing strategic guidance for Roche’s delivery of serialization in Brazil, finished in 12 months from project initiation. She has a reputation for strong collaboration while driving results, especially as the processes and systems had to align with global manufacturing and other global serialization requirements. Former VP Supply Chain, Genentech. 25+ years of experience in the development and delivery of best-in-class supply chain solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.
Follow Susanne Somerville:
About Chronicled, The LinkLab: Chronicled builds trust and automation in the life science industry, powered by blockchain.
Thomas J O’Brien
President and CEO of Axion BioSystems
Tom O’Brien was most recently a senior executive at Philips Medical Systems, a division of Royal Philips, after the sale of Intermagnetics General Corporation (NASDAQ: IMGC). At Intermagnetics, he held the role of Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and President, Invivo Medical Devices. Prior to that, he has had various senior executive positions in both public and private companies, in the US and abroad. Mr. O’Brien holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Follow Thomas J O’Brien:
About Axion BioSystems: Axion Biosystems is a life science company developing technologies that solve problems related to human heart and brain activity.
Jessica Green
CEO & Co-founder of Phylagen
Follow Jessica Green:
About Phylagen: Phylagen is digitizing the global microbiome to create a more transparent world
Devyn Smith
CEO of Arbor Biotechnologies
Devyn Smith is the CEO at Arbor Biotechnologies.
Follow Devyn Smith:
About Alliance Regenerative Medicine, Arbor Biotechnologies: Arbor Biotechnologies is an operator of a bio-discovery company intended to provide human diagnostic development services.
Ed Schutter
President & CEO of Arbor Pharmaceuticals
Ed Schutter has over 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience and served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Sciele (Shionogi) Pharmaceuticals prior to joining Arbor. Prior to his Sciele experience, Ed served as VP of Global Business development at Solvay Pharmaceuticals based in Basel, Switzerland. He also held several senior management roles in commercial operations at the U.S. subsidiary of Solvay during his twenty years with the organization. Prior to joining the industry, Ed owned and operated an independent retail pharmacy in Roswell, GA. He began his pharmaceutical career with Reid-Provident Labs, a small entrepreneurial pharmaceutical company based in Atlanta, Ga. Ed has a BS in Pharmacy from Mercer University and an MBA from Kennesaw State University.
Follow Ed Schutter:
About Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Shionogi, Solvay Pharmaceuticals: Arbor Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company developing late-stage therapeutic products for common pediatric conditions.
Neal Koller
Founder and CEO of Alphyn Biologics
Follow Neal Koller:
About Alphyn Biologics: Alphyn Biologics is a life science company that develops proprietary drug therapy for treating skin diseases.
Mylene Yao
CEO and Cofounder of Univfy
Dr. Mylene Yao brings a game-changer to in vitro fertilization (IVF) to help more women and couples build their families. Univfy combines healthcare AI and fintech to dramatically improve the fertility patient’s experience, expand affordability of having several IVF treatments, and maximize a woman’s chance of having a baby from IVF. Dr. Yao is a board-certified Ob/Gyn with over 20 years of experience in clinical and scientific research in reproductive medicine. She has led Univfy from invention to commercialization and now focuses on expanding the Univfy network of fertility providers to increase women’s access to IVF treatment. Her vision is to make IVF an affordable and effective option for women and couples through the Univfy PreIVF Report, which provides predicted probabilities of IVF success that are personalized to the woman’s own health profile and validated for the fertility center’s IVF outcomes. Prior to Univfy, Dr. Yao was Assistant Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where she led NIH-funded research in reproductive medicine and preimplantation embryo gene regulation. Univfy’s technology — deep phenotype profiling-based health prediction modeling — was developed at Stanford University by research teams led by Dr. Yao and her scientific collaborator and Univfy Co-founder Professor Wing H. Wong to address unmet needs in personalized, outcomes-based health care decision making. Dr. Yao’s scientific research has been published in clinical and basic science research journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Systems Biology, Fertility and Sterility, Molecular Endocrinology, and Developmental Biology. Dr. Yao received her medical degree from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1993 and completed her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University, Montreal, Canada in 1998. She received her clinical subspecialty training in reproductive endocrinology and infertility and post-doctoral training in developmental biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, Boston, MA in 1998–2001. In 2003, she joined the faculty at Stanford University to lead basic scientific research in early embryo development. Dr. Yao received academic research grants and awards — including the NIH/NICHD Women’s Reproductive Health Research Fellowship, 2005; NIH-R01, 2008; and Coulter-Stanford Translational Research Award, 2009 — for her research in the areas of pre-implantation embryo development, the role of stem cell genes in the embryo, and uterine receptivity at implantation. She is co-author of the chapter on Infertility in Berek and Novak’s Gynecology (13th to 16th editions), one of the most widely read medical textbooks for obstetricians and gynecologists.
