Jim is the Managing Partner of Deerfield. He joined Deerfield in 2000, focusing on pharmaceutical companies and gradually assuming broader responsibility throughout the firm. In 2004 Jim began co-managing the firm with Deerfield’s founder, Arnold Snider. Upon Arnie’s retirement in 2005, Jim assumed his current role overseeing Deerfield’s investment activities as well as the management of the firm. Since that time, the firm has expanded its investment capabilities to include private structured financings, developed additional proprietary market research instruments through the Deerfield Institute, and created the Deerfield Foundation to contribute toward the health and welfare of disadvantaged children.
Before joining Deerfield, Jim was a top ranked analyst at Furman Selz from 1996 to 2000, where he built a team to cover the pharmaceutical and medical device industries and also managed a proprietary trading account. Previously he served from 1993 to 1996 as Vice President of Corporate Development of Alpharma Inc., a pharmaceutical company, where his responsibilities included business development and strategic planning and the management of several licensing transactions. Jim began his career in healthcare investing from 1988 to 1993 at Kidder, Peabody & Co., where he ultimately served as a senior analyst covering the specialty pharmaceutical industry.
Since 2009, Jim has served as the Chairman of the Quality Committee of the Board of Trustees of Continuum Health Partners until its merger in 2013 with Mount Sinai Health System, where he continues to serve on the Board of Trustees. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the New York Academy of Medicine. He holds a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Economics from the University of Michigan.
Adam Lilling is the Founder of PLUS and Managing Partner its venture fund, Plus Capital L.P. PLUS manages the venture capital investing, equity driven partnerships, and start-up operations for over a dozen of the top celebrities from Hollywood, Music and Sports. PLUS maximizes their Return on Influence (ROI) by investing their money, time, brand, and social platforms into private companies at every stage from Series A to pre-IPO. Adam is an entrepreneur and start-up innovator, creating pioneering technology companies for more than two decades. Prior to PLUS, Adam co-founded Launchpad LA, which from 2009-2014 was integral in building LA's "silicon beach" tech community. Prior to LaunchpadLA, Adam founded start-ups BiggerBoat, Pazanga, and Pentagon. Adam is a BBA class of 1992 graduate from the University of Michigan. Go Blue.
Matt Bell is a Principal of Cultivian Sandbox. Matt has over 9 years of technology commercialization and startup experience through his time with the University of Michigan’s Office of Technology Transfer where he was directly involved with the formation activities of over 20 startup companies. Prior to working at the University, Matt spent over 10 years in the Agriculture industry working for several production Ag supply companies including Growmark Incorporated where he was involved with their highly regarded precision farming services group.
Matt represents Cultivian on the board of directors of AbCelex. Matt has two degrees from the University of Illinois in Agronomy and a Masters of Business Administration and spent much of his early career as a professional grain farmer on the family farm that he grew up on in Central Illinois.
Matt is a partner in the Business and Corporate Services Practice Team, and participates in the Startup and Emerging Companies and Intellectual Property practice groups. His practice focuses on corporate formation and organization, venture financings, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, securities law, and intellectual property protection and transactions. He works closely with startups, second stage and private companies on day-to-day issues and all manner of corporate and intellectual property transactions. His particular business concentrations include software and hardware development, engineering, Internet and multimedia companies, software as a service (SaaS), manufacturing, and "Internet of things" (IoT) companies across a wide variety industries and applications. He is also a frequent lecturer on entrepreneurship, venture capital and corporate transactions, as well as copyright, trademark, Internet, software, and other areas of intellectual property law.
