Vineti's mission
We are passionately committed to the success of breakthrough cell and gene therapies for the potential to radically shape the lives of millions of patients. Our customers are the heroic providers of these revolutionary new treatments, addressing hundreds of different conditions.
We believe the promise of cell and gene therapies is here, right now, and nobody is better positioned than Vineti to help forge the right path to get amazing science through the clinic, over the finish line and accelerate access to patients in need.
We understand that medicine’s most complex supply chain requires a state-of-the-art modern software solution to quickly, safely, securely, and seamlessly move these amazing medicines forward. We owe it to all of our customers, and in turn the patients, to deliver unparalleled tools to make this possible.
We believe what
we do is bigger
than who we are.
Leadership Team
Vineti’s leadership is comprised of long-standing experts in regenerative medicine and cloud-based software. Together this team is dedicated to bringing the absolute best-in-class solutions so that all promising cell and gene therapies have tremendous success.
Amy DuRoss
Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder
Before co-founding Vineti, Amy focused on healthcare new business creation for GE Ventures/healthymagination. Prior to GE, Amy was Chief Business Officer at Navigenics, a genomics company sold to Life Technologies in 2012. She was co-founder and Executive Director of Proposition 71, California’s $3B stem cell research initiative passed in 2004, as well as Chief of Staff at the resulting state grant oversight agency. Amy holds an MBA and MA/BA in English from Stanford University. She was named a 2016 Health Innovator Fellow by the Aspen Institute. Amy also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the ARM Foundation for Cell and Gene Medicine.
Phil Calvin
Chief Technology Officer
Phil brings more than 25 years of software development, technical leadership and entrepreneurial experience to Vineti. His areas of expertise include technical strategy, cloud architecture, and engineering executive management. Prior to Vineti, Phil spent nearly a decade at Salesforce in a variety of architectural and engineering leadership roles, most recently leading the Platform Engineering organization and focusing on making the Salesforce platform trusted, accessible, and scalable. Phil joined Salesforce in 2010, after the acquisition of his company Sitemasher. His earlier career includes several startups and engineering roles, including serving as Principal Architect at Citrix after an acquisition of another one of his companies. He began his engineering career with an internship at Microsoft. As Vineti’s CTO, Phil leads the Product and Engineering organizations.
Joe DePinto
Chief Commercial Officer
Joe brings more than 28 years of executive leadership in biotech, pharmaceuticals, specialty pharma, and cell therapy to Vineti. He joins us from Cardinal Health, where he served as the President of Specialty Solutions, leading one of the fastest-growing businesses within the Fortune 14-ranked company. Prior to Cardinal Health, Joe’s roles included leadership positions at top pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Lilly. His core leadership competencies include leading all aspects of strategy, drug development, investor relations, and commercialization with multiple global launches. He also previously served in executive roles at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Dendreon, ImClone, and Abraxis.
Heidi M. Hagen
Co-founder and Advisor
Heidi has been an Operations Executive in the Biotechnology industry for over 25 years and is a Co-founder of Vineti. She has an extensive and proven track record in leading operations and commercializing innovative technologies ranging from recombinant protein/device combinations to the first active immune cell therapy, Provenge. Previously, Heidi was the Global COO for SOTIO, in Prague, Czech Republic with a US office in Boston, MA. Before joining SOTIO she worked for Dendreon for ten years as Senior Vice President of Operations and ten years with Immunex Corporation in a range of roles in drug development and operations management. Heidi has a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology, an MS in Bioengineering, and an MBA from the University of Washington.
Louise Pacini
Chief Strategy Officer
Louise brings almost 25 years of global experience in biopharmaceutical and healthcare technology to Vineti. Before joining the company as Chief Strategy Officer, she led major biopharmaceutical engagements in Europe and the U.K. for IQVIA, a global leader in the use of data, technology, and analytics to advance healthcare. She has also led large-scale technology transformation programs for global pharmaceutical leader GSK in the Asia-Pacific region and leading medical testing provider Quest Diagnostics in the United States. Earlier in her career, she managed network administration for biotech start-up CombinatorRx, where the team built a high-throughput IT platform to identify and develop new medications based on synergistic combinations of approved drugs. Louise holds a data science certificate in object-oriented programming from Harvard University, and received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Brett Robertson
Chief Financial Officer
Brett Robertson is an experienced senior executive who is strategically focused and driven to provide return on investment for shareholders. She has crossover experience in healthcare and technology and is adept at US and international operations for both public and private companies including Invuity, StubHub, CureSeq, Ask Jeeves, Critical Path, and Broderbund. As a leader, Brett drives development and execution of financial and operational strategies and as well as mergers and acquisitions to ensure growth and continued technological competitiveness. Throughout her career, she has been instrumental in developing strategy and building infrastructure capabilities as well as in enabling liquidity through acquisitions and IPOs.
