Advisory Board
Conference Chairman
- Don Gerhardt
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- President & CEO
LifeScience AlleyTM - Prior to joining LifeScience Alley, Don was involved in the health care industry serving in top-level positions including: CEO of MedCenters Health Plan, administrator of Michigan State University medical facilities, Kaiser Permanente, a consultant for health care start-up companies and business coalitions, an officer for a high tech health care data company, and with several international health care businesses. He currently sits on the board for two medical technology companies. He is a frequent speaker and contributing writer to health care related articles and books. His education includes Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, a Masters degree in Health Administration from the University of Colorado, and postgraduate study in finance and statistics from Ohio State University. He is a faculty member at the University of St. Thomas, and sits on the Advisory Boards of the University of Minnesota's Biomedical Engineering Institute, the College of Pharmacy, the Institute of Technology, and the School of Nursing. Don also serves on the board of directors of Biomedical Commercialization Canada, Inc., the Bakken Museum, and the Greater Minneapolis Convention and Visitors Association.
Advisory Board Members
- Josh Baltzell
-
- Director
Split Rock Partners - Josh Baltzell is a Managing Director at Split Rock Partners and has been with the firm since its inception in June 2004. Split Rock Partners is a venture firm focused on early stage investments in health care and software. From 2002 to 2004, Mr. Baltzell was with St. Paul Venture Capital. Prior to joining St. Paul Venture Capital, Mr. Baltzell was an investment banker at Piper Jaffray, where he focused primarily on mergers and acquisitions in the medical device sector. Mr. Baltzell also held various marketing and business development positions with SCIMED/Boston Scientific. Mr. Baltzell holds a B.A. in Economics from St. Olaf College and an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
- Chad Cornell
-
- Director, Corporate Development
Medtronic, Inc. - Chad Cornell is Director of Corporate Development for Medtronic, Inc.
Chad has responsibility for supporting Medtronic’s CardioVascular business unit (vascular therapies and cardiac surgery therapies), as well as other strategic initiatives within Medtronic. Chad works in partnership with executive and business unit management in evaluating and executing mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, joint ventures, minority investments, technology licenses, divestitures and other strategic transactions. Chad also assists in Medtronic’s strategic planning process.
Prior to joining Corporate Development, Chad was Legal Counsel – M&A, responsible for advising Corporate Development on strategic transactions across Medtronic. Chad began his career with Medtronic in 2003. Prior to joining Medtronic, Chad spent approximately five years as an associate attorney at Sidley & Austin in Chicago, Illinois working on mergers and acquisitions and securities offerings.
Chad received his undergraduate degree in Accounting from Marquette University and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. Chad has also successfully completed Certified Public Accountant and Chartered Financial Analyst examinations.
- John A. Deedrick
-
- Managing Director
AMV Partners - John A. Deedrick, 46, is a Co-founder and Managing Director for Accuitive
Medical Ventures, an early stage medical device venture capital fund. As of
January 2008, Accuitive has over $230 million in capital under management
in its two medical device venture capital funds. Accuitive has a proprietary
relationship with The Innovation Factory (TIF), a medical device incubator
located in Duluth, GA. John serves as a Director for Accuitive’s investments
in MyoScience and Softscope. Prior to joining Accuitive Medical Ventures,
John was a Venture Manager for Mayo Medical Ventures. During his time at Mayo,
John managed investments in several emerging medical companies including
Exact Sciences (NASDAQ), Circe Biomedical (acquired), Ascension Orthopedics,
Image-Guided Neurologics (acquired by MDT), TomoTherapy (NASDAQ) and Volcano
Therapeutics (NASDAQ). In addition, he was instrumental in the start-up of
four Mayo-founded companies: Santarus (NASDAQ), Copharos, TeraMedica and
Torax Medical. He is also co-founder, Chairman and President of GreatDeeds,
a Minnesota non-profit organization. Prior to joining Mayo, John spent
12 years in numerous operating roles within Honeywell and Alliant Techsystems.
John holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Northwestern College and an M.B.A. from St. Thomas University.
