By Lucy Parkinson, VP of Investor Research, LSN
In addition to RESI’s industry leading one-on-one partnering experience, RESI Europe also features an agenda of panels focused on informing entrepreneurs on how to go about raising capital for their life science technologies. While panels span various investor groups (such as Family Offices and Big Pharma) and industry verticals (such as Diagnostic Investors and Medical Device Investors), all are aimed at providing RESI’s entreprenerial attendees with insight from the other side of the table. Today, LSN would like to introduce you to some of our RESI Europe panelists – all of whom are experienced investors or strategic business development staff who are actively making deals with startups in the life science space.
Digital Health Investors Panel
Tony Chang – M Ventures
Tony Chang, PhD, MBA, is an Investment Associate with the New Businesses team at M Ventures. In this role, Tony is focusing on the early stage venture deals in health-tech and digital health, with a particular attention on digital therapeutics deals. Tony has developed substantial experience in assessing digital health deals for both in-clinic and out-of-clinic applications. Prior to M Ventures, Tony was a technology commercialization officer at the University of Western Cape in South Africa where he was responsible for the development of several industry research collaboration and licensing deals. Previously, Tony was a consultant at the strategy practice of EY in Johannesburg.
Medical Device Investors Panel
Diana Saraceni – Panakes Partners
Diana Saraceni is an investor with long experience in Venture Capital. She is currently Co-Founder & General Partner at Panakes Partners (www.panakes.it), an Italian Venture Capital firm dedicated to early stage investments in healthcare in Europe and Israel. Diana can rely on over 15 years of Venture Capital experience. She has also co-founded and managed 360 Capital Partners (www.360capitalpartners.com), one of the leading Venture Capital firm in Europe. She has led investments in a significant number of companies all over Europe, not only in the medical device sector, and generated several exits as IPO and M&A transactions. Ms Saraceni has a strong knowledge of the Venture Capital community in Italy and Europe. Ms. Saraceni holds an Msc in Engineering and an MBA from Luiss University.
Family Offices & Angels Panel
Christopher de Souza – Broadview Ventures
Chris de Souza, PhD, MBA, is a Director at Broadview Ventures. He started his career at Novartis as a scientist in the Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases group and then as Director of Strategic Alliances. After Novartis, Christopher was Vice President of Business Development at SkyePharma US Inc. He then founded a business development consulting practice with clients including JSB-Partners, Diagnostics For All and Metaome. Christopher has a Masters in zoology from the University of Bombay, PhD in physiology from Louisiana State University and MBA from Rutgers University along with post-doctoral training at The Upjohn Company and Joslin Diabetes Center/Harvard Medical School. Christopher currently serves on multiple Broadview Ventures portfolio company boards, the board of MassBio and several grant review committees.
Big Pharma Panel
Natalia Novac – Eli Lilly & Co
Natalia Novac is a part of the Emerging Technology and Innovation Group and is responsible for search and evaluation of novel healthcare technologies across all Eli Lilly indications in Europe. Natalia is involved in the scientific evaluation of novel life science assets coming from multiple venture funds where Eli Lilly participates as a limited partner. Natalia is an experienced pharmaceutical industry professional with solid background in oncology, endocrinology, immunology and multiple sclerosis. Natalia has a PhD in molecular biology and MSc in Microbiology. Natalia’s LinkedIn
Diagnostic Investors Panel
Tom Miller – GreyBird Ventures
After receiving a degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Tom studied Medical Physics at the Harvard/MIT Health Sciences and Technology joint program graduating with a Masters degree in 1982. During his academic career he worked at Los Alamos, the Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research (now the Paul Scherer Institute), Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Massachusetts General Hospital as a research associate in radiation biophysics. Tom then joined Siemens Medical Systems where, after 9 years, he became the first non-German CEO of a German factory and business unit. He left Siemens after 15 years to become CEO of the global medical operations of Carl Zeiss. Completing a successful turnaround, he joined Analogic Corporation as CEO. After three years and a doubling of the stock price, Tom left to become CEO of LightLab Imaging, a start-up that he helped to establish. Completing a profitable sale of LightLab, Tom re-joined Siemens eventually serving as a member of the operating board of Siemens Healthcare and the CEO of Customer Solutions Division, responsible for 26,000 employees in over 130 countries. Tom co-founded GreyBird in mid-2013 with an investment focus on technologies enabling precision medicine diagnosis.