Subbu Viswanathan
Compliance Officer & SVP, Quality, Security & Compliance
Subbu has over 20 years of experience with QMS and compliance in life sciences with a focus on software development and implementation. His area of specialty is compliance in the cloud, from GxP to data privacy and security regulations (such as HIPAA, GDPR) and he now leads this effort for Vineti. Additionally, he has led software development, process automation, agency inspection preparedness, agency compliance, and remediation efforts for a variety of life science companies. Subbu has a BE in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University (India) and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
John Greene
Senior Vice President, Platform Operations
John ("JG") brings 20 years of experience in Enterprise support, engineering, and operations to Vineti. He is a hands-on technical executive, with a passion for building, growing, coaching and managing high caliber, motivated teams. Prior to Vineti, JG spent more than a decade at Salesforce building Customer Centric Engineering and running Site Reliability. Earlier in his career, he spent six years providing and managing enterprise technical support at BEA/WebLogic and three years running support and community for an online virtual world. JG is an acute myeloid leukemia (AML) survivor and was given a 35% chance to live five years when he was diagnosed in 2010. After several rounds of chemotherapy and an allogeneic stem-cell transplant in 2011, he is cancer free. JG serves on the Leukemia & Lymphoma Board of Directors and has been a staunch supporter of Light the Night since 2011. JG received his bachelor’s degree in computer and information sciences from UMass, is an avid Phish and Grateful Dead fan, and currently plays keyboards in Chum, California's premiere Phish tribute band.
Anand Kothari
Senior Vice President, Engineering
Anand is Senior Vice President of Engineering at Vineti. He is a seasoned engineering and enterprise software executive with almost 20 years of experience in vision, strategy, design, execution and marketing of new products and cloud services. He has a proven track record of leading new products and cloud services with thousands of customers and millions in revenue. He has created products across cloud PaaS, business integration, and identity and access management. Prior to joining Vineti, Anand worked for a decade at Oracle in a variety of management and development roles. He has also held senior roles at BEA Systems, SeeBeyond, Open Latitude, and other firms.
April Lynch
Senior Vice President, Product Marketing
April has been a leader in biotechnology and healthcare for more than a decade. She has a proven track record in product and market strategies, communications, and making biotechnology innovations accessible, scalable, and engaging. Before joining Vineti, April led an innovations team at Invitae, a genetic information company, and served as Invitae’s Head of Product Management. She previously worked in product strategy and product marketing for Life Technologies, focusing on genomic diagnostic analysis in cancer, and for Navigenics, a pioneering personal genomics start-up. Before starting her work in biotech, April was an award-winning journalist, author, and editor, with hundreds of articles and a series of university textbooks published under her byline. She has a BA from Pomona College and an MA in journalism and communications from the University of California at Berkeley. She currently serves as Executive Secretary of the Standards Coordinating Body, a non-profit organization doing FDA-funded work to drive standards in regenerative medicine.
Nerses Ohanyan
Senior Vice President, Customer Success
Nerses is Senior Vice President of Customer Success and an early Vineti team member. He has held senior roles in Engineering and Product Management, and has extensive experience in helping biopharmaceutical partners solve cell therapy process and technical challenges. Prior to joining Vineti, Nerses served in senior roles at Viki and other firms, and helped found two enterprises. Nerses holds an advanced degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and undergraduate degrees from the University of Southern California.
Stuart Altman
Vice President, Product
Stuart believes that curiosity, drive, and first principles lead to innovative products that solve problems at scale. He leads the Product Management, Product Design, and Technical Communications groups at Vineti. Prior to Vineti, Stuart was part of the Product Innovation group at AthenaHealth building clinical decision support tools for healthcare professionals. Stuart received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and emphasized regenerative medicine throughout his academic career. He has published peer-reviewed articles on clinical needs finding as well as investigational methods in molecular biology. Stuart received his Master of Translational Medicine degree from the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley and the School of Medicine at UC San Francisco. Stuart’s background combines a product-centric perspective drawing on his experience in software technology, bioengineering, clinical R&D, business, and entrepreneurship.