Scott is a Managing Director at Venture Investors and joined the firm in 1996. He focuses on investment opportunities in medical devices, digital health, material sciences and information technology. He created the firm’s Venture Igniter program to encourage and support academic and student led start-ups from the University of Wisconsin. Scott currently represents Venture Investors on the Boards of Directors for HealthMyne, Silatronix, and NeuWave Medical. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the University of Wisconsin’s Chemistry Department, is a member of the Madison Development Corporation’s Debt Advisory Committee, and is a MERLIN Mentor and a frequent guest lecturer at the UW Madison Business and Engineering schools. Scott serves as a mentor and advisor to many faculty and student led starts-ups from the University of Wisconsin. Prior to joining Venture Investors, Scott worked for McDonald’s Corporation and Rockwell Automation. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (BS–Mechanical Engineering), the University of Chicago (MBA) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
Robert L. Crutchfield is a Partner in the General Partner. Mr. Crutchfield joined HMC in September 2008 and serves as a Board Member of IngagePa¬tient and WellCentive, and as a board observer for ControlScan, MaxCyte, nContact, OpenQ and WiserTogether. In addition to his responsibilities at HMC, he is a member of the Board of Directors for the Southeast Medical Device Association, the Florida Venture Forum, the Innovation Depot in Birmingham, AL, and the Atlanta Venture Forum. Mr. Crutchfield also serves as a member of the Investment Advisory Board for the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research, the Florida High Tech Corridor Council¸ is a Venture Fellow at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, is a member of the Advisory Board for the STEM Path to MBA at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and is a Visiting Executive at Auburn University. Prior to joining HVP, Mr. Crutchfield served as Senior Vice President/General Manager of the Pharmacy Services Division at U.S. Oncology, a privately held, vertically inte¬grated cancer care provider network with cancer clinics in more than 440 sites of service and a physician network consisting of over 1,000 medical oncolo¬gists and radiation oncologists. His division 15 was responsible for approxi¬mately $2 billion of annual revenue and under his leadership the division’s EBITDA grew to over $80 million. Mr. Crutchfield was also a Senior Executive at CardinalHealth, where he served as Vice President of New Ventures. While with Cardinal Health, he built and launched a new surgical products business unit through licensing of new technologies, acquisitions and creating a new North American sales channel. In 1994, Mr. Crutchfield founded Surgical Inno¬vations and Services, Inc. (SIS), a surgical laser management company. Under his leadership, SIS became a leader in the emerging outsource management sector, with over 300 hospitals and surgery centers under contract with SIS for management, oversight and delivery of their surgical laser programs. In 2000, SIS merged with Surgical Laser Technologies, Inc. (SLTI) a publicly traded sur¬gical laser-manufacturing firm. Mr. Crutchfield continued as President of SIS and served as VP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development for SLTI, until he exited the company following its acquisition by publicly-traded Photome¬dex, Inc. Mr. Crutchfield is a graduate of the University of Georgia and holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Political Science and Chemistry.
Jim Evans, CEO, brings twenty years of healthcare leading experience to Socrates. His healthcare expertise spans healthcare analytics, network management, and reimbursement strategy. Prior to joining Socrates, Jim was instrumental in developing businesses in healthcare information technology for payer and provider markets with McKesson Health Solutions. Jim also provided marketing and business strategy for over a dozen Global 1000 companies over four continents with Cerenti Marketing Group and Booz Allen Hamilton. He served as a Lieutenant the United States Navy. Jim received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University and his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Marty is a venture capital and growth-stage investor who has focused exclusively on investing in and working with innovative health care services and health care software companies since 1992. Marty has generated a gross IRR of more than 20% (versus 8% for the NASDAQ Composite on a dollar-weighted basis over that same period of time). As a result of his tenure in the industry, he has developed strong C-suite relationships with many of the largest and influential health care organizations in the country and has leveraged these relationships and networks to recruit more than 50 executives to the portfolio companies with whom he has partnered and to help initiate or sustain significant customer relationships at more than one-third of his portfolio companies. He has led investments in and/or served on the Boards of Directors of companies that created new industries, disrupted existing industries, and have grown to become industry leaders, including TelaDoc (NYSE: TDOC); change: healthcare (acquired by Emdeon); Aperio (acquired by Danaher); Titan Health (acquired by United Surgical Partners); USRenal Care (acquired by Leonard Green); PayperPath (acquired by Misys); Vantage Oncology (acquired by McKesson); NovoLogix (acquired by CVSHealth); OnShift; VeriCare; and ClearData Networks.
V. Kadir Kadhiresan, PhD, Vice President, Venture Investments, joined Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC, Inc. (JJDC) in 2007. He serves on the boards of JJDC portfolio companies and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Kadhiresan has more than a decade of operational experience in various functional roles including research, product development, and business development. Most recently as Director of Business Development at Guidant, Inc., now Boston Scientific, Inc., Dr. Kadhiresan led transactions in several novel medical device technologies for joint development, including mergers and acquisitions, and licensing and monetizing of nonstrategic assets. Prior to entering business development, he led the research and development of several early-stage technologies and managed more than 60 people. Dr. Kadhiresan was instrumental in the development of the cardiac resynchronization therapy for heart failure, a now $2+ billion worldwide market. At Heart Rhythm Technologies, a subsidiary of Guidant, he led the development of an ablation technology for treatment of atrial fibrillation and raised venture financing for the project. In addition, Dr. Kadhiresan is an inventor on more than 25 patents and has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Kadhiresan received a PhD and Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from REC, Trichy, India.
