Andy Merken, Partner, Corporate and Securities Co-Chair, Life Sciences, Burns & Levinson (Moderator)

Andy is a Partner in the Corporate Group and the Venture Capital & Emerging Companies Group. He is also the Co-Chair of both the Life Sciences Group and the Securities Group. Andy focuses on business and transactional matters for a wide range of clients, with a particular concentration on Seed round and Venture Capital financings, recapitalizations, mergers & acquisitions, private equity transactions, and corporate governance. In addition to his corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions work, Andy represents entrepreneurs, start-up and growth-stage companies, and investment banks, as well as venture capital investors, private foundations, family offices, and angel investors, in formation and structuring matters, equity and compensation, business contracts and general business advice and planning. Andy also represents C-level and R&D executives in employment matters, including equity compensation. Andy works with clients in a variety of industries, including life sciences (biotech/biopharmaceutical, medical device, healthcare, digital health, and healthcare services), business services, software, financial services, venture capital, investment banking, consulting, legal services, consumer products, staffing, food services, real estate, and entertainment.

Varun Ramdevan, Digital Innovation Lead, Johnson & Johnson Innovation

Varun is a Digital Innovation leader for J&J’s external innovation organization responsible for partnerships in digital health for J&J Innovation. He also owns Digital responsibilities for the Lung Cancer Initiative and World Without Disease at J&J, shaping their digital strategy and technology portfolio efforts globally.

Varun has an MBA from Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business and has gained rich experiences in areas including digital health, Medical Device R&D M&A and economic research. Previous to his current role, Varun guided strategy and data-driven approaches for J&J’s Medical Devices R&D investment decisions. He also has helped bootstrap digital health initiatives related to post-orthopedic surgical care.

Varun supports a Boston startup ecosystem, nurturing as a mentor and investor in the energy tech and food tech space. He is on the board at MedSchoolCoach, a Boston based organization supporting students aspiring to enter medicine, and a founding member of OneAmazingThing.org.

Valerie Photos, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Iaso Ventures

Valerie Photos is an Operating Partner at Iaso Ventures. She is a pioneer in multiple sectors of behavioral health innovation and translation (Harvard Medical School, McLean Hospital). She has extensive experience driving multi-million dollar revenue in specialized cutting-edge treatment programs (Gunderson Residences), community outpatient clinics (Two Brattle Center), and addiction/suicide treatment centers (PsychGarden).

Dr Photos is a founding member of the American Psychological Association’s Policy Workgroup for Technology and Innovation.

She received her PhD in Clinical Science from Harvard, postdoctoral training in Clinical Psychology from Harvard Medical School, and finance education from the University of Chicago.

Anne DeGheest, Founder and Managing Director, HealthTech Capital

Anne DeGheest pioneered the HealthTech or Digital Health space as a healthcare executive, an entrepreneur, angel investor, corporate advisor and mentor capitalist. She is the founder of HealthTech Capital and MedStars. Since she founded MedStars, in 1986, she has been a business consultant to large healthcare companies and a mentor capitalist specializing in early stage healthcare companies. Her life science portfolio companies have generated over $18 billion in market capitalization including 8 IPOs. She provided angel capital, hands-on operating expertise and/or business strategy in the founding of major venture-backed 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 ASP/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). She was an Entrepreneur-In-Residence with Canaan Partners and IVP. In 2010, Anne founded HealthTech Capital, a group of private and corporate investors dedicated to funding and mentoring new “HealthTech” startups to decrease healthcare cost and empower patients. HealthTech capital is an ecosystem of angels, venture capitalists, providers, payers and healthcare industry key players with the three sets of expertise needed to succeed in this new HealthTech space: healthcare, technology and user engagement. She organized the HealthTech Conferences between 2012-2015 and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a guest-lecturer at Stanford Business School. MBA from Harvard and a Master in Business Engineering from University of Brussels. She is also a recognized artist.

Julianne Roseman, Senior Associate, Venture, Plug and Play Ventures

Julianne is the Ventures Associate for Health at Plug and Play, a global innovation platform that includes venture capital, accelerator programs, and corporate innovation.

Her background has been focused on seed stage venture investing and developing strategic partnerships in both for-profit and non-profit settings. Her experience includes working with hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies, academia, and other accelerator organizations. She has worked with many first-time entrepreneurs and developed resources to support their success.