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2023 Keynote Speaker and Panelists
Founder
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
John Maraganore served as the founding CEO and a Director of Alnylam from 2002 to 2021, where he built and led the company from early platform research on RNA interference through global approval and commercialization of the first four RNAi therapeutic medicines, ONPATTRO®, GIVLAARI®, OXLUMO®, and Leqvio®. The fifth RNAi therapeutic, AMVUTTRA®, was approved in mid-2022. At Alnylam, he also led the company’s value creation strategy, building over $25B in market capitalization and forming over 20 major pharmaceutical alliances. He continues to serve on the Alnylam Scientific Advisory Board.
Prior to Alnylam, he was at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he was responsible for the company’s product franchises in oncology, and cardiovascular, inflammatory and metabolic diseases, in addition to leadership of M&A, strategy, and biotherapeutics functions. Before Millennium, he held scientific and business roles at Biogen, Inc. where he invented and led the discovery and development of ANGIOMAX® (bivalirudin) for injection. Previously, he was a scientist at ZymoGenetics, Inc. and the Upjohn Company.
John Maraganore is currently a Venture Partner at ARCH Venture Partners, a Venture Advisor at Atlas Ventures, an Executive Partner at RTW Investments, a Senior Advisor for Blackstone Life Sciences, and an Advisor for M28. He is also member of the Board of Directors of publicly traded companies, including Agios Pharmaceuticals, Beam Therapeutics, Kymera Therapeutics, ProKidney Corp., and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He is also on the Board of a number of private companies – including Aerium Therapeutics, Aera Therapeutics (Chair), Aitia (Chair), Hemab Therapeutics (Chair), Orbital Therapeutics (Executive Chair), and Versanis Bio. As the principal of JMM Innovation, LLC, John serves as a strategic advisor to a number of innovative biotechnology companies, including mentorship of CEOs in their mission to advance science and innovation for patients.
John Maraganore is on the Board of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, or “BIO,” where he was Chair from 2017-2019 and is Chair Emeritus. In addition, he serves on the Board of the Termeer Foundation – committed to continuing the legacy of the late Henri A. Termeer, as Chair of the n-Lorem Foundation Advisory Council – committed to meeting the needs of patients with nano-rare diseases, on the Advisory Board of Ariadne Labs – advancing global health system innovations, and as an advisor to Nucleate – a student-led organization facilitating the formation of pioneering life sciences companies.
John Maraganore received his B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago.
Partner, Head of Corporate Development
Omega Funds
Michelle Doig is a Partner and Head of Corporate Development at Omega Funds, a leading US-based life sciences venture capital firm with ~$2 billion in AUM. Michelle has been heavily involved with Portfolio companies Replimune, Morphic, Nuvation and Artios and was President and a Board Director of the Omega Alpha SPAC. She currently serves on the boards of Artios Therapeutics and Arrakis.
Before joining Omega Funds in 2016, Michelle was Director of Corporate Finance at Third Rock Ventures (TRV) where she helped numerous portfolio companies, including Global Blood Therapeutics, MyoKardia, Afferent, Editas, Jounce and Blueprint with their financing/strategies. Prior to TRV, Michelle was a Principal at Abingworth in London and Boston. Michelle began her career as a Life Sciences Investment Banker with Morgan Stanely (Toronto/NYC), JP Morgan H&Q (NYC/San Francisco) and then Lehman Brothers (London).
Managing Director
Abingworth / Carlyle
Emily Janvey leads Clinical Co-Development deals with pharma and biotechs to advance late-stage clinical trials. Emily joined Abingworth from Iconiq Capital where she served as Health Care Portfolio Manager across asset classes.
Prior to Iconiq, Emily was a Director at KKR where she led the Health Care Royalty and Income platform and was a member of the America’s Health Care Private Equity team serving on multiple corporate boards. Prior to joining KKR, Emily was a Vice President at Sixth Street Partners where she focused on royalty and credit financing to public and private life sciences companies. Emily started her career as a consultant in the health care practices at McKinsey and Company.
Emily earned her MD and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA in neuroscience from Hamilton College.
Co-Founder, Managing Director
Vida Ventures
Stefan Vitorovic is Co-Founder and Managing Director at Vida Ventures, a life sciences company formation and investing firm.
Prior to co-founding Vida Ventures, Stefan was an investment professional at Third Rock Ventures, an early-stage life sciences venture capital firm. At Third Rock, he was responsible for new company formation and strategic finance. There he was part of the founding team of Decibel Therapeutics.
Before Third Rock, Stefan was an investor at TPG Capital, where he focused on majority, control stakes in scale healthcare companies. At TPG, Stefan worked on a variety of equity and debt financings. Prior to TPG, he was an investment banker at Credit Suisse’s healthcare investment banking group.
Stefan received his B.S. with Honors in Biological Sciences at Stanford University. He completed his M.S. in Biology at Stanford, where he conducted biomedical research at Stanford Medical School.
