Advertise on podcast: BioVenture VoiCes with Chris Garabedian

Art Pappas describes his early career, which involved numerous overseas posts for large companies, and how it let him to eventually found Pappas Capital. He discusses the various ways the firm invests, and how having corporates partners as LPs and co-investors has been a recipe for success.

While describing his early life in Washington and formative years at the University of Chicago that led to the founding of ARCH, he shares his thoughts on leadership, risk taking, changes he thinks are need to keep the United States competitive in life sciences, and his belief in AI's promise to transform our industry.

She describes her career beginnings as a lawyer, which led to general counsel and business unit head roles at Pfizer, and then joining the VC world at Polaris Partners (at Bob Langer's urging). She discusses the firm's investment philosophy, the nuances behind how companies choose lead assets, and the cycles biotech has been through over the last ten years. Plus, other roles she currently serves, including being the chair of Alnylam.

He describes his early life and education, 18 years of company building at Flagship Pioneering, founding Averin (previously called Bedford Bridge) with his brother, and investing at the intersection of healthcare and technology.

Clay Thorp describes his early education and becoming a business partner to his brother on a genomics startup. He describes the genesis of Hatteras, the history and strengths of the life sciences ecosystem in the North Carolina area, and his philosophy of backing founders.

Jay Lichter describes his roots growing up in Chicago, Yale, and an early career role at DuPont Merck before getting a call from Kevin Kinsella to try the world of venture at Avalon. Since that pivotal move, he describes numerous companies he either operated or funded, leading to his work today at Avalon Bioventures.

Corey Goodman shares learnings for his career in biotech, including working in academia, biotech, pharma, and as a venture capital investor. He describes the unique learnings from all of them and why he is thankful that he has experienced these different components of life sciences.

Bruce Booth discusses his education and early career, the structure of Atlas and the types of investments it makes, investing in assets vs platforms, and more.

The Founder & Managing Partner of Samsara Biocapital, Dr. Akkaraju describes his early move from Standford to industry and various investment firms he worked for before founding Samsara in 2016. He discusses how the firm invests in all stages of life sciences companies and why he believes patience is a key virtue.

Still a practicing physician today, Vineeta Agarwala describes her educational background and early career, including experiences at the Broad Institute, Flatiron Health, and GV (Google Ventures). She talks about a16z's investment philosophy of "providing more than just a check," and a recent $500M fund partnered with Lilly.

Glenn Rockman describes the introduction to impact investing he gained from working for J.P. Morgan and along with the Gates Foundation on the Global Health Investment Fund, and how the idea of investing for public good ultimately sparked Adjuvant Capital in 2019. Armed with a $300M+ fund that was raised from numerous foundations and for-profit funds in 2021, Adjuvant has been investing in public health technologies, post proof of concept, to help accelerate their development and ultimately make them more accessible to those around the world who need them.

Aaron Kantoff describes the road on the public markets side that eventually led him to venture, and recalls successful investments he helped lead at firms like Apple Tree Partners and Medicxi, such as Stoke Therapeutics, Akero Therapeutics, Centessa Pharmaceuticals, and RayzeBio. He discusses founding Scion with his partner, Samuel Hall, and describes raising their first fund and how the firm has a longer outlook than is traditionally thought of in venture.

Lindy Fishburne describes her educational background and career, and transitioning from the philanthropic Breakout Labs within the Thiel Foundation to Breakout Ventures, a traditional venture firm that has a diverse set of limited partners. Plus, how she is navigating these challenging times in healthcare and biotech.

Dr. Westphal describes his upbringing and early career at McKinsey and Polaris, founding or co-founding companies like Momenta, Alnylam, Sirtris, Acceleron, and VeraStem, and creating the Longwood Fund. He shares his thoughts on venture investing, the current environment in biotech, focusing on creating new medicines, and his love of the Boston ecosystem.

Jory Bell shares the details of his expansive educational background and early career, which included being a product designer at Apple during the return of Steve Jobs. He describes Playground's engineering and tech angle to investing in life sciences, and weighs in on sizable seed and pre-seed investments the industry has seen lately that get startups to a proof of concept.