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.
Heidi M. Hagen
Chief Strategy Officer, Co-founder
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.
Khurram Mahmood
Chief Technology Officer
Khurram, currently CTO at Vineti, is an experienced technology leader and entrepreneur with close to 20 years of experience leading engineering and product management organizations at enterprise software companies such as Workday, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. Most recently he was at Workday, where he joined the company when it was a small startup with a handful of people. Khurram helped scale the company to one of the leading enterprise cloud companies in the world. Khurram has earned several innovation awards and also holds several technology patents. He holds a BA with honors in Computer Science, Economics, and Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MS in Computer Science with a concentration in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Christophe Suchet
Chief Product Officer
Christophe brings more than 20 years of information technology and senior biopharmaceutical IT experience to Vineti. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Information Technology for Kite Pharma, Inc., where he developed the essential technology systems that helped Kite’s first cell therapy receive FDA approval, scale rapidly, and secure the landmark sale of the business to Gilead Sciences, Inc. Prior to Kite Pharma, Christophe served as Vice President of IT at Pharmacyclics Inc., a clinical stage and commercial biopharmaceutical company that grew in two years from no product revenue, to $1 billion revenue, to acquisition by AbbVie for $21 billion. Christophe has served as Genentech’s Director, IT Pharma Development Applications, and as IT Director, SAP Center of Excellence & Enterprise Applications, managing the company’s portfolio of IT projects and applications across key business areas including safety, clinical operations, biostatistics, and project portfolio management. He received his M.S. in Biology and Economy from AgroParisTech.
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
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
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.
Rowan Chapman, Ph.D
Head, J&J Innovation CA; Co-founder, Vineti
Rowan Chapman is head of J&J Innovation, CA, where she leads the team responsible for identifying, investing and partnering with the entrepreneurial ecosystem across the J&J Pharmaceutical, Medical Device and Consumer sectors.
Previously, Rowan led the healthcare venture investing team at GE Ventures, with a particular focus on digital health, data analytics and precision medicine. During that time, she incubated Vineti, Evidation, and Drawbridge Health.
Before GE Ventures, Rowan served as Head of Precision Diagnostics at GE Healthcare and Investing Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV). Rowan has invested in and held board director and observer roles across a spectrum of healthcare and life science companies, including Adamas (IPO: ADMS), RainDance (acquired:BIO), Pacific Biosciences (IPO: PACB), ParAllele (acquired: AFFX), Sequenta (acquired: Adaptive) and Verinata (acquired: ILMN).
Rowan holds a Ph.D. and first class honors degree in Biochemistry from Cambridge University, U.K. and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.
Iana Dimkova
Director of Investing, GE Ventures
Iana is a Director of Investing at GE Ventures. She is based in Menlo Park, CA, and joined GE Ventures in 2015.
Iana invests in Healthcare IT, tech-enabled services, and life sciences startups.
Prior to joining the GE Ventures team, Iana was with ProCure Treatment Centers. At ProCure she helped develop and operate the most extensive network of radiation (proton) therapy centers in the United States. During her tenure there, the company raised more than $700M and secured strategic investments from large healthcare systems and independent physician groups. After leaving ProCure, she joined Alvarez & Marsal’s Healthcare Group, where she focused her time on helping private equity firms evaluate potential investments and improve operations at their healthcare services and MedTech portfolio companies.
Iana earned her MBA from Columbia University and received her bachelor’s degree, with honors, also from Columbia University.
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.
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.