Stefan later received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Stefan currently serves on the Board of Directors for Tectonic Therapeutic, Vigil Neuroscience (“VIGL”), Volastra Therapeutics, and Souffle Therapeutics. He was previously a Board Director or Observer at Praxis Precision Medicines (“PRAX”), Kyverna Therapeutics, Oyster Point Therapeutics (“OYST”), Dyne Therapeutics (“DYN”), Sutro Biopharma (“STRO”), Aptalis Pharma, and Biomet.
Managing Member, Head of Data Science
Logos Capital Management
Edward Zhong serves as Managing Member and heads Logos Capital Management’s Data Science effort. Prior to co-founding Logos, Edward was the founding data scientist at Farallon Capital Management, where he helped lead the development of clinical trial models, analysis of large datasets, and antitrust models for M&A situations.
Edward holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University and a PhD in Economics from the University of Madison-Wisconsin.
Partner
MVM Partners
Kyle joined MVM Partners in 2017, a commercial stage investment fund that invests broadly across the life sciences and healthcare sectors, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, digital health, health IT, life science tools, contract research, contract manufacturing, among other areas.
Kyle is a board director of HLS Therapeutics Inc. (TSX: HLS), Optinose, Inc. (NASDAQ:OPTN), and GT Medical Technologies, Inc.; he is also an observer on the board of MDxHealth SA (NASDAQ: MDXH). He was previously a board observer of Biotheranostics, Inc. (acquired by Hologic).
Prior to joining MVM, he was a consultant at Bain & Company, working mainly in the healthcare practice to support medical device and healthcare provider clients. Kyle completed MD studies at Harvard Medical School and MBA studies at Harvard Business School. He also holds an AB in biochemistry from Bowdoin College.
Chief Executive Officer, General Partner
Quark Venture
Karimah Es Sabar is a highly-recognized life sciences leader with global experience and a successful career spanning multi-national pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies, startups, incubator/accelerator organizations, and venture investment firms. She has provided leadership in strategic marketing, business development, global alliances and M&A, public private partnerships, innovation ecosystems and translation, entrepreneurship, and venture capital investment in bioscience companies.
Ms. Es Sabar is founding CEO & General Partner at Quark Venture LP, a global venture capital firm, and Director of the Global Health Sciences [GHS] Fund focused on bioscience investment in therapeutics, vaccines, medical devices, digital health, AI and convergent disruptive technology companies.
Prior to joining Quark Venture, Ms. Es Sabar was CEO & President of the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD]; CEO & President of LifeSciences BC; and she has held several senior management positions in the biopharmaceutical industry, most notably at Sanofi Pasteur where she led marketing and business development, and was later head of the international division. She also co-founded and enabled several startup companies.
Ms. Es Sabar has received multiple awards and recognitions for her leadership and pioneering work, including Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award, and the Women of Distinction Award for Industry, Science and Technology. She holds an Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership from the MIT Sloan School of Management; a MSc degree in Neurochemistry from the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, England; and a BSc Joint Honours degree in Biochemistry/Chemistry from the University of Salford in Manchester, England.
Ms. Es Sabar has served on numerous boards including as Chair of the Providence Healthcare Research Institute, the National Research Council Canada, as well as several health technology companies. Currently she is Board Chair of TRIUMF Innovations and Glyconet, and serves as Board Director of V Wave, ARTMS, Capricor Therapeutics, Canary Medical and St. Paul’s Foundation. As a thought leader on innovation ecosystems, she frequently speaks on innovation economic policy. Ms. Es Sabar is Chair of the Health/Biosciences, Economic Strategy Table (Government of Canada), Member of the Industry Strategy Council (Government of Canada) and Chair of the Strategic Review Committee (Government of Canada).
Managing Director
ONCAP Management Partners
Aly joined ONCAP in 2012. Previously, he worked at Callisto Capital in Toronto, which is now known as Clearspring Capital.
Aly is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Aly holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Waterloo and MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Aly focuses on ONCAP's origination, due diligence, portfolio company development efforts in the consumer healthcare sector of emphasis and lead ONCAP’s investment in Ideal Dental
Principal, Healthcare & Life Sciences
Sixth Street
Michael Reslinski is a Principal on the Healthcare and Life Sciences team at Sixth Street. Michael focuses on investments across three themes: biopharma (therapeutics & diagnostics), pharma services (CROs, CDMOs and life science tools) and healthcare data. Prior to joining Sixth Street, Michael was a Director at DRI Capital, a life sciences royalty monetization firm. Prior to that, Michael advised pharma and biotech clients as a consultant at ZS Associates. Michael holds a BSc in Genetics from the University of Toronto, MA in Biotechnology from Columbia University and MBA from Harvard Business School. Sixth Street is a global investment firm with $65 billion in assets under management and committed capital. Sixth Street uses its long-term, flexible capital, data-enabled capabilities, and One Team culture to develop themes and offers solutions to companies across all stages of growth. The firm’s Healthcare and Life Sciences team provides strategic capital and forms long-term partnerships with companies creating new technologies to address pressing healthcare challenges and improve patient care. Select Sixth Street investments include Arsenal Biosciences, Biohaven, Blueprint Medicines, Caris Life Sciences, ConcertAI, Datavant, DrFirst, Mammoth Biosciences, MDLIVE, and Visiquate.
