BioVenture VoiCes with Chris Garabedian
Hosted by Chris Garabedian, this podcast features conversations with leading voices in the BioVenture community. Guests share their insights and perspectives on the challenges and successes of venture capital investing in the biotech industry.
Episodes
Episode 43: Lightstone Venture's Mike Carusi
Mike Carusi describes his early life and career, how gaining an appreciation for sales made an impression on him early on, and his philosophy of investing in medical devices - and the similarities and differences between that and investing in therapeutics.
Episode 42: Nextech's Thilo Schroeder
Having been an early investor in many recent successes such as Revolution Medicines, Peloton, and Parabilis Medicines, he describes his investment philosophy and focus on precision oncology companies. Plus, his early life, getting hands on experience in biotech at Micromet, and learning from some of the top investors and scientific advisors in the industry.
Episode 41: Forbion's Nanna Lüneborg
Nanna Luneborg discusses hear career and joining Forbion. She describes the firm's investment approach, and her experience with everything from seed, to private, and to public investing in life sciences. Plus, thoughts on China and AI in biotech.
Episode 40: GV's Krishna Yeshwant
He describes his well-rounded background of studying and working in both software in Silicon Valley and Medicine in Boston, and the start of GV. He describes a conservative start to investing at GV, but also today how Alphabet's scale and cash gives them the ability to ride cycles and make concentrated bets on companies the team has conviction on.
Episode 39: SV Health Investors' Kate Bingham
Kate Bingham describes her early life and a serendipitous opportunity to work at Vertex in the early 1990's. She then discusses joining SV Health and describes its investment approaches, the Dementia Discovery Fund, being on the UK's Vaccine Taskforce during Covid, and more.
Episode 38: Deerfield Management's Jason Fuller
He discusses his education and joining the Langer Lab at MIT, early experiences in venture, including at Third Rock and NEA, and gaining operational experience at Jounce before joining Deerfield. Plus, areas that interest him today and how he thinks about AI.
Episode 37: SR One's Simeon George
Simeon George discusses his early days at SR One while it was part of GSK, and the transition to making the firm independent in 2020. Plus, the importance of peer-to-peer collaboration, and his how he thinks about investing in different indications and modalities.
Episode 36: Sofinnova Invetments' Jim Healy
He discusses learnings from his decades in venture at Sofinnova Investments including 'products vs platform', therapeutics areas of interest, modalities, and how he utilizes board seats and thinks about management teams.
Episode 35: INITIATE Ventures' Jessica Owens
Jessica Owens discusses the many experiences she has had in her career, including working on the venture side at Kleiner Perkins and Versant Ventures and on the operating side at Genomic Health and Grail. She highlights the value of VCs being able to understand how operators like CEOs think, and describes the type of investing INITIATE focuses on.
Episode 34: General Atlantic's Brett Zbar
Brett Zbar describes his early career, including working at Aisling Capital and Foresight Capital, and now managing the healthcare strategy at General Atlantic. He describes how he sees the difference between private equity and venture capital, and discusses which themes in biotech and healthcare appeal to him today.
Episode 33: Pappas Capital's Art Pappas
Art Pappas describes his early career, which involved numerous overseas posts for large companies, and how it let him to eventually found Pappas Capital. He discusses the various ways the firm invests, and how having corporates partners as LPs and co-investors has been a recipe for success.
Episode 32: ARCH Venture Partners' Bob Nelsen
While describing his early life in Washington and formative years at the University of Chicago that led to the founding of ARCH, he shares his thoughts on leadership, risk taking, changes he thinks are need to keep the United States competitive in life sciences, and his belief in AI's promise to transform our industry.
Episode 31: Polaris Partners' Amy Schulman
She describes her career beginnings as a lawyer, which led to general counsel and business unit head roles at Pfizer, and then joining the VC world at Polaris Partners (at Bob Langer's urging). She discusses the firm's investment philosophy, the nuances behind how companies choose lead assets, and the cycles biotech has been through over the last ten years. Plus, other roles she currently
Episode 29: Averin Managing Partner David Berry
He describes his early life and education, 18 years of company building at Flagship Pioneering, founding Averin (previously called Bedford Bridge) with his brother, and investing at the intersection of healthcare and technology.