Follow Mylene Yao:
About Univfy: Univfy AI Platform makes fertility costs and success more predictable for women and couples navigating their family-building options.
Robert Geho
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Diasome Pharmaceuticals
Robert Geho currently serves Diasome as founder and CEO. Prior to joining Diasome, Robert spent twenty five years with SDG, Inc. as senior VP. Ben Lerch holds a degree in entrepreneurship from Case Western University.
Follow Robert Geho:
About Diasome Pharmaceuticals, SDG, SDG, Inc.: Diasome Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage diabetes therapeutics company that designs and develops insulin-based therapies.
Nancy Simonian
CEO of Syros Pharmaceuticals
Nancy Simonian is the chief executive officer of [Syros Pharmaceuticals](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/syros-pharmaceuticals#/entity), a life sciences company focused on treating diseases by mapping gene regulatory circuits. She also serves as the board director of Seattle Genetics. Previously, she held the same position at Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. Before joining Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Simonian provided her services as the chief medical officer of Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, she was the vice president for clinical development at Biogen. She began her career as a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School and neurology staff at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Simonian holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Princeton University and medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Follow Nancy Simonian:
About Syros Pharmaceuticals: Syros Pharmaceuticals is a life sciences company that focuses on treating diseases by mapping gene regulatory circuits.
Robert Fenton
Founder & CEO of Qualio
Robert Fenton is the Founder and CEO at Qualio.
Follow Robert Fenton:
About Qualio: Qualio is a quality management system helping life sciences companies bring quality products to the market.
Savan Devani
Founder & CEO of BioTrillion
Savan Devani is the Founder and CEO of BioTrillion, a health technology company developing a digital biomarker platform called BioEngine4D to digitally detect developing diseases. Previously, Savan spent the majority of his 15 year career in the Life Sciences industry working with hundreds of public and private corporations as a healthcare investment banker with Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. From Analyst through Managing Director, Savan led 40 financing and M&A deals, totaling $35 billion in deal value, and learned many invaluable lessons working with clients across the drug, diagnostic, and device spectrum, such as Amgen, Eli Lilly, Fosun, Masimo, Medtronic, Pacific Biosciences, Xenoport, and many others. Savan began his career as a little bioengineer in a big lab at Life Technologies. Savan graduated with a B.S.E. in Bioengineering from the University of California at Berkeley and a M.S.E. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. After many years of academic and professional experience in the healthcare field, a deeply personal experience later in life made Savan truly realize how much in healthcare needed to change – his mother was suddenly diagnosed with stage IVb cancer. This compelled Savan to ask “where were all the signs” and “isn’t there a better way,” which led to BioTrillion.
Follow Savan Devani:
About BioTrillion: Neural Nets for Neural Health””
James A. Hayward
Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer of Applied DNA Sciences
Dr. James A. Hayward is Chairman, President, and CEO of Applied DNA Sciences. With over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, life science and consumer product industries, Dr. Hayward is actively involved in the global effort to ensure the authenticity of products and the protection of global supply chains from counterfeiting and diversion. Patented and applied in over a billion products throughout the world, the Company’s SigNature® DNA tags are unique sequences that can help preserve the quality and integrity of products from pharmaceutics to cosmetics. Dr. Hayward received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Chemistry from the State University of New York at Oneonta in 1976, his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1983, and an honorary Doctor of Science from the same institution in 2000. He was one of the founding principals and research director of Europe’s first liposome company, Biocompatibles Ltd. From 1984 to 1989, he was responsible for product development at Esteé Lauder Companies. In 1990, Dr. Hayward founded The Collaborative Group, a provider of products and services to the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and consumer-product industries based in Stony Brook. For 14 years, he served as Chairman, President and CEO of Collaborative, spawning multiple businesses including The Collaborative BioAlliance, a contract developer and manufacturer of human gene products, that was sold to Dow Chemical in 2002, and Collaborative Laboratories, a service provider and manufacturer of ingredients for skincare and dermatology was sold to Engelhard (now BASF) in 2004. Dr. Hayward has been twice named “Entrepreneur of the Year;” in 2002 by Inc. Magazine and in 2009 by the Long Island Technology Hall of Fame. In January 2014, Dr. Hayward was given the David Award by Networking Magazine as one of eight of Long Island’s most accomplished individuals. Dr. Hayward has been a General Partner of Double D Venture Fund, a venture capital firm based in New York, New York. Dr. Hayward has served on the boards of many companies, the Stony Brook Foundation, the Research Foundation of the State of New York, the Long Island Association, the New York Biotechnology Association, the Long Island Life Sciences Initiative and the Ward Melville Heritage Foundation.
Follow James A. Hayward:
About Applied DNA Sciences: Applied DNA Sciences provides botanical DNA-based anti-counterfeiting and product authentication solutions.
