Speakers
PAUL LAVIOLETTE
Managing Partner, SV Health Investors
Former COO, Boston Scientific
Former President VC, Boston Scientific
Former President, International, Boston Scientific
Paul joined SV in 2009 as a Venture Partner and in 2011 was made a Partner. Paul was promoted to Managing Partner & COO in 2014 and heads our medical device investments.
Prior to SV, Paul built and ran medical device businesses for 29 years before joining SV Health Investors. Most recently he was Chief Operating Officer at Boston Scientific (BSC), an $8 billion medical device leader. During his 15 years at BSC, Paul served as Chief Operating Officer; Group President, Cardiovascular; President, Cardiology; Group President, Endosurgery; and President, International.
During his tenure, the company grew revenue over 20 times. Paul integrated two dozen acquisitions and led extensive product development, manufacturing and worldwide commercial organizations. Previously, Paul held marketing and general management positions at CR Bard and various marketing roles at Kendall (Medtronic).
Outside of SV, Paul serves as Chairman of the Medical Device Manufacturing Association and as Vice Chairman of the Innovation Advisory Board for the Partners Health System. Paul also served on the board of Advamed for 10 years and is a routine speaker at industry meetings.
Academic Credentials
BA, Psychology, Fairfield University; MBA, Boston College
TAMIR MEIRI
Director, Venture Investments, Johnson & Johnson
With over a decade of experience in venture capital investment, Tamir is responsible for identifying and leading medical device, consumer and health technology investments in line with Johnson & Johnson sector strategies. This includes deal sourcing, due diligence, negotiation, structuring, decision making, execution, and post-investment portfolio management.
Covering West North America, Australia & New Zealand, Tamir is an engaged, hands-on investor who likes to be detail-oriented and involved in his companies. He aims to help young entrepreneurs maximize their potential by providing meaningful advice and empowerment through close relationships and personal commitment to the people and companies in JJDC's portfolio.
Prior to joining JJDC, Tamir worked at GKH Law Offices – one of the largest law firms in Israel, supporting the firm's managing partners for over six years in many aspects of the various deal processes, including marketing and business development.
Tamir has a B.Sc in Chemistry from Tel-Aviv University and an extensive background in biomedical engineering and entrepreneurship, as well as an MBA with a major in Finance, from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
ANNE DEGHEEST
Founder and Managing Director, HealthTech Capital
Anne DeGheest pioneered the HealthTech or Digital Health space as a healthcare executive, an entrepreneur, angel investor, corporate advisor and mentor capitalist. She is the founder of HealthTech Capital and MedStars.
Since she founded MedStars in 1986, she has been a corporate development advisor to large healthcare companies and a mentor capitalist specializing in investing and mentoring early stage companies in healthcare. Her life science portfolio companies have grown into major disruptive companies that have generated over $12 billion in market value. Anne founded in 2010 HealthTech Capital, a group of private investors dedicated to funding and mentoring new “HealthTech” startups to decrease healthcare cost and empower patients.
MBA from Harvard and a Master in Business Engineering from University of Brussels.
DR. MICHAEL SYNDER
Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Genetics at Stanford
1977 B.A, Chemistry and Biology, University of Rochester, NY 1978-1982 Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, CA Advisor: Dr. Norman Davidson 1982-1986 Postdoctoral Research Stanford University School of Medicine, CA Advisor: Dr. Ronald Davis 1986-2009 Faculty Dept of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 2009-present Dept of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA
Snyder Lab was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism, and has developed many technologies in genomics and proteomics. These including the development of proteome chips, high resolution tiling arrays for the entire human genome, methods for global mapping of transcription factor binding sites (ChIP-chip now replaced by ChIP-seq), paired end sequencing for mapping of structural variation in eukaryotes, de novo genome sequencing of genomes using high throughput technologies and RNA-Seq. These technologies have been used for characterizing genomes, proteomes and regulatory networks.
Seminal findings from the Snyder laboratory include the discovery that much more of the human genome is transcribed and contains regulatory information than was previously appreciated, and a high diversity of transcription factor binding occurs both between and within species.
He has also combined different state-of-the-art "omics" technologies to perform the first longitudinal detailed integrative personal omics profile (iPOP) of person and used this to assess disease risk and monitor disease states for personalized medicine. Dr. Snyder is the cofounder of Personalis, SensOmics, Qbio @qbioinc, January AI, Filtricine, Mirvie, Protos, Protometrix (now part of Thermo-Fisher). Affomix (now part of Illumina). Dr. Snyder presently serves on the board of a number of companies.Dr Snyder is the author of the book: 'Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know'.
PRIYA ABANI
Chief Executive Officer, AliveCor
Priya Abani is the Chief Executive Officer of AliveCor, a health tech company that is advancing patient-centric remote cardiological care using deep machine learning and AI. Under Priya’s leadership, the company has built the world’s largest AI-driven consumer subscription service for cardiovascular care. To date, AliveCor has put its Kardia technology in the hands of more than 2.9million people in 42 countries around the world. Priya has also led the company’s recent growth into enterprise markets with reimbursed cardiac monitoring services for healthcare providers, and is overseeing the development of a comprehensive condition management service offering for cardiology. Prior to joining AliveCor, Priya served as the General Manager at Alexa Voice Service (AVS) at Amazon.
