Life Sciences IPO Accelerator Summit

Tom Fraser, Partner, Ropes & Gray LLP

Tom represents public and private companies and their investors in securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and other strategic transactions. Tom is a trusted advisor to clients across the full range of capital markets transactions, including initial public offerings and public and private equity and debt financings, as well as complex strategic transactions, including public and private mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and other investments. Tom also regularly advises public company clients, such as Acushnet Holdings Corp., Eversource Energy, IQVIA, LifeStance Health, LPL Financial, MicroVision and Planet Fitness, and investor clients, such as Bain Capital and TPG, on securities law compliance, disclosure and corporate governance matters, including Exchange Act compliance and reporting, stock exchange listing rules, Rule 144 and Section 16.

Renata Ferrari, Partner, Ropes & Gray LLP

Renata is co-managing partner of the Boston office and leads the employment, executive compensation and employee benefits group. She advises clients on executive compensation, equity-based and other incentives, deferred compensation, severance plans and other compensatory and benefits arrangements. Renata also advises on the application of securities and tax laws to executives and employers and corporate governance matters. Her practice also includes a focus on compensation and benefits-related issues arising in the context of mergers and acquisitions and other corporate transactions.

Pam Pierre, Deals Director, PwC

Pam is a Director in PwC’s Deals practice in Boston, Massachusetts where she primarily serves clients in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry. Pam has over 15 years of experience with PwC. She specializes in providing advisory services to clients related to capital market transactions, including SEC reporting matters, divestitures, carve-out accounting and financial reporting, debt and equity offerings and IPO readiness, and complex accounting topics, including business combinations and IFRS and US GAAP conversions. Pam has experience working with private equity portfolio companies, large corporations, start-up entities, large private entities and domestic and foreign SEC registrants.

Prior to joining the Boston Office, Pam spent two years in PwC’s National Office in Florham Park, New Jersey, in the SEC Services group. During Pam’s time at the National Office, she focused on SEC reporting requirements and assisted both domestics and foreign clients with SEC related topics for their annual and quarterly filings as well as transaction related filings across various sectors. Prior to joining the National Office, Pam was in the Deals practice based in Houston, Texas.

Pam is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Massachusetts and Texas and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Matt Lane, Principal, Milestone Advisors

Matt is Principal and Founder of Milestone Advisors, a strategic communications and capital markets advisory firm serving public and private life sciences companies. Matt’s career in life sciences began in 2001 when he joined SG Cowen, now TD Cowen, a leading healthcare-focused investment bank, and he most recently was a Managing Director with Blackstone Life Sciences responsible for marketing and communications. During his career, Matt has established a voice in the industry across public equity, private equity and consulting with his varied experiences enabling him to offer integrated strategic advisory services to management teams, boards, and investors. Prior to his career on Wall St, Matt served as press secretary to United States Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH, ret.).

Matt received his BA from Amherst College and was awarded the Charted Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 2001.

John Jolley, Director, Capital Markets, Workiva

John is a Director at Workiva specializing in the transformation and modernization of capital market projects through technology and dedicated support. John has over 17 years of experience in the SaaS industry, in various roles and sectors. 11 years have been dedicated to the financial transformation and capital market business with Workiva. As part of his role, John focuses on helping clients, outside counsels, auditors, advisory firms and underwriters understand the impact of technology throughout the various stages of a private to public journey. In addition to John’s focus with Pre-IPO clients, he also assists publicly traded companies and deal teams on modernizing all ’33 Act Projects (M&A/Follow-ons/Debt Offerings/ATM/etc.). In between roles with Workiva, John was the Vice President of Sales for two different startup companies. One organization became a successful acquisition by one of the largest private equity firms and the other startup experienced triple digit growth, leading to a Series B (27M).

William Windham, Senior Vice President, Life Sciences, Solebury Strategic Communications

William Windham heads the life sciences investor relations team at Solebury Strategic Communications. During his time at Solebury, William has advised biotechnology companies on developing and maintaining engagement with key investors and other stakeholders. His experience spans public and private entities across indication and modality within therapeutics and tools, as well as adjacent verticals such as synthetic biology and animal health. William received his BS in Neuroscience from Duke University and an MSL in Regulatory & IP Law from Northwestern University.

Will Michener, Partner, Ropes & Gray LLP

Will guides public companies, investors, and investment banks in securities offerings and strategic transactions. Clients look to Will for practical and business-focused advice grounded in a deep technical understanding of securities law.

Will advises on a broad range of capital markets transactions, including public and private offerings of equity and debt securities. He is especially skilled at helping companies navigate the IPO process. Will also represents clients on spin offs, tender offers, shareholder activism matters, and mergers and acquisitions. In addition, he represents issuers on a variety of securitization transactions, including whole-business securitizations. As an ongoing part of his practice, Will assists clients on disclosure, trading, stock exchange compliance, and governance issues.

Adrian Gottschalk, Chief Executive Officer, Foghorn Therapeutics

Adrian is chief executive officer of Foghorn Therapeutics. An experienced leader in biotech, Adrian is interested in solving complex issues at the intersection of science, medicine, and business on a global scale to help people and families dealing with diseases.

Prior to joining Foghorn, Adrian spent 13 years at Biogen, where he was most recently a senior vice president and the neurodegeneration therapeutic area head. In this role, he was responsible for the late-stage development and commercialization of medicines for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). During his time at Biogen, Adrian held additional roles of increasing responsibility ranging from head of corporate strategy, head of global commercial strategy, head of Japan, and head of the Japan, Australia and Emerging Markets geographies. He has also worked as a consultant for Price Waterhouse in Dallas, Texas.