- Mark E. DuVal
-
- President
DuVal & Associates, P.A. - Mark E. DuVal, JD is President of DuVal & Associates, where he counsels both
mature and venture-backed pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotech companies
in the United States and Europe in addition to working extensively with combination
products. DuVal regularly advises clients in all areas of FDA law and regulation,
from product development, clinical trials, inspections and recalls to reimbursement
and compliance issues and post-marketing responsibilities. He specializes in counseling
medical device and pharmaceutical companies in the development and implementation
of strategic and tactical sales and marketing plans that are appropriately aggressive,
yet compliant.
- William (Bill) Harrington
-
- Partner
Three Arch Partners -
Following medical school, Bill did his postgraduate training in internal
medicine and diagnostic and interventional radiology at University of California,
San Francisco. Before joining Three Arch, he practiced as an interventional
radiologist for nine years, and maintains a clinical faculty appointment at
University of California, San Francisco. He has broad experience with a
wide variety of medical devices, minimally invasive surgical procedures,
and related clinical trials. He was a founder of Bay Medical Management.
Bill received his BS in Biology and Chemistry from Tufts University where he graduated summa cum laude. He obtained his MD from Harvard Medical School. He completed his MBA at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Bill is a CFA charter holder.
Bill sits on the boards of Opus Medical, Reliant Technologies, Satiety, BioNeuronics, VetCentric and Metrika, among others.
- Curt LaBelle, M.D.
-
- Vice President
Investor Growth Capital, Inc. -
Curt has been involved in healthcare venture capital since 2000. He joined
Investor Growth Capital in 2005 and focuses on investments in medical device and
pharmaceutical companies. Curt was with Tullis-Dickerson prior to joining IGC.
He has also spent time in industry with Pfizer's pharmaceuticals business.
Curt holds a B.A. in Economics from Brigham Young University as well as M.D. and M.B.A.
degrees from Columbia University. He completed his internal medicine internship
at Columbia's St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital.
- Shelly Wall Lanning
-
- Managing Director
HealthCor Partners - Bio Coming Soon
- Thomas A. Letscher
-
- Partner and Co-Chair Medical Technology Group
Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly LLP - Tom Letscher practices in the areas of securities and corporate law and is
a member of Oppenheimer’s policy committee. His practice emphasizes advising
medical technology and other emerging businesses with respect to: equity and
debt financing (including private placements, venture capital financing,
public offerings); mergers and acquisitions; corporate matters (including
corporate governance, general corporate activities, duties and liabilities
of officers and directors and advising boards of directors); strategic
investments (including equity investments, options to acquire, distribution
arrangements and licensing arrangements); acquisition and protection of
intellectual property (including technology transfers, development agreements,
licensing agreements and protection of trade secrets); securities matters
(including preparation of Form 10-Ks, proxy statements and annual reports,
compliance with SEC, NYSE and NASDAQ rules and disclosure issues.
Tom received his J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law - University of California, Berkeley. He also holds a B.S. in engineering from the University of Wisconsin.
- Jay McNeil
-
- Senior Relationship Manager
SVB Silicon Valley Bank - Jay McNeil is the senior relationship manager for the Minnesota office of
SVB Silicon Valley Bank. He led the establishment of the office in August
of 1999 and is responsible for maintaining relationships within the Minnesota
market. Additionally, McNeil is responsible for managing all new life sciences
opportunities in the Midwest. Prior to SVB Silicon Valley Bank, McNeil spent
ten years with the technology division of Deutsche Financial Services where
he was a business development manager, credit manager and portfolio manager.
- Zubeen Shroff
-
- Managing Director
Galen Associates - Mr. Shroff is a Managing Director of Galen Partners, a leading healthcare private equity firm founded in 1990. Prior to joining Galen in 1997, Mr. Shroff was a Principal at The Wilkerson Group, with a client base including pharmaceutical, diagnostic, device and biotech companies, plus a select number of venture capital firms. He played a major role in developing several of The Wilkerson Group’s practice areas, including outcomes research, strategy formulation, and disease management initiatives. Mr. Shroff was formerly at Schering-Plough France, where he directed the marketing, sales and Phase IV clinical development of the company’s high-growth biotech business.