MICHELE COLUCCI
Co-founder/Managing Partner, DigitalDx Ventures
Michele Colucci, Co-founder/Managing Partner, is a lawyer, investor, serial entrepreneur, and philanthropist. She has authored five patents in the technology space and founded companies in the legal, technology, retail, and entertainment spaces. Michele’s extensive experience operating in highly regulated verticals has focused on issues from management to legal (employment, corporate, International, litigation, torts, negotiations, business strategy, and marketing). Her most recent company focused on the application of big data and artificial intelligence in legal technology. She has worked at law firms including Hughes Hubbard & Reed, run her own media production company, owned and operated a chain of retail stores in the political space, run a political fundraising venue, and founded a legal technology company.
Currently, Michele serves on public and private Boards of Directors at Global Indemnity Group, Nephrosant, Optina Diagnostics, Prime Genomics, and Trayt. She is also an Advisor to eHealth Analytics (a digital health startup) and Quantellia (a platform powering decision-based analytics through artificial intelligence). She is a Huffington Postblogger on female entrepreneurship and an award-winning expert on E-Local. She has served as a regular guest lecturer and mentor at Stanford University’s School of Engineering focused on Global Marketing and Entrepreneurship and has lectured at USC’s Gould School of Law.
In 2017 Michele was named by the Nobel Laureate Foundation as a West Coast Ambassador for her ongoing work in concert the Nobel Laureate Foundation to expand their global footprint and aid young scientists— selected from around the world to attend their summer program—to connect, learn, and interact with Nobel Laureates in their field of study. She has served on nonprofit boards including NOFAS (National Organization for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome), Hope After Divorce, and City Hearts.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal honored Michele as a ‘Silicon Valley Woman of Influence.’ She was featured in a cover article of the American Bar Journal as a ‘Leading Woman in Legal Technology’ and named a ‘Person to Watch’ by Silicon Valley’s Gentry Magazine. Michele’s accomplishments have been featured in a variety of media including NBC, Inc. Magazine, Redbook, and the San Jose Mercury News.
Michele earned her Bachelor’s degrees in English and Philosophy and J.D. from Georgetown University. She earned a Master’s in Fine Arts from the American Film Institute. She speaks three languages, and lives in Silicon Valley with her four children.
BRIAN BUTLER
Partner, Questa Capital
Brian is a Partner at Questa Capital where he focuses on sourcing and executing new investment opportunities and monitoring portfolio companies. Prior to joining Questa, Brian was an analyst and associate at Great Point Partners, a healthcare private equity firm, where he spent three years focusing on growth-oriented transactions in the medical device and life science industries. Brian was previously a consultant at Insight Strategy Advisors where he completed a variety of engagements with pharmaceutical and life science companies. Brian graduated from Harvard University with an AB, magna cum laude, in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology and received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
KEVIN CHU
Principal, F-Prime Capital
Kevin Chu is a Principal on the healthcare team at F-Prime Capital. Prior to F-Prime Capital, Kevin was an Associate Consultant with IMS Consulting Group in New York, where he advised biopharmaceutical clients on development and commercial strategy across multiple therapeutic areas.
Kevin is currently based in the San Francisco office, and works across the healthcare sub-sectors including Therapeutics, MedTech, and Healthcare IT and Services, and also works closely with Eight Roads Ventures China healthcare team to manage F-Prime’s existing and new investment efforts in China.
STEVEN FERGUSON
Deputy Director, Licensing and Entrepreneurship, National Institutes of Health
Steven M. Ferguson currently serves as the Deputy Director, Licensing and Entrepreneurship. Prior to joining NIH Office of Technology Transfer in 1990, Mr. Ferguson served in marketing and management positions in biomedical firms subsequent to being a scientist at the National Cancer Institute. His healthcare experience has also included work as Director of Marketing and Public Relations for a rural 70-bed hospital. Registered to practice before the USPTO and a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP), Mr. Ferguson also holds Master's Degrees in Business Administration (George Washington University) and Chemistry (University of Cincinnati) as well as Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry (Case Western Reserve University). Mr. Ferguson has been an economic reviewer for Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) as well as the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) grant programs and is an instructor for both the USDA Graduate School and the NIH FAES Graduate School where he is also the department chair for the new Certificate in Technology Transfer Program. Mr. Ferguson was also the Susan T. and Charles E. Harris Visiting Lecturer at the Watson School of Biological Sciences at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and has published articles on licensing and technology transfer issues.
DR. CHRIS APFEL
Chair, Life Science Committee, Keirtsu Forum
CEO, SageMedic
Christian Apfel is internationally recognized for changing medical practice by bringing innovation to millions of patients by designing and executing on highest quality clinical research. One of his most notable innovations, the “Apfel Score,” is now used in clinical practice globally. Chris has turned his attention to precision medicine and is the founder and CEO of SageMedic Corporation. SageMedic redefines precision medicine with its SAGE Direct Platform™ to help millions of cancer patients to identify the most effective treatment by overcoming limitations inherent to genome-driven targeted therapy. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and is an Adjunct Professor at UCSF. He is an investor with Life Science Angels and the chair of the life science committee at the Keiretsu Forum. Chris is a California licensed physician and received his MD/PhD from Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany, and his an MBA from Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, PA.