Kirsten worked at Stanford University’s Office of Technology Licensing for almost nineteen years, her last position as an Associate Director of the office. At OTL, she handled a diverse caseload of biotechnology and high technology inventions and also has experience with software, trademark and copyright licensing. She worked dozens of startups during her tenure. Kirsten started at Stanford’s OTL in 1996, but spent the 2004 calendar year as a technology manager at the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (German Cancer Research Center) in Heidelberg, Germany.
Kirsten is currently Vice President for Membership Development, Western Hemisphere, for the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) and was Vice President for Communications of AUTM in 2007-2008. Previously she was an editor of the AUTM Journal and the AUTM Newsletter. In 2012, she was Co-Chair of membership for Women in Bio, San Francisco Bay Area, and she is a past board member of WiLBA (Women in Licensing Bay Area). An active speaker, Kirsten has presented to audiences at BIO, LES, WIPO, ProTon, AUTM, and other meetings around the world. She published articles on technology transfer in the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, Community Genetics, and Medical Innovation and Business and co-wrote a chapter on bringing university technology to the private sector in The Creative Enterprise.
Kirsten’s education includes a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Wellesley College and a Masters in Business Administration from Santa Clara University concentrating in international business and management of technology and innovation. Kirsten is a registered U.S. Patent Agent (No. 55,375).
Michael Liang joined Baird Capital in 2006 and concentrates on Healthcare investments. Prior to joining Baird Capital, Mike was a venture investor with Advent Venture Partners and before that served in an operating role as a Director of R&D; at Cortek, a spinal orthopedics company. Mike is currently a member of the board of directors of Amphora Medical, GenomeDx Biosciences, Insightra Medical, Veniti, Zurex Pharma, Integrated Diagnostics and Apervita, serving as chairman of the board for Insightra Medical and Veniti. He was previously a board member of Interlace Medical before its acquisition in 2011 and a board observer of TomoTherapy before its public offering. Mike is a member of the advisory board for the University of Illinois Chicago’s Proof of Concept Fund, Northwestern University’s Innovation and New Ventures Office, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Accelerator program and Chicago MATTER. Mike also is a member of Rush University Medical Center’s Associates Board. Mike received a BS from the University of California Berkeley and a PhD in biophysical chemistry from Stanford University and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.
As the Venture Center Director, Jack supports the Mentor In Residence Program, the Business Formation Team and the Venture Accelerator under the Office of Technology Transfer. The goal of the Venture Center is to help new startup ventures move quickly to the marketplace. Miner has worked as a startup specialist within U-M Tech Transfer since 2011, helping to form new ventures based on physical sciences intellectual property. In that role he coordinated the development, formation, and funding of more than six startup companies launched during fiscal 2013 while managing a portfolio of more than 20 other startup projects.
Prior to his role at the University of Michigan, Jack worked as Entrepreneurial Capital Champion at TechTown in Detroit and was managing director of a Battle Creek business accelerator, bcVentures. Before that, he worked for seven venture-backed software companies (most of which exited through acquisition) as well as Fortune 100 information technology organizations, CA (Computer Associates) and Amdahl. He has a bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Management from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Jonathan Murray has followed a bumblebee’s path through American business. After double-majoring in English Literature and Biology, he experimented with careers in journalism in Washington, D.C and in advertising with major agencies in New York. While in Business School at the University of Michigan, he founded his first business and discovered a love of entrepreneurship. The next ten years were spent in Silicon Valley, which included a successful seven-year stint at Spectra Laboratories, where he headed marketing and software development. Fresenius Medical Care purchased the Company in 2007 for $140 million and Jonathan was then recruited to be President of Volk Optical, in Cleveland. In 2001 he co-founded Early Stage Partners, an early stage venture capital fund that invested $100 million from two funds. Successful investments include TOA Technologies, bought by Oracle, and OnShift, one of Cleveland’s leading technology up-and-comers. In 2014 Jonathan joined Draper Triangle, opened the firm’s Michigan office, and relocated to Michigan. In his spare time he reads and writes, nurtures his son’s interest in cybersecurity, and supports his daughter’s burgeoning amateur career as a competitive figure skater.
