Our Judges

Michael Altman joined Perceptive in 2007 and is a managing director on the investment team. His focus is on medical devices, diagnostics, digital health and Specialty Pharmaceuticals. He is also a member of the investment committee for the credit opportunities fund. Additionally, Michael serves as the CFO and Director of ARYA Sciences Acquisition Corp II & III.

Based at Takeda's Cambridge, Massachusetts, R&D campus, Dr. Arendt is responsible for oversight of Takeda’s global Oncology Development portfolio. Since joining Takeda in 2015, Dr. Arendt has helped reshape Takeda’s Oncology pipeline with a strong network of global collaborators, emphasizing emerging science leveraging immunological modalities and mechanisms towards curative-intent cancer medicines.

Karen is Co-Founder and Chairman of BioCentury Inc. and was Editor in Chief from October 1992 to August 2015. She is a director at Ovid Therapeutics Inc., which is developing drugs for orphan diseases of the brain, and at Codiak Biosciences Inc., which is engineering exosomes to target new therapeutic spaces. Karen also serves on the board of trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute of the Applied Life Sciences and is a member of the board of advisors of KGI's School of Pharmacy. She serves on the Board of Overseers of Scripps Research.

Carl L. Gordon, Ph.D., CFA, is a founding Partner and Co-Head of Global Private Equity at OrbiMed.  He was a senior biotechnology analyst at Mehta and Isaly from 1995 to 1997. He was a Fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1993 to 1995. For the last five years (2014 to 2018) Forbes® Magazine named Mr. Gordon one of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world when it placed him on the "Forbes Midas List".

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.

As Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS (JLABS), Melinda Richter fosters the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies external R&D engine and supports the innovation community by creating capital-efficient commercialization models that give early stage companies a big company advantage.

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.