Episode 28: Hatteras Venture Partners' Clay Thorp
Clay Thorp describes his early education and becoming a business partner to his brother on a genomics startup. He describes the genesis of Hatteras, the history and strengths of the life sciences ecosystem in the North Carolina area, and his philosophy of backing founders.
Episode 27: Avalon Bioventures' Jay Lichter
Jay Lichter describes his roots growing up in Chicago, Yale, and an early career role at DuPont Merck before getting a call from Kevin Kinsella to try the world of venture at Avalon. Since that pivotal move, he describes numerous companies he either operated or funded, leading to his work today at Avalon Bioventures.
Episode 26: venBio's Corey Goodman
Corey Goodman shares learnings for his career in biotech, including working in academia, biotech, pharma, and as a venture capital investor. He describes the unique learnings from all of them and why he is thankful that he has experienced these different components of life sciences.
Episode 25: Atlas Venture's Bruce Booth
Bruce Booth discusses his education and early career, the structure of Atlas and the types of investments it makes, investing in assets vs platforms, and more.
Episode 24: Samsara Biocapital's Srini Akkaraju
The Founder & Managing Partner of Samsara Biocapital, Dr. Akkaraju describes his early move from Standford to industry and various investment firms he worked for before founding Samsara in 2016. He discusses how the firm invests in all stages of life sciences companies and why he believes patience is a key virtue.
Episode 23: a16z's Vineeta Agarwala
Still a practicing physician today, Vineeta Agarwala describes her educational background and early career, including experiences at the Broad Institute, Flatiron Health, and GV (Google Ventures). She talks about a16z's investment philosophy of "providing more than just a check," and a recent $500M fund partnered with Lilly.
Episode 22: Adjuvant Capital's Glenn Rockman
Glenn Rockman describes the introduction to impact investing he gained from working for J.P. Morgan and along with the Gates Foundation on the Global Health Investment Fund, and how the idea of investing for public good ultimately sparked Adjuvant Capital in 2019. Armed with a $300M+ fund that was raised from numerous foundations and for-profit funds in 2021, Adjuvant has been investing in public
Episode 21: Scion Life Sciences' Aaron Kantoff
Aaron Kantoff describes the road on the public markets side that eventually led him to venture, and recalls successful investments he helped lead at firms like Apple Tree Partners and Medicxi, such as Stoke Therapeutics, Akero Therapeutics, Centessa Pharmaceuticals, and RayzeBio. He discusses founding Scion with his partner, Samuel Hall, and describes raising their first fund and how the firm has
Episode 20: Breakout Ventures' Lindy Fishburne
Lindy Fishburne describes her educational background and career, and transitioning from the philanthropic Breakout Labs within the Thiel Foundation to Breakout Ventures, a traditional venture firm that has a diverse set of limited partners. Plus, how she is navigating these challenging times in healthcare and biotech.
Episode 19: Longwood Fund's Christoph Westphal
Dr. Westphal describes his upbringing and early career at McKinsey and Polaris, founding or co-founding companies like Momenta, Alnylam, Sirtris, Acceleron, and VeraStem, and creating the Longwood Fund. He shares his thoughts on venture investing, the current environment in biotech, focusing on creating new medicines, and his love of the Boston ecosystem.
Episode 18: Playground Global's Jory Bell
Jory Bell shares the details of his expansive educational background and early career, which included being a product designer at Apple during the return of Steve Jobs. He describes Playground's engineering and tech angle to investing in life sciences, and weighs in on sizable seed and pre-seed investments the industry has seen lately that get startups to a proof of concept.
Episode 17: Norwest Venture Partners' Tiba Aynechi
Tiba Aynechi describes her career path, which has been spent entirely in the Bay Area since she earned her PhD from UCSF in the early 2000's. She describes the value of BD experience she earned while working on licensing deals early in her career, her more than a decade at Novo Ventures, and what appealed to her to join Norwest. Plus, her thoughts on a board of directors' relationship with
Episode 16: RA Capital's Josh Resnick
Josh Resnick describes his career path, which includes working on the venture side of both private funds and pharma (Merck). He explains the different investment strategies of RA Capital, and talks about how the firm's Raven company building incubator fits in. Plus, his thoughts on venture investing in the current environment.
Episode 15: Mission BioCapital's Steve Tregay
Steve Tregay describes his career path, including how early roles at Array BioPharma and Novartis led him to found Forma Therapeutics. He describes the founding and growth of LabCentral, for which he is still the chairman today, and how getting a look at entrepreneurs at such an early stage naturally led to the investment work that he and his partners do at Mission BioCapital.
Episode 14: Aditum Bio's Joe Jimenez
Joe Jimenez describes the career path in consumer products that led him to pharma, his time running Novartis, and the idea to co-found Aditum Bio with his partner Mark Fishman. He explains Aditum's investment philosophy, and why they like focusing on translational medicine opportunities that are just heading into the clinic. Plus, his thoughts on making R&D more efficient.
Episode 13: Civilization Ventures' Shahram Seyedin-Noor
Shahram describes his upbringing as a refugee from Iran, his early career in law and banking, and how his initial experience in the tech industry has benefitted his eye towards life sciences. He recalls founding Civilization Ventures with an initial $1M fund, and talks about what it has quickly grown into today, Plus, his take on AI and the current state of tech bio.
Episode 12: Flagship Pioneering's Avak Kahvejian
A General Partner at Flagship Pioneering, Avak describes his upbringing and studies in the Middle East and Montreal, Canada, working in industry at Helicos, and co-founding companies at Flagship since 2011. He discusses Flagship's unique platform of company building and innovation.
Episode 11: Pillar VC's Tony Kulesa
A Partner at Pillar VC, Tony describes his start at MIT, founding the MIT BioMakerspace, his work at Petri, being an early supporter of Nucleate, and his philosophy of not being overly influenced by what is in vogue today.
Episode 10: Curie.Bio's Alexis Borisy
The Co-Founder and Operating Chairman of Curie.Bio, and serial entrepreneur, shares experiences from his early life, CombinatoRx, Foundation Medicine, Third Rock, EQRx and more.
Episode 9: Alloy Therapeutics & 82VS's Errik Anderson
He describes his career path and learnings from the tech industry, co-founding Adimab, the work that Alloy and 82VS do to support and invest in scientist-entrepreneurs, and why he believes smaller organizations are best suited for discovery work and other early stage innovation.
Episode 8: Canaan Partners' Julie Grant
A general partner the firm, she describes her career path, including time spent at Goldman Sachs and Genentech, before landing at Canaan over a decade ago. She discusses the firm's investment approach to healthcare, and boldly moving into new categories of medicine even in cases where an organization doesn't have existing commercial infrastructure.
Episode 7: MPM BioImpact's Ansbert Gadicke
MPM's founder and managing partner discusses the firm's 30+ years of investing in life sciences, including the philosophy of placing entrepreneur partners at companies from the start, and teaming up with research institutions and investment collaborators. Plus, the keys making it through a down cycle like the industry has been in over recent years.
Episode 6: Omega Funds' Otello Stampacchia
He describes his career path, including time in the lab and doing quant work at Goldman Sachs. Plus, what he has learned about VC investing and biotech over time, and how Omega Funds is able to successfully invest in various stages and rounds of companies.
Episode 5: KdT Ventures' Founder and Managing Partner Cain McClary
He describes this path to venture investing from his start in science at the NIH to becoming a pathologist, and eventually raising a modest first fund and building off of its success. Plus, his investment philosophy and investing in science - including outside of therapeutics.
Episode 4: Enavate Sciences’ Sara Nayeem
Sara Nayeem describes her career path and how different firms she has worked for have had different approaches to investing. She introduces us to Enavate Sciences, and shares her thoughts on investing in various areas such as rare diseases and digital health.
Episode 3: Time BioVentures' D.A. Wallach
D.A. Wallach describes how he went from music to healthcare/biotech investing, and the similarities he sees between the two industries. Plus, the firm's investment philosophy and how he partnered with Tim Wright to create the firm.
Episode 2: Westlake BioPartners’ Beth Seidenberg
Beth Seidenberg tells the story of how her career went from physician, to product development in industry, to investor. She describes the qualities she looks for in an entrepreneur, and discusses the Los Angeles core of Westlake BioPartners.
Episode 1: Venrock's Bryan Roberts
Bryan Roberts discusses Venrock's history, moving from NYC to the Bay Area, his investment philosophy, portfolio construction and concentration, the types of entrepreneurs he looks for, what qualities make for a good early stage investor, thoughts on AI, Tech Bio, and more.
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