Board of Directors
Lisa Dunlea, Venture Partner, Signal Peak Ventures
Lisa Dunlea has over 17 years of operating and investment experience in the medical device industry. She is a venture partner at Signal Peak Ventures where she focuses on leveraging her expertise to benefit the existing portfolio companies, as well as conducting due diligence and deal sourcing for potential new investments in the life science space. Lisa is currently involved with several of Signal Peak's life science companies: VeraLight, Numira Biosciences, nanoMR, Mirabilis Medica, LineaGen, Coherex Medical, and Athena Feminine Technologies. She was previously with Oxford Bioscience Partners in Boston and has extensive operating experience. She has experience launching and marketing new products on a worldwide basis, leading R&D efforts, conducting clinical trials for PMA, and establishing quality assurance systems. She has held management positions at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation and World Medical, acquired by Medtronic, and positions of increasing responsibility at Cordis Endovascular Systems, acquired by Johnson & Johnson, and General Electric Medical Systems.
Prior to the medical device industry Lisa was an Aerospace Engineer at Pratt & Whitney. Lisa was a Kauffman Fellow, has an M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Florida International University and an M.B.A from The Wharton School of Business.
Joseph Riley, Managing Member, Psilos
Joseph Riley joined Psilos in 1998 as its chief financial officer, and now serves as a managing member and chief administrative officer for the firm. He has primary responsibility for financial reporting, cash and capital management, and facilities and infrastructure oversight, while also taking an active role in the sourcing, evaluation and monitoring of investment opportunities for the Psilos funds. Mr. Riley currently serves on the Board of Directors of Best Doctors, Comprehensive Clinical Development, Care Management Technologies, Caregiver Services and SmartPill. Prior to Psilos, Mr. Riley spent six years at Price Waterhouse LLP, most recently as a manager in the Corporate Finance Group. In that role, he planned and performed due diligence reviews, analyzed financial models and operating projections and assisted clients with structuring complex transactions and contracts. Mr. Riley has extensive experience in advising mergers and acquisitions in the healthcare, manufacturing and food services industries. Previously, he spent three years as a senior accountant in the Price Waterhouse Audit and Business Advisory Services Group, where he provided attestation and general business consulting services to a large variety of public and private multinational corporations. Mr. Riley holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Accounting from Georgetown University, where he graduated magna cum laude. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.
M. Ries Robinson, MD, COO VeraLight, Inc.
Dr. Robinson, initiated research into noninvasive blood chemistry monitoring in collaboration with University of New Mexico School of Medicine and Sandia Laboratories in 1988. He has co-authored in excess of 30 US patents and has authored several peer-reviewed technical articles, received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the NM Inventor of the Year Program in 1992, and was named the New Mexico Inventor of the Year in 1994. He has an M.D. from the University New Mexico School of Medicine and a M.S. and a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford. Dr. Robinson completed a post-doctoral research fellowship with a joint research appointment at Sandia and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Dr. Robinson, currently the COO of VeraLight, continues to serve as Chairman of the Board for InLight Solutions, Inc. and as a director for VeraLight and Lumidigm-all spinout companies of InLight Solutions.
Lisa Suennen, Managing Member, Psilos and Chairman of the Board, VeraLight, Inc.
Lisa Suennen, who joined Psilos at its inception in 1998, heads Psilos' West Coast office and focuses primarily on investments in the medical device and healthcare services sectors. She serves as a board member and/or advisor to several of Psilos' portfolio companies, including Angioscore, InSound Medical, Estech, Navitas, Health Hero Network, Definity Health (exited) and VeraLight.
Prior to Psilos, Lisa held various senior executive roles during her nine years at Merit Behavioral Care, including Senior Vice President/General Manager of the Public Sector Division, Senior Vice President of Pacific Region Operations and Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. During her tenure at Merit, Lisa actively participated in the acquisition and integration of regional managed care companies and the company's initial public offering. Lisa left Merit after its sale to Magellan Health Services in March of 1998.
Prior to joining Merit, Lisa served as Worldwide Product Manager for INGRES/Relational Technology, Inc., a relational database company, where she had responsibility for development, marketing and distribution of the company's UNIX PC software product. Prior to INGRES, Lisa served as Director of U.S. Market Development and as Manager, U.S. Government and Industry Relations for X/Open, an international computer industry standards setting and lobbying consortium. Earlier, Lisa spent several years at Regis McKenna, Inc., an international high technology marketing and public relations firm, responsible for government relations and public relations strategy for client companies in the software and healthcare areas. Lisa holds an M.A. in political science, a B.A in political science and a B.A. in mass communications, all from the University of California, Berkeley.