As Vice President of Venture Capital at Covidien and now Medtronic, Dave has led a large number of venture capital investments resulting in multiple portfolio companies acquired by leading medtech multinationals and top tier financial returns to-date. Dave works closely with Medtronic’s leadership and business development teams regarding new minority investments and the Medtronic portfolio was also the primary architect of Covidien’s white space growth strategy. He currently serves as a Director or Board Observer on several portfolio company boards.
Prior to Medtronic, Dave was responsible for business development, strategy and finance for a small division of Stryker focused on white spaces and new technology platforms. Earlier in his career, he was a healthcare-focused strategy consultant, supporting numerous clients with key decisions regarding internal product development and acquisition opportunities across the medical device, diagnostic and biopharmaceutical industries.
Dave received an MBA from Yale and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of British Columbia and completed post-doctoral work in bone development and neurodegenerative disease at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NY.
Dr. Julia C. Owens is the founding President & CEO of Millendo Therapeutics. She has an extensive background in venture-backed biopharmaceutical companies and particular expertise in pharmaceutical company transactions. Prior to co-founding Millendo in 2012, she served as senior vice president, corporate development and strategy at Lycera Corp., where she led the partnering process that led to Lycera's major research partnerships with Merck & Co. Prior to Lycera, Dr. Owens served as head of business development at QuatRx Pharmaceuticals for six years. There, she established several key partnerships, including one with Shionogi for the approved drug, Osphena®. Earlier in her career, Dr. Owens worked at Tularik Inc. (now Amgen San Francisco) in business development for five years, where she led partnering for the oncology and immunology areas, as well as chaired the company's technology acquisition efforts. Dr. Owens began her business career at the University of California, San Francisco Office of Technology Management. Dr. Owens holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and a B.S. in chemistry and B.A. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Tom Shehab, M.D., joined Arboretum Ventures in 2014 as a Principal. Previously, Tom served as a member of Arboretum’s Technical Advisory Board and as a board member of an Arboretum portfolio company, ArborMetrix. In his current role, Tom draws upon his clinical, healthcare administration and operational expertise to evaluate new potential investments and provide strategic support to Arboretum’s portfolio companies.
Prior to joining Arboretum, Tom spent 12 years as a physician executive and practicing physician specializing in gastroenterology. He was involved in a number of entrepreneurial healthcare related ventures and held multiple senior leadership roles. Most recently, Tom served as Chief of Staff for more than 1,000 physicians at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor and as the Chair of Medicine for Integrated Health Associates (IHA), a multi-specialty group consisting of 300+ providers. Both St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and IHA are part of Trinity Health.
Dr. Skifstad has over 25 years of experience founding and leading successful early- and growth-stage Enterprise and SaaS software ventures. In addition to his domestic and international operating roles, Kurt was Entrepreneur in Residence at RPM Ventures, a seed and early stage venture firm that invests in Information Technology, and he also taught a course on Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan. Kurt holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and he attended the Executive Education Program at Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
Pfizer has a broad portfolio of assets and capabilities across a range of therapeutic areas, modalities and technology platforms. Consequently, we are open to considering a wide variety of partnerships. One of the benefits of partnering with Pfizer is our dedicated alliance management group, focused on maintaining successful partnerships from the beginning and throughout the entire lifespan of the relationships.
Karen Spilizewski joined RiverVest® in January 2008 as a vice president. She is also a vice president of BioEnterprise Corporation in Cleveland, where she directs business development for medical device and equipment companies. Karen divides her time between BioEnterprise and RiverVest and is located in RiverVest’s Cleveland office. Karen serves on the board of Securus Medical Group, Inc. and is an observer at Neuros Medical, Inc.
Since 2005, Karen has worked through BioEnterprise to identify, assess, and accelerate the growth of emerging medical device companies that originate from universities, clinical research, local entrepreneurs, or companies relocating to Ohio. Prior to joining BioEnterprise, Karen gained significant medical device industry experience at Avery Dennison Corporation, where she spent 19 years in research and business development.
Karen brings a broad knowledge of the seed and early-stage life science opportunity landscape in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania and the ability to source and evaluate the most promising deals. Through her product and business development expertise, Karen is able to help entrepreneurs accelerate their companies toward next development milestones.
Karen earned her M.B.A., M.S. in Macromolecular Science and B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.
