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.
PETER GOMBRICH
Co-Founder, St. Jude Medical
Peter Gombrich is a serial entrepreneur having successfully founded three medical device companies. Under his leadership, he raised over $200 million and took several companies public. Prior to founding OncoGenesis, he founded Diamics, a women’s healthcare company focused on cervical cancer screening. From 1992 to 2006, Peter founded and led AccuMed/Molecular Diagnostics, a cytopathic laboratory products company, which he took public. From 1985 to 1992, he founded and was CEO of CliniCom, a provider of bedside clinical information, which was sold to McKesson. Prior to CliniCom, Peter founded and was CEO and Chairman of Integrated Microcircuits, an outgrowth of St. Jude Medical. From 1976 to 1982, he co-founded St. Jude Medical, the largest heart valve company in the world. Prior to St. Jude, he held various sales and marketing positions in several medical device companies including Medtronic and Beckman Instruments. Peter holds a BSc degree in electrical engineering from the University of Denver, and an MBA from the University of Denver.
PAUL YEH
Principal, Bellwether Analytics
Partner, VentureDNA
Former Senior Director of Business Development, Abbott
Paul’s passion for helping organizations find order from chaos led him to consulting. He particularly enjoys working on complex, large investment decisions with high uncertainty. Quality, innovation and integrity are the hallmarks of Paul’s work and are well-recognized by his clients.
Paul retired from Abbott after 20 years of working in all divisions from pharmaceuticals to medical devices to nutritional products. During his time at Abbott, he worked in finance, health outcomes and as an internal consultant in corporate development. His 35 year career has covered a variety of industries including real estate syndication, high-tech manufacturing, food distribution and plastic injection molding.
In his personal life, Paul enjoys golf, new cultures and whiskey. His real passion is in volunteerism – working with kids, current and former inmates and the hungry (of course, not all at the same time).
Paul holds an MBA in Finance and a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois. He also has various certifications including CMA, CFM as well as Health Economics and Outcomes Research from Stockholm University and Strategic Decision and Risk Management from Stanford University.
NIGAM SHAN
Chief Data Scientist, Stanford Medicine
Dr. Nigam Shah is Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, and Chief Data Scientist for Stanford Health Care. His research group analyzes multiple types of health data (EHR, Claims, Wearables, Weblogs, and Patient blogs), to answer clinical questions, generate insights, and build predictive models for the learning health system. At Stanford Healthcare, he leads artificial intelligence and data science efforts for advancing the scientific understanding of disease, improving the practice of clinical medicine and orchestrating the delivery of health care.
Dr. Shah is an inventor on eight patents and patent applications, has authored over 200 scientific publications and has co-founded three companies. Dr. Shah was elected into the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) in 2015 and was inducted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2016. He holds an MBBS from Baroda Medical College, India, a PhD from Penn State University and completed postdoctoral training at Stanford University.
MIKE REGAN
Chief Innovation Officer, Fogarty Institute for Innovation
Mike Regan feels a strong sense of duty given his experience in medtech. He believes there is a need to let the upcoming generation of entrepreneurs know just want an honor it is when a product they’ve worked on potentially helps improve people’s lives. “Unlike any other business, the profit motive is subservient when people rely on you to make their family member better. People count on us every day to do our job and make the right decisions to provide safe and reliable solutions.”
For all the seriousness with which he takes his business responsibilities, Mike is one of the sunniest and most likeable people you will meet. Both Fogarty Innovation entrepreneurs and his colleagues seek his counsel, which is often delivered with self-effacing humor. “As cliché as it sounds, it IS all about the people, and the medtech industry attracts the ones who are passionate, ethical and determined.” Mike is observant and loves learning people’s stories, “gaining magical insight” about them. He thrives when surrounded by those who share his core values yet are willing to challenge his point of view, creating a healthy tension that leads to better outcomes.
After a first job with American Medical Optics (now Johnson & Johnson) that had him moving quickly up the management track, he decided to give it all up and became a “ski bum,” for 18 months. “That was a foundational experience because I discovered that I could be just as happy as an engineer or a short order cook. It was up to me to look for things that made me happy as a human being.”