Kat Noren
Senior Vice President, Human Resources
As the VP of Human Resources, Kat leads Vineti’s people strategy driving personnel growth and scale. Kat partners with leaders to build superior quality teams, engage and motivate employees, and drive performance-driven cultures. Prior to Vineti, Kat was a part of the Talent Team at Privia Health, a population health technology start up, growing the team from 50 to 500+ employees in 5 US regions. More recently, she was a key member of the Technology HR Business Partner Team at Salesforce working with Engineering Executives to enhance their leadership abilities, teams’ performance, and compensation strategies. Kat received her B.S. in Human Resource Management from Michigan State University’s Business School with a focus on organization development.
Marc Puich
Senior Vice President, Business Development
Marc focuses on leading the global sales activities for the Vineti Platform. Prior to joining Vineti Marc, held various positions at Werum IT Solutions, the leading provider of Manufacturing Execution Systems for the Pharmaceutical Industry. There, he was directly involved with sales and implementation of Werum’s PAS-X MES, as well as supporting organizations as they continued to drive benefits post go-live. Marc came to Werum with ten years consulting experience as a partner focused on the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors at Tefen USA. He holds a Bachelor’s in Physics from UC Berkeley and Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from Stanford University.
Investors
Board of Directors
Amy DuRoss
Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder
Before co-founding Vineti, Amy focused on healthcare new business creation for GE Ventures/healthymagination. Prior to GE, Amy was Chief Business Officer at Navigenics, a genomics company sold to Life Technologies in 2012. She was co-founder and Executive Director of Proposition 71, California’s $3B stem cell research initiative passed in 2004, as well as Chief of Staff at the resulting state grant oversight agency. Amy holds an MBA and MA/BA in English from Stanford University. She was named a 2016 Health Innovator Fellow by the Aspen Institute.
Eli Casdin
Chief Investment Officer and Founder of Casdin Capital
Eli Casdin founded Casdin Capital in 2011 after nearly ten years spent focused on disruptive technologies and business models in life sciences and healthcare, including authoring the black book, The Dawn of Molecular Medicine. Casdin Capital’s combination of long-term vision and strong industry relationships keep it focused on the big picture yet nimble, while maintaining a consistent approach: Take aim at big markets; Invest in great ideas and great teams; Stay focused; Avoid hubris.
Prior to founding Casdin Capital, Eli was a Vice President and Analyst at Alliance Bernstein and a member of its “thematic” based investment group, responsible for researching and investing in the implications of new technologies for the life science and healthcare sectors. Eli’s early experience includes time at Bear Stearns and at Cooper Hill Partners, one of the earliest biotechnology focused investment firms.
Eli earned his B.S. from Columbia University and his MBA from Columbia Business School and serves on the Columbia University School of GS Board of Directors.
Michele Holcomb, Ph.D.
EVP, Strategy and Corporate Development, Cardinal Health
Michele Holcomb has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, as a scientist, strategist, and global leader of business development and R&D. Michele brings a broad knowledge of the healthcare ecosystem, across pharmaceutical companies, payors, providers, pharmacies, and the dynamics among them. She has worked with companies at all stages of pharmaceutical development and with companies in healthcare services.
Michele currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Cardinal Health. She works with business leaders to develop strategy and identify opportunities for innovation and growth. Her team also leads the execution and integration of acquisitions, partnerships and divestitures.
Michele came to Cardinal Health from Teva Pharmaceuticals where she held roles in R&D and Strategy. Her roles included Chief Operating Officer of Global R&D and Senior Vice President of Strategy, Portfolio, Search and Partnerships, and Vice President of Corporate Strategy.
Prior to Teva, Michele was a Partner in the Global Pharmaceutical Practice at McKinsey & Company, where she spent 15 years. She served 6 of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies, as well as high-growth biotechs and mid-cap pharmaceutical companies.
Michele was a member of the board of naviHealth, a private, care transitions company that takes on risk to optimize clinical and financial outcomes prior to acquisition. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Executive, the World Economic Forum Strategy Officers Community, and board member for the Liberty Science Center (New Jersey) and BalletMet of Columbus, where she chairs the long-range planning committee. Michele has lectured on healthcare strategy at Kellogg (Northwestern), Columbia and Fuqua (Duke) business schools.
Michele is trained as a chemist, with a B.S. in Chemistry from Stanford University, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and experience as a bench chemist at Syntex Pharmaceuticals and Ciba-Geigy.
Nina Kjellson
General Partner, Canaan
Nina Kjellson invests in biopharmaceutical and digital health companies that aim to transform care for patients. She focuses on therapeutics for serious and underserved conditions such as cancer, autoimmune disease and life-threatening infections and IT-enabled transformation of healthcare delivery. As a leader of Canaan’s Women of Venture program, Nina is a vocal advocate for women entrepreneurs and investors. She serves as a mentor to Blueprint Health, a digital health incubator and Springboard Life Sciences, an accelerator for healthcare companies driven by women entrepreneurs. She is a member of the advisory board for the Oliver Wyman Health Innovation Center.
