Center for Social Innovation

Medical innovation continues to flourish, however entrepreneurs are faced with many challenges, including tougher regulatory demands which make it more difficult to get products to market. This panel discussion includes representatives from various investment firms who give a clearer picture of the funding landscape, advising early stage innovators with creative ways to navigate these complexities. From the 2011 Global Health Series organized by the Stanford Global Health Center in partnership with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stefanos Zenios, the Charles A. Holloway Professor and director of the Stanford GSB's Program in Healthcare Innovation leads this panel which convenes Anne DeGheest of MedStars Venture Partners, Thomas McKinley of Cardinal Partners, Guido Neels of Essex Woodlands, Bryan Roberts of Venrock, and Beth Seidenberg of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Stefanos Zenios is the Charles A. Holloway Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. His research is concerned with how health care delivery systems use technology to prolong life and improve its quality for patients with complex and expensive medical needs. He is especially interested in the impact the decisions of providers and payers have on the innovators. Some of the issues he examines include: medical technology adoption through shared decision making between physicians and patients, financial incentives for the adoption and initiation of complex treatments, differences in the utilization of medical technology and outcomes between for-profit and nonprofit health care providers, evidence-based decision making and its effect on equitable utilization of medical technology, the value of life implied by existing medical practice and its implications, and early-stage business models in medical technology. 

Anne DeGheest is managing partner at MedStars Ventures Partners. Since 1986, she is a mentor capitalist specializing in investing and mentoring early-stage start-ups in healthcare. The life science companies for which she has been a founder or an early advisor have generated over $6 billion in market capitalization and have raised over $500 million in venture capital.  She provided angel capital, hands-on operating expertise and/or business strategy in the founding of major companies like Pyxis (CareFusion), Aspect Medical (acquired by Covidien), VISX (acquired by AMO), Thermage (merged into Solta Medical), VISICU (acquired by Philips),Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI). She also helped grow new entrepreneurial division of large corporations like Johnson & Johnson, Baxter, Medtronic and McKesson. She was also part of the founding executive team of Nellcor (a division of Covidien), MedPool and OmniCell (Nasdaq: OMCL).

Thomas G. McKinley is the West Coast Representative for Cardinal Partners.  McKinley has over 30 years of investment experience with a track record of helping entrepreneurs create significant and successful enterprises. His investments include Ascend Communications (ASND acquired by Lucent Technologies), Automated Healthcare (acquired by McKesson), Medicode (acquired by United Healthcare) and VISICU (EICU acquired by Philips). 

He has served on the boards of U.C. Berkeley's Entrepreneurs Forum and the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC). He is an active member of the Health Management Academy (HMA), a founding member of Healthcare IT Advisory Group to State of California, and an active supporter of the University of San Francisco's Entrepreneurship Program. As an alumnus, he maintains close ties with Stanford Graduate School of Business, as well as Harvard University, where he serves as class secretary and started the I3 Harvard College Innovation Challenge (undergraduate business plan competition). He received an undergraduate degree in Economics from Harvard University, an MS in Accounting from New York University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Guido Neels has over 35 years of experience developing international healthcare businesses.  He joined Essex Woodlands as a Partner in August 2006 and was promoted to Managing Director in 2008.  In addition to the portfolio company boards on which he serves, Neels also serves on the Board of Directors for Arsenal Medical and EndGenitor Technologies.  He holds Board positions at ROX Medical, Inc., Nellix Endovascular, Inc. and Oraya Therapeutics, Inc. as well as Arsenal Medical and EndGenitor Technologies. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a Business Engineering degree from the University of Leuven in Belgium.

Bryan Roberts joined Venrock as a Kauffman Fellow in 1997. Previously, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Harvard University and, prior to his doctoral program, held corporate finance positions at Kidder, Peabody and Co.  He was named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute in 2006, he was named to healthspottr’s 2009 Future Health 100 list and has been the highest-ranking healthcare investor on Forbes' Midas List since 2008.

Beth Seidenberg is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers focused on life science investing. She works with entrepreneurs to develop companies with breakthrough technology to treat patients and improve health. Since joining KPCB in 2005, Beth has incubated five companies and was the founding CEO of two.

Prior to joining KPCB, Seidenberg was Senior Vice President of Development and Chief Medical Officer of Amgen, Inc. She was a senior executive in research and development at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Merck & Co., Inc. Under her leadership, 10 innovative products were developed and marketed globally and achieved over 40 regulatory approvals. 

She received a BS from Barnard College; MD from University of Miami and did her post-graduate training at Johns Hopkins, George Washington University and National Institutes of Health.

Resources

• 2011 GSB Healthcare Summit
• MedStars Venture Partners
• Cardinal Partners
• Essex Woodlands
• Venrock
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Medical Innovation and Competitiveness Coalition (MedIc)
• Innovating for More Affordable Health Care,  sponsored supplement to Stanford Social Innovation Review 
• The Cultural Touch, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article
• The Private Sector's Role in Improving Global Health, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article
• Containing a Global Health Care Crisis, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article (subscription required)
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Health Partnerships, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article (subscription required)
• A Handbook for Change, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article
• Best of Breed, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article