Steven Collens
CEO of MATTER
Steven Collens is CEO of MATTER, Chicago’s new healthcare technology startup center and community hub. He also serves as strategic advisor to Pritzker Group Venture Capital, where he focuses on seed-stage investments. Prior to assuming his current role, Steven was senior vice president at Pritzker Group, the investment firm led by Tony and J.B. Pritzker. In that capacity, he led the team that created 1871, Chicago’s center for digital startups that now houses more than 250 early-stage companies. He previously worked at Abbott in a variety of domestic and international functions, including product management, policy and public affairs. In 2005, Steven helped found ConstantWellness.com to give patients control over their health data and allow healthcare providers to coordinate care of their patients. Prior to Abbott, Steven served as a policy advisor to a U.S. Senator. Steven holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis. He serves on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations, including the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center and the Chicago Artists’ Coalition, and is a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow.
Follow Steven Collens:
About MATTER, Pritzker Group Venture Capital: MATTER provides the healthcare industry with technology solutions to improve products and services.
Josh Perfetto
Cofounder & CEO of Chai
Follow Josh Perfetto:
About Chai: Chai develops products that make the core biological technologies more useful and readily available to all.
Brad Margus
Co-founder & CEO of Cerevance
Brad Margus currently serves as Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cerevance, a drug discovery company focused on brain diseases with sites in Massachusetts and the United Kingdom. From 2009-2012, as Chief Executive Officer of Envoy Therapeutics, he raised $8 million from investors, employed a unique technology to discover new compounds for brain diseases, and sold the company within three years for $140 million. From 2000 to 2007, Brad Margus was the Chief Executive Officer of Perlegen Sciences, a leader in analyzing genetic variation that raised $257 million from investors, exceeded $100 million in revenues, and identified diagnostic markers for disease risk and drug response. Brad Margus has been a member of numerous government advisory committees as well as corporate and nonprofit boards. He currently serves on the Boards of Second Genome, Presage Biosciences and the non-profit A-T Children’s Project. Additionally, he serves as the Chair of the Network for Excellence in Neuroscience Clinical Trials External Oversight Board at the NIH. Brad Margus obtained his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Follow Brad Margus:
About A-T Children’s Project, Cerevance: Cerevance is a developer of novel therapeutics intended to advance new medicines for serious neurological diseases.
Neil Desai
Founder, CEO and President of Aadi Bioscience
Neil is the Founder of Aadi Bioscience, Inc. He was former SVP, Global R&D, Abraxis Bioscience; VP, Strategic Platforms, Celgene Corp; Inventor of the nab® technology, Abraxane® and ABI-009. He successfully led the Abraxane team through all development stages. He has over 25 years of experience in novel therapeutic delivery systems with over 100 issued patents, over 40 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and over 200 presentations at scientific meetings. He is an active participant in FDA and EU Nanotechnology initiatives and a member of the Steering Committee for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer. He holds board and advisory positions in various start-ups. He holds a M.S and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, India.
Follow Neil Desai:
About Aadi Bioscience: Aadi Bioscience develops a potentially mTOR inhibitor for targeted patient populations in oncology and cardiovascular diseases.
Alexis Rovner
Co-Founder & CEO of 64x Bio
Alexis Rovner founded 64-x on August 22, 2017, with George Church, Jeffrey Way, and Pamela Silver, and she serves as its CEO.
Follow Alexis Rovner:
About 64x Bio: 64x Bio builds a platform that increases the speed and scale of mammalian cell line discovery.
Christopher Bouton
CEO of Vyasa Analytics
Christopher Bouton is the CEO at Vyasa Analytics.
Follow Christopher Bouton:
About Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, Newburyport Bank, Vyasa Analytics: Vyasa provides deep learning software & analytics for life sciences and healthcare organizations.
KEVIN ISETT
CEO & Co-Founder of Avitide
Kevin Isett is the CEO & Co-Founder of Avitide, Inc.
Follow KEVIN ISETT:
About Avitide: Avitide develops affinity purification solutions for biopharmaceutical companies.
John Fowler
Co-Founder and CEO of Kezar Life Sciences
Follow John Fowler:
About Kezar Life Sciences: Kezar Life Sciences company focused on the discovery and development of drugs targeting protein homeostasis for autoimmune disorders
Matthew Gantz
CEO of Castle Creek Biosciences
Matthew Gantz is the CEO at Castle Creek Biosciences.
Follow Matthew Gantz:
About Castle Creek Biosciences, Fibrocell Science: Castle Creek Biosciences is focused on developing commercializing novel, personalized gene therapies for rare skin disorders.
Lisa Ricciardi
Chief Executive Officer of Cognition Therapeutics
Lisa Ricciardi is the Chief Executive Officer at Cognition Therapeutics.
Follow Lisa Ricciardi:
About Cognition Therapeutics: Cognition Therapeutics develops new therapeutics to treat patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