Manny joined Osage University Partners in 2015 with a focus on hardware, robotics, advanced materials and software. Prior to joining Osage, Manny was at Lockheed Martin, where he led a team of engineers executing on the transition of early stage technologies into the defense industry. At Lockheed’s Skunk Works and Advanced Technology Laboratories, his programs and pursuits primarily joined universities with industry to develop unique technology solutions across the materials, applied physics and photonics domains. Manny holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and a B.S.E in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University.
Jeff is a Partner at Providence Ventures, where he leads healthcare technology investments and manages fund operations. He is currently a Director at Binary Fountain and a board observer at InDemand Interpreting. Prior to joining Providence, Jeff was an Investment Manager at Ascension Ventures in St. Louis, where he also focused on the healthcare technology industry. During his tenure at Ascension Ventures, Jeff served as a Director at Advanced Practice Strategies and a board observer at GetWellNetwork, CHF Solutions and OptiScan Biomedical Corporation.
Before Ascension Ventures, Jeff was a member of Ascension Health’s strategy team, where he contributed to numerous system-level initiatives and business development activities, including the development of that organization’s 15 year strategic vision. Jeff has prior experience in software product management and business development for entrepreneurial healthcare technology companies WebMD and WellMed. Jeff holds an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, a master’s in Medical Informatics from the Oregon Health & Science University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago.
Rik joined River Cities in 2004 to focus on information technology and healthcare investment opportunities. He brings to River Cities a strong background in strategy and business management at high-growth companies. Rik is responsible for sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities and working with executives in portfolio companies on marketing, sales execution, product development and strategy. Prior to his private equity career, Rik gained experience working with venture backed companies in the strategy group of Scient, a global eBusiness consulting firm. Before Scient, Rik worked for four years at Accenture, first in the healthcare services group and then at the Internet Center of Excellence where he helped launch several venture-backed companies as well as worked on the team that developed the online music platform for BestBuy.
Rik serves on the boards of Advanced Practice Strategies, Continuity Control, ABT Molecular Imaging, EndoChoice and Univa and was previously an observer on the board of Pioneer Surgical, which sold to RTI Surgical (Nasdaq: RTIX) in 2013. He was previously on the board of Fullscope (sold to Edgewater (Nasdaq: EDGW) in 2009). Rik graduated from Vanderbilt University where he received his BE in Mechanical Engineering, and he received an MBA from Duke University.
Rik is chairman of the Governance Group for the Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), one of the largest entrepreneurial organizations in the country, and is a frequent guest lecturer at Duke University on Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital. Rik is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Southeastern Medical Device Association (SEMDA), which supports and promotes medical device companies in the Southeast.
David D. Wentzloff received the B.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1999, and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in 2002 and 2007, respectively. Since August, 2007 he has been with the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His research focuses on RF integrated circuits, with an emphasis on ultra-low power design. In 2012, he co-founded PsiKick, a fabless semiconductor company developing ultra-low power wireless SoCs. He is the recipient of the 2009 DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2009-2010 Eta Kappa Nu Professor of the Year Award, 2011 DAC/ISSCC Student Design Contest Award, 2012 IEEE Subthreshold Microelectronics Conference Best Paper Award, the 2012 NSF CAREER Award, the 2014 ISSCC Outstanding Forum Presenter Award, the 2014-2015 Eta Kappa Nu ECE Professor of the Year Award, the 2014-2015 EECS Outstanding Acheivement Award, and the 2015 Joel and Ruth Spira Excellence in Teaching Award. He has served on the technical program committee for ICUWB 2008-2010, ISLPED 2011-2015, S3S 2013-2014, and RFIC 2013-2015, and as a guest editor for the IEEE T-MTT, the IEEE Communications Magazine, and the Elsevier Journal of Signal Processing: Image Communication. He is a member of IEEE, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society, and Tau Beta Pi.
Mark joined OnShift in July, 2008 as CEO. Mark brings to OnShift over 25 years of experience in enterprise software sales and marketing, having worked for startup organizations as well as Fortune 500 companies. Prior to OnShift, Mark was Vice President of sales for Flashline, which was acquired by BEA in 2006. Mark successfully developed and implemented Flashline’s global sales and channel strategy and later BEA’s aqualogic sales team. Mark’s track record creating and running successful business strategies also includes work with TMW Systems, where he built the sales team from the ground up leading to over 1500% increase in revenue, and PSI, a regional hardware and software VAR. Mark leverages his extensive background in technology-enabled process improvements speaking at industry conferences as well as authoring articles on long-term care trends and issues.
