Our Judges

Michael Altman serves as the Head of Strategy for Perceptive's investment team and is a member of the investment committees for Perceptive's Credit Opportunities and Capital Solutions Funds. He is responsible for managing the firm's investments in medical devices, diagnostics and health technology.   Prior to Perceptive he was a healthcare trader and analyst at First New York Securities. Michael graduated from the University of Vermont with a B.S. in Business Administration.   Michael serves on the board of directors for Perceptive Capital Solutions Corp. and Talkiatry.   

Based at Takeda’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, R&D campus, Christopher Arendt is responsible for oversight of Takeda’s Research and Early Development portfolio across Takeda’s core therapeutic areas of Gastroenterology and Inflammation, Oncology, and Neuroscience. Since joining Takeda in 2015, Christopher has helped reshape Takeda’s pipeline with a strong network of top-tier global collaborators, emphasizing emerging science leveraging a breadth of mechanisms and modalities, including allogenic innate immune cell therapies, antibody-targeted small molecules and oligonucleotides, and cutting-edge biologics. Christopher is a Ph.D. Immunologist who carried out postdoctoral training with Dan Littman at New York University Medical Center. Prior to joining Takeda, Christopher spent more than 13 years at Sanofi, where he led global teams advancing novel immunotherapies for cancers and inflammatory diseases.

Karen is Co-Founder and Chairman of BioCentury Inc. and was Editor in Chief from October 1992 to August 2015.  She is also chairman of The Critical Path Institute, a non-profit that leads collaborations to accelerate drug development, and is a director at Mind What Matters, a non-profit serving caregivers for Alzheimer’s patients. She has served on multiple boards, including most recently at Ovid Therapeutics Inc., which is developing drugs for neurological diseases, and on the Board of Trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute.   Karen holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and a B.A. in Politics and History from Brandeis University, where she served for many years as a member of the Brandeis University Science Advisory Council. 

Joan Eliasek serves as President, North American Pharmaceutical Distribution. In her role, Joan leads the North American Pharmaceutical segment, which ensures the safe and reliable delivery of medicines and therapies across the U.S. and Canada, and partners with stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem to deliver insights, products, technology and services that help make quality care more accessible and affordable. Joan joined McKesson in 1995 and has held a variety of leadership roles across the company, including operations, sales, marketing and supplier management. Most recently, Joan served as President, McKesson Canada, leading McKesson's portfolio of businesses in Canada, including pharmaceutical distribution operations, Specialty Health and McKesson's network of independent pharmacies comprised of I.D.A., Guardian, Remedy'sRx, The Medicine Shoppe, Uniprix and Proxim. Prior to that, Joan served as Senior Vice President, Customer Experience, for McKesson’s Medical-Surgical business unit, leading operations, customer service, materials management, sales administration and data management. Earlier in her career, Joan held multiple management positions in field operations at Baxter Healthcare Corporation. Joan has served on several boards in the healthcare industry, including Healthcare Industry Distributors Association (HIDA), HIDA Educational Foundation and Global Healthcare Exchange. She is also a long-time advisor to the Professional Women in Healthcare (PWH) board. In 2018, Joan was the first recipient of the Anne Eiting Klamar Leadership Award of Distinction by PWH. Joan was also inducted into the Repertoire Medical Distribution Hall of Fame in 2023. Joan received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Business Administration from the University of Iowa.

Carl is a Managing Partner and leads OrbiMed’s private equity team. Carl joined OrbiMed’s predecessor firm in 1995 and was a founding General Partner of OrbiMed in 1998. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard (A.B., Chemistry & Physics, 1987), worked at the biotechnology company Imclone Systems (1987-1988), then attained a Ph.D. in Biology from MIT (1993), and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rockefeller University (1993-1995).    Carl has been fortunate to have been on the Forbes Midas list of top venture capital investors multiple times. He has founded and invested in numerous biotechnology companies and served on many public and private company boards.    When considering investments, Carl looks for innovative technology and creative management teams and believes the key to success is a combination of integrity, hard work, and passion.

Mr. Purcell is the original Founder of Aisling Capital LLC and currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Aisling. Previously, he served as the Senior Managing Partner. Prior to Aisling Capital, Mr. Purcell served as Managing Director of the Life Sciences Investment Banking Group at Chase H&Q (formerly Hambrecht & Quist, “H&Q”) for over five years.

Cami Samuels focuses on healthcare with an emphasis on biotech, medical devices, and consumer health. She currently serves on the board of Biolux, Corvidia, Iris, Unity (UBX), and XCaliber. Prior to Venrock, Cami was a Managing Director at Versant Ventures where she served on the board (or as a board observer) at many companies including Genomic Health (GHDX), Jazz (JAZZ), Kythera (KYTH), Novacardia (acq by Merck), and ParAllele (acq by Affymetrix). Before Versant, she was responsible for business development at Tularik (acq by Amgen). During her early career, Cami worked in corporate development at Genzyme and Millennium Predictive Medicine and was a management consultant at LEK Consulting. Cami earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar.