Speakers
Garheng Kong, M.D., Ph.D.
General Partner, Sofinnova Ventures
Garheng joined Sofinnova Ventures in 2010 as a General Partner to focus on life science investments. He has served as chairman and director on the boards of numerous companies, and operated as interim CEO for two venture-backed companies. For the 10 years prior, he was a General Partner at Intersouth Partners. During this time he served as the founding investor of Cellective Therapeutics (acquired by AstraZeneca), Chairman of Serenex (acquired by Pfizer), Chairman of Novamin Technologies (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), and lead investor of the first financing for Alimera Sciences (Nasdaq: ALIM). He has also led or been significantly involved in the investments of Cempra Pharmaceuticals (Chairman), Viamet Pharmaceuticals (Chairman), Proteon Therapeutics, Applied Genetic Technology Corporation, TransEnterix, Calibra Medical, CancerGuide Diagnostics, Aldagen and nContact Surgical. Garheng most recently led Sofinnova's investment in SARcode Biosciences.
Garheng serves or has served on the boards of directors of the SEBIO organization, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), the Hamner Institutes for Life Sciences, the North Carolina Medical Device Organization, the University of Florida Biotechnology Council, the University of Virginia Ivy Foundation, the Pennsylvania Life Sciences Greenhouse, the Southeast Universities Research Association, and the Investor Advisory Board for the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research.
He has also served on the Duke Medical Center Institutional Review Board (IRB) and as faculty at the Duke Fuqua School of Business as a Senior Scholar. Prior to his career in private equity, Garheng spent time at GlaxoWellcome (clinical development and marketing), McKinsey & Company (associate), and TherOx (business development), a private life science company. He has also been involved in commercializing early-stage technology with the Duke University Office of Science and Technology.
Garheng received his M.D. (Medical Scientist Training Program), Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, and M.B.A. from Duke University, graduating at the top of his medical and business school classes. He also holds B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biological Sciences from Stanford University.
John Craighead, Ph.D.
Managing Director, Investor Relations & Business Development, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)
John Craighead, Ph.D., is the Managing Director of Investor Relations and Business Development with the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). Dr. Craighead is responsible for BIO’s business development programs as well as business and policy outreach to the investment community.
Prior to joining BIO, Dr. Craighead was a Biotechnology Analyst at Lehman Brothers and the Novartis BioVenture Fund. In his research coverage of the biotechnology industry at Lehman Brothers he published over 300 reports evaluating products in therapeutic categories including oncology, immunology and infectious disease.
Dr. Craighead is a National Science Foundation Fellowship recipient and received his Ph.D. in cell biology from the Kellogg School of Science and Technology at The Scripps Research Institute. He has authored numerous scientific papers in the field of eukaryotic transcription regulation, holds a B.A. in chemistry and molecular biology from St. Olaf College, and was awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship as an undergraduate.
Chris Hite
Managing Director, Global Head of Healthcare, Citi Group
Chris is the Global Head of Health Care Investment banking at Citigroup. He manages 145 bankers in 19 countries that provide M&A advice and help with the capital formation needs of healthcare companies globally. During 2009 and 2010, the Citi Healthcare group has helped clients raise over $101 billion in capital through the debt and equity markets and has advised on over $127 billion in mergers and acquisitions.
Prior to joining Citi, Chris was the Global Head of Health Care at Lehman Brothers.
Chris has worked on hundreds of transactions involving mergers and acquisitions and financings with companies across the various sub-sectors of Healthcare.
Representative transactions include: HCA’s IPO, Pfizer's acquisition of Wyeth, HCP’s acquisition of ManorCare, Astellas’ acquisition of OSI, Elan’s US strategic collaboration and equity investment from Johnson&Johnson, MGI Pharma’s sale to Eisai, Warner Chilcott’s acquisition of P&G Pharma, MedImmune’s acquisition of Aviron, Genzyme acquisitions of Bone Care, BioChem Pharma’s sale to Shire, Serono Convertible Bond offering and Celgene’s acquisition of Anthrogenesis.
Chris received his B.S. from Lehigh University and his JD/MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.
Ken Araki
Senior Director, Head of Corporate Project Management
Corporate Strategic Planning
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited
Ken Araki has a responsibility to initiate and manage global corporate-wide strategic projects to support Takeda’s Senior Management team including President & CEO at the company. His team is also heavily involved in building up company’s strategic direction based on input from internal and external while cooperating with other colleagues in charge of corporate controller function at Corporate Strategic Planning. And also, he has currently another role to head Corporate Development team at Global Business Development group. Under his this role, he recently successfully executed the acquisition of Nycomed and involves in integrate into Takeda’s organization.
Prior to Ken’s current role which was assigned in October 2009, he has been responsible for a Head of M&A. During his tenure, he successfully executed the acquisition of Millennium Pharmaceuticals and its integration into Takeda organization. Prior to joining Takeda in May 2006, he belongs to Investment Banking team with Nomura Securities, a largest firm in Japan. During his tenure, he acted a financial advisor to help to create Daiichi-Sankyo, one of the largest Japanese pharmaceutical companies. He had experienced to analyze pharmaceutical and biotech industry globally over ten years at Nomura as a sell-side analyst. Especially he played a central role on Global Pharmaceutical Equity Research at New York between 1996 and 2004. During his tenure at Nomura, he handled a lot of writing and lectures to the industry. He also held a series of position including an equity analyst to follow electronics industry ith Nomura Research Institute, a subsidiary of Nomura Securities, from 1989 to 1996.
Ken had a Bachelor of Law degree from Kyushu University in 1989. He is married with two young daughters. His most important hobby is to spend with his family in weekend and holiday.
Jennifer Jarrett
Managing Director, Citigroup Health Care Investment Banking
Jennifer is a Managing Director in Citi’s Health Care Investment Banking and runs Citi’s west coast health care effort. Jennifer joined Citi in 2010. Prior to Citi, Jennifer was the Head of U.S. Biotech at Credit Suisse where she spent 12 years.
Selected transactions include: Corthera’s sale to Novartis, Portola’s licensing agreement with Novartis, NovaCardia’s sale to Merck, Cerexa’s sale to Forest, Peninsula’s sale to Johnson&Johnson, Invitrogen’s acquisition of Life Technologies, Chiron’s sale to Novartis, Trius’ IPO and Anacor’s IPO.
Jennifer received her B.A. from Dartmouth College and MBA from Stanford University.
Makiko Yukawa
Managing Director, Citigroup Health Care Investment Banking
Makiko is a Managing Director in Citigroup Global Markets Japan. She leads the firm's healthcare investment banking efforts in Japan. She has over 13 years of experience in investment banking, in more than half of which she has covered healthcare clients. She has been involved in various strategic cross-boarder M&A transactions as well as large-size equity financing transactions throughout her career in various industry sectors. Recent transactions in healthcare sector include Astellas’ acquisition of OSI, Astellas’ divestiture of DPP4 royalty asset to Roaylty Pharma, Roche’s acquisition of additional shares in Chugai.
Prior to joining Citi in 2005, Makiko worked with Lehman Brothers for 3 years (M&A Group and Healthcare Group) and with Goldman Sachs for 3.5 years (Advisory Group).
Makiko received her Master of Laws from New York University School of Law and Bachelor of Laws from Kyoto University.
David Collier, M.D.
Managing Director of CMEA Capital and Chief Executive Officer of Velocity Pharmaceutical Development, a CMEA portfolio company
Dr. Collier joined CMEA Capital in 2001 to focus on investments in biotechnology companies developing drugs through clinical trials across many different therapeutic areas. Examples include Ardelyx (minimally-absorbed drugs acting on the GI tract), Bayhill Therapeutics (autoimmune disorders), Arcion Therapeutics (neuropathic pain), Altus Pharmaceuticals (malabsorption in cystic fibrosis) and Sorbent Therapeutics (hyperkalemia and chronic renal failure). Dr. Collier currently serves as Chairman of the Board of two CMEA drug development portfolio companies and as a board member of four others. Before joining CMEA, David was a Managing Director at Burrill & Co., a private merchant bank focused exclusively on life science companies, where he played a leading role in the management of the company’s life science venture capital funds. Earlier in his career, David was Assistant Vice President at First Options of Chicago where he directed a group of traders and managed a large portfolio of futures and options.
In his role as CEO of Velocity Pharmaceutical Development (VPD), Dr. Collier is pioneering a new business model for the development of promising drug candidates. VPD acquires the rights to individual therapeutic drug candidates from biotechnology companies, academia, and pharmaceutical companies, and invests in their development through clinical proof-of-concept (generally phase 2). Following proof-of-concept, VPD seeks to sell each drug asset to a major pharmaceutical company. VPD is structured as a holding company, owning a portfolio of virtual companies, each of which develops a single drug candidate, all managed by a single expert team. This development team is made up of several highly experienced former Chief Medical Officers from the biotechnology industry.
Dr. Collier holds an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School, and a B.A. in Physics from Wesleyan University.