After that, Mike put his mind to a 35+ year career which spanned several leadership roles, not to mention clinical foci. Before moving to the medtech field, Mike worked with Coopers & Lybrand consulting, Clorox, and Walt Disney Engineering. Immediately prior to joining Fogarty Innovation, he served as chief operating officer at Minerva Surgical, a medical technology company focused on women’s healthcare. Before that, he was vice president of operations at Emphasys Medical (now Pulmonx), a developer of therapeutic solutions for emphysema patients. He was also chief operating officer of Cardeon Inc., working on innovative approaches for coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. His first major medtech company was Guidant Corporation, which absorbed the start-up company where he was working, Advanced Cardiovascular Systems. Mike had roles as varied as Pilot Plant Manager, Director of International Sales and Division General Manager of the Peripheral Systems Group. Guidant has a special place in his heart be use it was there he met his wife, Theresa, whose outgoing personality he attributes with helping to draw him out of his own shyness. It also gave him his first opportunity to work and live outside the US, which he has done and enjoyed in many subsequent roles.
Mike still gets a catch in his voice when relating his proudest professional achievement. In a pediatric procedure where the patient was crashing and the doctor could not get a central line into the baby, someone in the ER suggested trying the Ultrasound needle product. He clearly recalls that faint little sound that guided the doctor to locate the baby’s vein and enabled him to revive the infant; even the most callous and experienced ER nurses had tears in their eyes. “If my whole career was just that one day and that one kid, we’d have done okay.”
At Fogarty, Mike loves to visit with each entrepreneur daily to see what he can do to help. He epitomizes our “full contact mentoring” approach, winning our innovators’ appreciation. Mike has been a great ambassador for Fogarty, representing us in the broader medtech ecosystem. He is one of the founders of the Diversity by Doing initiative with colleagues from Stanford School of Biodesign. Mike is also a frequent speaker and panelist in different industry forums.
When not working, Mike likes to keep moving — hitting the ski slopes, open water swimming in San Francisco Bay, hiking, playing tennis or learning Italian with his wife, who is a nurse at Stanford and with whom he shares the love of their two adult children. Mike holds a BS in industrial engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.
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.
MICHELE COLUCCI
Founder and Managing Partner, Digital Dx Ventures
Michele Colucci, Founder + Managing Partner, is a lawyer, investor, serial entrepreneur, and philanthropist. She has authored six 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 the Boards of Directors Nephrosant, Optina Diagnostics, Prime Genomics, and Delphi Diagnostics and previously the Global Indemnity Group. She is also an Advisor to eHealth Analytics (a digital health startup) and Quantellia (a platform powering decision-based analytics through artificial intelligence). She has blogged for the Huffington on female entrepreneurship and is an award-winning expert on E-Local. She served as a guest lecturer and mentor at Stanford University’s School of Engineering focused on Global Marketing and Entrepreneurship and has lectured at USF in marketing and at USC’s Gould School of Law.
WHITNEY MCKIERNAN
Principal, HealthQuest Capital
Witney McKiernan joined HealthQuest in 2022. She was an investor at KCK Group. Prior to becoming an investor, Witney spent 14 years in operational and consulting roles within the medtech industry and has developed market access strategies for over 40 medical technologies. Witney has expertise in commercial strategy, market access, reimbursement policy, and healthcare economics.
Earlier in her career, Witney worked as a med-surg oncology nurse at the University of California, San Francisco's Comprehensive Cancer Center. Witney is a Kauffman Fellow and a recipient of the Johnson & Johnson Promise of Nursing Award. She enjoys reading, cooking, and mountain biking in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their three sons.
Witney holds a BA in human biology from Stanford University and a RN and MS in health policy from the University of California, San Francisco.
LIZZIE LEE
Senior Associate, McKesson Ventures
Lizzie brings over a decade of healthcare industry experience to her work at McKesson Ventures. She’s an advocate for the power of what novel startups and industry veterans can achieve together. Before joining the McKesson Ventures team, Lizzie helped launch and manage McKesson’s multi-year strategic growth initiative to position the business through long-term market disruption.
Prior to this, Lizzie was a consultant at ZS Associates where she worked with top life science companies on go-to-market strategy, launch planning and market access. She also helped build the firm’s innovation team. Lizzie earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. Outside of work, you can find Lizzie enjoying the outdoors by boat, skis, or even on foot.
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.
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.