Henry Gosebruch is the Former Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer at AbbVie, responsible for corporate strategy, business development and acquisitions, search and evaluation, alliance management and AbbVie Ventures.

Since joining AbbVie in December 2015, Mr. Gosebruch and his team have completed more than 75 partnering, collaboration, mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and venture transactions to bolster AbbVie’s commercial franchises and pipeline of innovative preclinical and clinical development programs, working closely with AbbVie colleagues globally.

Prior to joining AbbVie, Mr. Gosebruch was Co-Head of J.P. Morgan’s North American M&A Group based in New York. He worked on numerous complex M&A transactions involving companies in more than 20 countries.

Dr. Riedel is the former executive chairman and former chief executive officer of Aptinyx. He was formerly president and CEO of Naurex, the predecessor company acquired by Allergan and from which Aptinyx and its technology were spun out. Prior to Naurex, Dr. Riedel served various roles at Baxter International including corporate vice president and chief science and innovation officer. Previously, he was head of worldwide biotechnology and held a number of scientific management positions at Hoechst Marion Roussel (now Sanofi). Dr. Riedel serves on the boards of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Cerevel Therapeutics, Eton Pharmaceuticals, and the Illinois Biotechnology Innovation Organization. He served on the board of directors of Ariad Pharmaceuticals until the company was acquired in February 2017. Dr. Riedel is a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and served on Governor Pat Quinn’s Illinois Innovation Council. He is an adjunct professor at Boston University School of Medicine and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and, prior to moving into industry, was an associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Riedel received a Diploma and PhD from the University of Frankfurt and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

Prior to joining Astellas, Heather headed up mHUB, and also prior to that headed up the Medical Operations team at Baxter, managing research grants, tracking and driving medical affairs activities, and building relationships with clinical research organizations. Previous to that role, she built and led Baxter’s External Innovation function that focused on increasing open innovation partnerships across universities, incubators/accelerators, medical centers, and other partners. She supported strategically aligned transformational innovation for all the global business units and for technology platforms. She started at Baxter in a role leading technical assessment teams for due diligence of new opportunities for mergers and acquisitions and venture investment at Baxter.

She joined Baxter from the University of Chicago, where she was the Assistant Director and Head of Business Development in the Technology Commercialization and Licensing group, at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In addition to her technology portfolio, Heather supported the efforts of the commercialization team by identifying and managing high-value contacts, coordinating the university’s marketing strategy for the opportunity pipeline, representing the team at multiple partnering meetings throughout each year, and launching a program to cultivate relationships with venture capital groups. She piloted and grew a proof-of-concept fund, redesigned the Polsky Accelerator program and launched several internship programs to leverage the talents of students and postdocs exploring alternative careers.

Dr. Sullivan is co-founder and CEO of Vanqua. In addition, he has been a Venture Partner with Orbimed since January 2019. Previously, he was the Vice President of Research at Abbvie where he was responsible for the company’s research efforts in a variety of therapeutic/disease areas including oncology, immunology, neurology, hepatitis C and cystic fibrosis. Jim has advanced more than 100 compounds into clinical development across a number of disease states and technology platforms. These include products on the market for HCV (Mavyret and Viekira), the first-in-class Bcl2 selective inhibitor, Venclexta, for hematological cancers, a new oral agent for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, RINVOQ, and multiple compounds currently in Phase II or III clinical trials. He has authored/co-authored more than 130 scientific publications and is an inventor on 11 patents. Jim is an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University and serves on the board of several companies and foundations including Regis Technologies, Genomics Medicine Ireland, Genuity Science, MATTER Healthcare Incubator, Chicago Biotechnology Accelerator and the Pistoia Alliance. He earned his bachelor’s degree and PhD in biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin and conducted post-doctoral research in neurobiology at Northwestern University.