Mr. Shroff currently serves on the board of directors of several Galen portfolio companies including Aperio Technologies, National Rehabilitation Equipment, ONI Medical Systems, Pet DRx, and Tactile Systems. He is an Executive Committee member of Boston University’s Medical School Advisory Board and a member of the Westchester Medical Center Foundation Board.
Mr. Shroff earned a M.B.A. from the Wharton School and a B.A. biological science from Boston University.
- Jonathan Silverstein
-
- General Partner
OrbiMed Advisors LLC -
Mr. Silverstein is a General Partner of OrbiMed, as asset management firm solely
focused in healthcare with more than $6 billion in assets under management.
Mr. Silverstein joined OrbiMed in 1998 to focus on private equity and structured
transactions in small capitalization public biotechnology and medical device
companies. Mr. Silverstein was previously a Director of Life Sciences
in the Investment Banking Department at Sumitomo Bank. Mr. Silverstein
has a J.D. and an M.B.A. from the University of San Diego, and a B.A. in Economics
from Denison University. Currently, Mr. Silverstein is a Director of Cerapedics,
SuperDimension, Enobia, Gelesis and Insulet Corporation (PODD). He has been
a former director or observer in more than a dozen other companies including:
LifeCell (LIFC), Given Imaging (GIVN), Cerexa (sold to Forest Labs),
Peninsula Pharmaceuticals (sold to JNJ), Predix (sold to EPIX), Avanir (AVNR),
Orthovita (VITA), Auxillium (AUXL), Bioenvision (sold to Genzyme), Adiana (sold to Cytyc),
Adolor (ADLR) and Emphasys Medical.
- Michael Stroup
-
-
Director, Healthcare Investment Banking – Medical Technology Group
RBC Capital Markets - Michael Stroup is a Director in the Healthcare Investment Banking - Medical
Technology group at RBC Capital Markets. Mr. Stroup has over 14 years of
healthcare experience. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Stroup worked for
the Corporate Finance divisions of JPMorgan H&Q and Prudential Securities,
and provided strategic consulting to hospital systems, physician networks
and health plans with Mercer’s Healthcare Provider Consulting Practice.
Mr. Stroup received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan
and a MBA with a focus in Health Care Management and Finance from the
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Kevin Wasserstein
-
- Managing Director
Versant Ventures - Kevin Wasserstein is a Managing Director at Versant Ventures, a leading healthcare-focused venture capital firm targeting early-stage investments across healthcare. Kevin brings more than fifteen years of venture capital and operating experience in medical device and high technology companies, and specializes in investing and building medical device companies from their earliest seed or concept stages through their entire life cycle. Prior to joining Versant in 2002, Kevin served in a variety of marketing and business development roles at Guidant Corporation, including acting as the Director of Marketing in Guidant's Cardiac Surgery Group, and serving in Guidant's Compass Business Development Group, where he was involved in acquisition, licensing and investment activities with both private and public medical device companies, and in formulating corporate strategies to develop innovative medical technologies. Kevin currently serves, or has served, in a variety of board or advisory roles with companies which include: Acclarent, Cellutions, LipoSonix, NDO Surgical, NeoGuide Systems, Rox Medical, Second Sight Medical, St. Francis Medical (sold) and The Innovation Factory.
Kevin holds both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering, as well as an MBA, all from Stanford University.
- Ralph Weinberger
-
- Partner, Technology Industry Group
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP - With over 24 years of service to life sciences and technology companies in the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota, Ralph has worked with clients ranging in size from large global companies to high-growth small and mid-cap companies focused on developing into a global force. In addition to coordinating delivery of high quality accounting and auditing services to his clients, Ralph has worked alongside his clients in addressing their needs for international expansion, mergers and acquisitions and accessing the public and private debt and equity markets. Ralph is also the Treasurer of the Minnesota High Tech Association.
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