Karen Talmadge, Ph.D., Vice Chair of the National Board of Directors of the American Diabetes Association
Dr. Karen Talmadge has 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry. She co-founded Kyphon Inc., a minimally invasive spine company acquired by Medtronic in 2007. Until then, she served as a member of its board of directors from inception, as Chief Science Officer from 2003, and as Executive Vice President from 1998. During its start-up phase from 1994-1998, she served as Kyphon's President, Chief Executive Officer and Treasurer. Prior to Kyphon, Dr. Talmadge held a variety of research and business positions at the biotechnology company Scios Inc., including Vice President, Research and Development for Meta Bio, its diabetes and obesity subsidiary. From 2004-2007, she served on the board of the American Diabetes Association, and currently serves on the American Diabetes Association's Research Foundation Board. Dr. Talmadge is also on the boards of Amplyx Pharmaceuticals, Cartilix, Inc., Gynesonics, Inc., the Spine Masters Institute of the North American Spine Society, and Life Science Angels. She received the 2004 Patient Quality of Life Award from the International Myeloma Foundation, and the 2006 Innovator of the Year, Special Contributor in Healthcare Award from the Professional Women's Healthcare Alliance. She was profiled in the "From the Innovator's Workbench" series by Stanford University. She is a co-inventor on 20 issued U.S. patents, and has published numerous scientific articles. She is an invited lecturer at business, scientific and medical conferences, and a mentor for young entrepreneurs. Dr. Talmadge conducted post-doctoral research at Harvard University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She holds an A.B. cum laude in Biology from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Harvard University
David VanAvermaete, Co-founder and CEO, VeraLight, Inc.
David Van Avermaete has 30 years of experience in medical devices including 22 years in the diabetes field with specific expertise in home blood glucose monitoring and diagnostics. He is a former US president of the LifeScan division of Johnson & Johnson. During his 13 year tenure at LifeScan, David grew annual sales from under $100 million to over $1.0 billion and improved LifeScan's market position from a distant third to number one. Prior to LifeScan, David was the Director of Marketing for home blood glucose monitoring products at Roche Diagnostics. In addition, David developed marketing and sales strategy for Biotope, a venture capital start-up focused on medical diagnostics. At Syntex Medical Diagnostics, he led the marketing and sales effort for a start-up division focused on physician office diagnostics. David has a B.S. in chemistry from Ball State University, an M.S. in medical technology from the University of Arizona and an M.B.A. from the University of Arizona.
Albert S. Waxman, Ph.D, Senior Managing Member, Psilos
Dr. Albert Waxman co-founded Psilos Group after a lengthy career as a healthcare entrepreneur. Today he serves as Senior Managing Member and CEO of the fund. Dr. Waxman is chairman and/or a director of several Psilos companies including: Click4Care, HealthEdge, SeeChange Health and Mauna Kea. He is also on the Board of Cenegenics (a non-Psilos investment).
Prior to founding Psilos, Dr. Waxman spent nine years as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Merit Behavioral Care and its predecessor companies, American Biodyne and Medco Behavioral Care. During this period, he brought American Biodyne public, led its sale to Medco Containment, organized a management buyout of it from Merck with KKR, and grew the company's revenues to over $800 million. Prior to American Biodyne, Dr. Waxman founded and served as President, Chairman and CEO of Diasonics, Inc., one of the first medical companies to provide ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging in the U.S. Dr. Waxman holds several U.S. and foreign patents for display, imaging and diagnostic technologies and products. He has also been instrumental in the start-up and success of several other healthcare companies throughout his career in both the health services and medical device sectors.
Dr. Waxman holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the City College of New York and Master and Doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Princeton University.
James Woodburn, MD, MS, CEO, Woodburn Health Consulting, LLC
Dr. Jim 'Woody' Woodburn has served in executive leadership roles in many areas including CEO of Woodburn Health Consulting since 2006. This company provides leadership support to clients involved in accelerating consumer directed healthcare, clinical outcomes measurement and improvement and new medical products and services development and launch. Dr. Woodburn served as Chief Medical Officer for MinuteClinic, Inc. for 2 years taking the company to widespread national expansion leading to the sale of the company to CVS Caremark. He was the corporate medical director for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (BCBSMN), served on two Boards of innovative subsidiaries of BCBSMN, provided marketing support and sales acquisitions to Fortune 500 firms headquartered in MN, and led the technology assessment committee for many years. Dr. Woodburn was also one of the founders and Chairman of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's National Medical Management Forum which formed the largest US group of health plan medical management leaders. He is residency trained and was the first Fellow in emergency medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center from 1984-1988. Dr. Woodburn received his M.D., M.S. (Biomedical Engineering) and B.S. (Electrical and Computer Engineering) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.