Mr. Whalen has more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry leading and supporting transactions involving acquisitions, co-promotions, out licenses and strategic alliances. Mr. Whalen joined Horizon Pharma in April of 2010 and has led or supported Horizon’s acquisitions since that time helping to grow Horizon from a pre-commercial company with no sales to over $750 million in net sales in 2015. Recent transactions include Horizon’s acquisitions of Crealta Holdings LLC for $510 million and PENNSAID® 2% for $45 million. He also led the out licensing of LODOTRA® and DUEXIS® ex-U.S. and has supported Horizon’s IPO and other fund raising activities.

Prior to Horizon, he was at Baxter Healthcare where he led and supported a number of transactions as part of Baxter’s Medication Delivery business. Mr. Whalen worked at Searle prior to Baxter where his experience included various finance roles supporting business development, European operations, U.S. marketing, and R&D.

He earned a MBA from the University of Illinois and bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame.

The Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC) is delighted to welcome Michelle Hoffmann, PhD (right), as the next Executive Director of the CBC. Dr. Hoffmann succeeds Dr. Richard Morimoto, who served as CBC’s Interim Executive Director (ED).

Dr. Hoffmann earned a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of California Berkeley with Professor Joshua Kaplan and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brandeis University in the laboratory of Professor Gina Turrigiano. For the past two years, Dr. Hoffmann has been working as Senior Vice President of Deep Tech at P33, a privately funded nonprofit charged with elevating Chicagoland’s innovation economy and driving inclusive economic growth.

Prior to P33, Dr. Hoffmann spent 15 years helping life sciences companies grow, most recently as a Senior Vice President at Boston based Back Bay Science Advisors, an integrated strategy and investment firm to global life science companies and their investors. During her 8 years at Back Bay, Dr. Hoffmann led projects for large, publicly traded companies, as well as small, private, venture backed health care and life sciences companies. Dr. Hoffmann also worked closely with Back Bay’s investment team on two large transactions: an epigenetics platform that was sold to Gilead Pharmaceuticals for $65M and an agent to combat acute kidney injury that was acquired by AbbVie for $110M. Previously, she was Senior Manager, Center for Health Solutions and Pharmaceutical Market Lead, at Deloitte Research. Dr. Hoffmann also worked for Leerink Swan Strategic Advisors as a consultant/project manager, Capgemini/LECG as a consultant in their life sciences healthcare practice and at Fuld+Company as a senior analyst in Fuld’s healthcare practice.

He has pioneered TUFF’s non-traditional approach to public-private partnerships, real estate financing structures, and economic development initiatives for university research parks and innovation districts. His strength is the ability to translate complex real estate solutions into true resource-saving solutions for institutional executives and boards.

Kevin graduated with Honors from Furman University in 1991, where he currently serves as Vice-Chairman of Trustees. Upon graduation, he received the Wall Street Journal Student Achievement award, the highest honor given by faculty to a student in school’s Economics and Business Administration department. He later earned his MBA, with Honors, from the Wharton School of Business.

In 2012 and 2014, Kevin served as President of the Association of University Research Parks (AURP). He has been appointed by Georgia’s Lieutenant Governor to the Georgia Public Private Partnership Guidelines Commission as well as the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation. He also serves on two Brookings Institution advisory committees – the Innovation District Initiative and the Bass Placemaking Initiative.

Kevin leads the team as the president & CEO. He was a pioneer of the groundbreaking Workforce Ecosystem partnership that has been instrumental in shaping Lake County Partners’ workplan. Through close connections with local leaders, he excels at using intelligence to inform decision-making and spur growth.

Lisa Dziekan (pronounced Deacon) is Vice President of Business Development at World Business Chicago, responsible for driving inclusive economic growth and job creation, while promoting Chicago as a leading global city. With an emphasis on the Healthcare and Life Sciences industry, Lisa is supporting Chicago’s economic recovery efforts, and neighborhood focused strategies including INVEST South/WEST and Opportunity Zones. She previously held roles with Arthur Andersen’s Real Estate Advisory Services Group, and ran her own firm, which focused on real estate market analysis and communications related to the built environment.

Lisa holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Marketing and Economics from the University of Michigan - Dearborn, and Master of Arts in Urban Planning and Public Affairs from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a director on the Ely Chapter of Lambda Alpha Board of Directors, and serves as a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals and Economic Development Committee in the City of Evanston.