He holds a BS in biochemistry from Texas A&M University and received his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He also holds an ScM degree from the joint Harvard Medical School / MIT Biomedical Enterprise Program, where his graduate work was focused on evaluating the costs and benefits of the Prescription Drug User Fee Acts and improving the efficiency of the drug development process.

Lyla Bibi, Managing Director, Head of US Healthcare ECM, Goldman Sachs

Lyla is head of the US Healthcare Equity Capital Markets (ECM) Group within Investment Banking. Prior to covering healthcare in 2015, she focused on financial institutions within ECM for eight years, primarily the bank, asset manager and advisory sectors. She initially joined Goldman Sachs in 2006 as an associate and was named managing director in 2015. Lyla rejoined the firm as a managing director in 2021.

Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Lyla was an associate analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and Co. Inc, within the medical devices and healthcare services team. Before rejoining the firm, she worked at Blackstone for a year, where she was head of ECM.

Lyla earned a BA in Political Science, with a minor in Economics, from Colgate University in 2000 and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2006.

Kevin Bitterman, Partner, Atlas Venture

Kevin Bitterman, Partner at Atlas Venture, focuses on creating and investing in companies that translate groundbreaking science into innovative medicines. Kevin serves on the boards of Disc Medicine (NASDAQ: IRON), Judo Bio, Kinaset Therapeutics, Mariana Oncology, and Remix Therapeutics. He is board chair at Chroma Medicine and was the founding CEO of Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT), Morphic Therapeutic (NASDAQ:MORF) and Visterra (acquired by Otsuka). He previously served as a director of Akero Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AKRO), Vedere Bio (acquired by Novartis), and Taris Biomedical (acquired by Johnson & Johnson) among other ventures. Prior to joining Atlas Venture in 2017, Kevin was a partner at Polaris Partners, where he had been a member of the healthcare team since 2004.

Kevin is active in the life science and healthcare start-up community serving as Chair Emeritus of the New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA) and as a member of the Harvard Medical School Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator, BTCA and Q-FASTR Steering Committees. He is also a member of the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum Board of Advisors. He received a BA in biology, with highest honors, from Rutgers University before completing his PhD in genetics at Harvard Medical School.

Accomplished deal lawyer Tara Fisher guides clients through their most strategically important transactions. For more than 15 years, public and private companies, boards of directors, and investment banks have relied on Tara to navigate billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions, sophisticated capital market transactions, and critical corporate governance matters. Clients praise her ability to act as an extension of their business and legal teams.

Tara advises on both domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures, spin-offs, and strategic investments. She also has experience counseling on shareholder activism and takeover defense matters.

Jason Russell, Managing Director, Global Head of Biotechnology, Investment Banking, Morgan Stanley

Jason Russell is a Managing Director and Global Head of Biotechnology on the healthcare investment banking team at Morgan Stanley. He has 17 years of experience advising public and private clients of all sizes on their important financing and strategic objectives. Key areas of focus include equity, debt and royalty financings as well as strategic advisory and M&A assignments. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2014, he worked in a similar capacity at Cowen and Company. Jason graduated as the First Honor Graduate with a B.S. in business administration and accounting from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, and is a member of the Baker School of Business Advisory Board.

Thom Gunderson, Board Member, Transmedics, Inc. and Merit Medical Systems, Inc.

Thom Gunderson serves as a member of the board of directors of TransMedics, Inc. and as a member of the board of directors of Merit Medical Systems, Inc. In addition to his board involvement, Thom also serves as an Executive in Residence at the University of Minnesota – Carlson School of Management. Previously, Thom was managing director and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, with a focus on medical technology companies. For more than 20 years, Thom was recognized by several industry publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Institutional Investor, Thomson Reuters and First Call. In his retirement, he continues to remain in the healthcare sector. Thom holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Carleton College, an M.S. in Cell Biology from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

Nick Downing, Managing Director, Bain Capital Life Sciences

Nicholas S. Downing, M.D., is a Managing Director of Bain Capital Life Sciences, LP, a private equity fund that invests in biopharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, and enabling life science technology companies globally, which he joined in 2018. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Dr. Downing was a resident physician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where he cared for patients on the inpatient medical service and in the outpatient clinic. Throughout his medical career Dr. Downing has been an active health policy researcher and is the author of more than 40 articles in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Prior to his medical career, Dr. Downing was a consultant at McKinsey and Company where he worked with clients in the pharmaceutical, hospital, and financial services industries on a wide range of strategic problems. Dr. Downing graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude with a degree in chemistry. He received an MD cum laude from Yale University School of Medicine.

John Quisel, Chief Executive Officer, Disc Medicine, Inc.

John Quisel is the CEO of Disc Medicine. Previously, John was Chief Business Officer at Acceleron Pharma, where he spent more than thirteen years helping to build the company from a privately-held startup to a public biotech (acquired by Merck & Co. for over $11 billion in 2021). At Acceleron, John served in various roles including General Counsel, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and finally Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer. John led the in-licensing of sotatercept for pulmonary hypertension from Bristol-Myers Squibb and helped negotiate the collaboration agreement governing the development and commercialization of luspatercept (now marketed as Reblozyl^®). Prior to Acceleron, John worked at the law firms of Ropes & Gray and Foley Hoag. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, summa cum laude, MSc from Stanford University, PhD from MIT in Biological Sciences, and JD from Harvard Law School.