Prior to Canaan, Nina was a General Partner at InterWest Partners where she had invested in healthcare start-ups since 2002. Before InterWest, she was an investment manager at Bay City Capital, a life sciences merchant bank, and a research associate at Oracle Partners, a healthcare-focused hedge fund. Nina began her career conducting health policy and survey research with the Kaiser Family Foundation.
John Kontor, M.D.
Senior Vice President and Practice Lead, Provider Technology Services, Optum
John leads the Provider Technology Services practice within Optum Advisory Services. He plays a pivotal role leading:
- Electronic health record (EHR) implementation
- EHR optimization
- Population health/value-based operations efforts
- IT strategy
Prior to consulting, he practiced internal medicine for 14 years. His focus was ambulatory chronic disease management and inpatient critical care.
John Kontor’s unique perspective comes from his experience serving as an executive in multiple roles at IDNs. These include chief medical information officer, vice president of medical affairs and medical director of an employed physician network.
John received his Bachelor of Arts from Boston University in health policy and earned his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Neil Kurtz, M.D.
Board of Directors - Medidata; Vineti Board Chair
Dr. Neil Kurtz has more than 30 years of experience in healthcare. He is a physician with Boards in psychiatry and neurology with an advanced degree in pharmacology. He spent 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry. He has served on Medidata's board of directors since 2002. He also serves on the Board of Directors of TeamHealth, the nation’s leading provider of emergency department services.
Currently, Dr. Kurtz is also President and CEO of Golden Living, a leading provider of long-term care. He was President and CEO of Worldwide Clinical Trials, an international clinical research operation purchased by UnitedHealth Group in 1999.
Dr. Kurtz holds a B.A. in psychology from New York University and an M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin.
David Mayhew
Chief Investment and Risk Officer and Chair of GE Ventures Investment Committee
David is the Chief Investment and Risk Officer and Chair of GE Ventures Investment Committee. Based in Menlo Park, CA, he joined the business in 2013. His leadership responsibilities include managing portfolios, driving capital allocation decisions, and supporting strategic direction for the organization. David has extensive experience in private equity, structured finance, commercial finance transactions, and portfolio management.
David brings over twenty years of finance and risk management experience to the team, most recently as Chief Risk Officer with GE Capital Australia and New Zealand. Previously, David was the Global Head of Leveraged Credit at Deutsche Bank, where he managed a portfolio in excess of $15 billion, supporting financial sponsors, LBOs, and structured credits. David holds an MBA from York University in Toronto and a bachelor’s degree in Finance from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. He is originally from Toronto.
Emily Melton
Managing Partner and Co-founder, Threshold Ventures
Emily is Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Threshold Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that spun out of DFJ Ventures. Emily has spent more than a decade working with early-stage companies. Emily’s primary areas of interest include consumer and mobile technology, healthcare technologies and marketplaces. Her investments include BetterUp, Elation Health, Livongo, Redfin, Shift, and Wellframe. Emily started her career at DFJ and spent eight years at the firm where she sourced and became actively involved in consumer and enterprise investments including Meebo (acquired by Google), Flux (acquired by MTVNetworks), Kudo (acquired by Google), Redfin, ShareThis, and RichRelevance. Recently, she was an advisor to Pulse Networks (acquired by LinkedIn), HealthTap, and PoshMark. She holds a BA with honors and distinction in political philosophy and an MBA, both from Stanford University.
Michael Pellini, M.D.
Managing Partner, Section 32; Chairman, Foundation Medicine
Dr. Pellini is Managing Partner of Section 32, a venture fund that invests in companies and inventors that are changing the way humans use technology and the way technology betters humanity. Previously, he served as CEO of Foundation Medicine (NASDAQ:FMI) from May 2011 until he transitioned to Chairman in February 2017.
He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Tango Therapeutics, Singular Genomics, Adaptive Biotechnologies, the Personalized Medicine Coalition, and the Mission Hospital Foundation, in addition to his Board Chair position with Foundation Medicine. As a physician with more than 20 years of executive experience with companies at the forefront of clinical diagnostics and genomics, Dr. Pellini brings a breadth of understanding in personalized medicine, with a particular interest and focus on defeating cancer. Dr. Pellini is a member of the President’s Leadership Council at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, as well as the Advisory Board for Mission Hospital’s Cancer Institute (Provident/St. Joseph Health).
Dr. Pellini received a BA from Boston College, an MBA from Drexel University and an MD from Jefferson Medical College.