Paul joined Venture Investors in 2006 as a Managing Director of VIESF IV. He has been a Managing Director in all of the firm’s subsequent funds. Paul focuses on investment prospects in bio-pharma and diagnostics. Paul worked as a part-time Analyst for Venture Investors from 1989 to 1992, after receiving his PhD in Biochemistry, and while receiving his MBA. He was a member of the firm’s Investment Advisory Committee from 2001 to when he joined Venture Investors in 2006.

Paul serves on the Board of Directors of FluGen, Invenra, Iterion Therapeutics, Juventas, and Madison Vaccines. He is a former board member of Neurovance (spun out of Euthymics and sold to Otsuka for up to $1 billion), Aerpio Pharmaceuticals (spun out of Akebia, NASDAQ:ARPO, now Aadi Bioscience via a reverse merger), Euthymics Bioscience, Akebia Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AKBA), and Tissue Regeneration Systems.

Paul has over 20 years of operating experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Previously, he served as President of the Gala Biotech business unit of Cardinal Health (now Catalent Pharma Solutions), a division that was established when the Venture Investors portfolio company, Gala Design, Inc., under his leadership as CEO was acquired by Cardinal Health. Prior to joining Gala, Paul served as Vice President of Business Development of 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals, a venture capital backed biotechnology company with a drug discovery platform that successfully completed an IPO during his tenure with the company and was subsequently acquired by Johnson & Johnson. Prior to that, Paul worked as Director of Licensing for the pharmaceutical company Wyeth-Ayerst, which was a division of American Home Products (now part of Pfizer). Earlier, he served as Director of Business Development and Research for the Scientific Protein Labs (SPL) division of American Home Products. He began his career in industry as the Director of Research and Operations of Columbia Research Labs. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of Tamir Biotechnology, Inc. (formerly Alfacell Corporation) prior to its acquisition by Orgenesis.

Karen Heidelberger is a Partner and Chief Partnership and Communications Officer at Deerfield and joined the Firm in 2002. She is responsible for relationships with investors, partner companies, academic institutions, and other interested parties. In her role, Ms. Heidelberger helped conceptualize and implement the Cure and is responsible for activation of the ecosystem. She is deeply involved in the design and implementation of Deerfield’s educational programming. Prior to this role, Ms. Heidelberger was a Trader at Deerfield for over a decade. Before Deerfield, Ms. Heidelberger was a Vice President in the Sales and Trading division of Merrill Lynch, and served as a Conflicts Coordinator in the Mergers and Acquisitions department. Ms. Heidelberger has approximately 18 years of experience in healthcare and 25 years of experience in finance. She is involved in Deerfield’s Break into the Boardroom and Women in Science programs, and currently serves on the Board of NewYorkBIO. Ms. Heidelberger graduated from the Cornell University, School of Hotel Administration, holds a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a Master of Science in Strategic Communication from Columbia University.

Shobha joined Xontogeny in July 2019 as Vice President, External Innovation and New Ventures. In her role, she is responsible for identifying commercialization opportunities for Xontogeny. She works closely with startup founders and entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders across the academic, biotech, pharmaceutical and investment landscape.

Shobha brings a combination of 20+ years of research, business development, strategic partnerships and venture investing experience to development of new medicines and emerging healthcare technologies. Prior to joining Xontogeny, she was Vice President, Strategic Alliances and Business Development at Harrington Discovery Institute, a unique international initiative created to translate scientific discoveries from academia to development of therapeutics. In that role, she helped advance several therapeutics programs, managed a portfolio of companies, executed alliances and mentored scientific innovators and entrepreneurs. Preceding that role, she was part of the business development team at North Carolina Biotechnology Center where she helped secure funding for a wide range of therapeutic, diagnostic and medical device startups. Her career highlights include multiple FDA drug approvals and commercialized products, company acquisitions and IPOs. Shobha began her research career in drug discovery at Takeda (Millennium Pharmaceuticals).