BioTools Innovator Live 2022
The goal of the BioTools Innovator webinar series is to provide the life science tools ecosystem and our portfolio companies with guidance from experts in areas that are specific to the strategic needs outlined in our discussions and surveys.
Our virtual webinars consist of panelists addressing key questions supplied in advance by the BioTools Innovator Accelerator, as well as a general discussion on the topic within the context of the evolving life sciences tools ecosystem. Our webinars are live-streamed on our YouTube Channel and are available for viewing on this page.
2022 Webinars
Perfecting Your Pitch Video
Blythe Karow, Co-founder, President, & COO, has over 20 years of experience in medical device strategy, product development, product launch, and marketing. She has worked in multiple medical device areas including neuromodulation, CRM, orthopedic, wound care, cardiovascular, image-guided interventions, women’s health, dermatology, spinal, and diagnostics. Her prior experience includes work both as a consultant and with medical device companies, ranging from startups to Fortune 100s, including Medtronic, J&J, and Boston Scientific.
Dr Nick Skaer has over 25 years’ research experience and 15 years as a medtech CEO, raising over €20m in investment and grant funding and authoring 35 granted patents and numerous scientific publications. In 2008 he founded Orthox with Prof. Oliver Kessler, securing a major award from Wellcome Trust. Since then he has led the scientific and commercial programs at Orthox, securing €6.5m Series A investment from 2015 and over €10m in grants and awards to develop Orthox’s FibroFix cartilage repair technology. Before this he was CSO, then CEO, of Oxford Biomaterials from 2004 to 2009. During this period he authored 5 patents, secured over £2 million in public grants and private equity finance and formed 3 spin out companies from Oxford Biomaterials to commercialise FibroFix™ technology. Between 1992 and 2003 he studied Molecular Biology at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (UK) and obtained his PhD from the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg (France).
VC Perspective on Fundraising in BioTools
Founder and Managing Director, Genoa Ventures
PhD Genetics, Yale University
BS Physics, Georgia Tech
Responsible for sourcing, evaluating, planning, and managing RCT’s life sciences investments. My focus has been on investment opportunities in platform technologies used in drug discovery, development, and manufacturing as well as laboratory reagents, instruments, cells, and other research products used in the laboratory setting. Recent investments include Halo Labs, seqWell, and TD2.
As Managing Director, Mr. Poltilove guides BroadOak’s investment strategy and advises portfolio companies in Life Seances and Cell and Gene Therapy. Mr. Poltilove joined BroadOak after 12 years with Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he served most recently as Vice President and General Manager for a fully integrated $200M+ diagnostics business. Previously with the company, Mr. Poltilove built a new organization to lead the Thermo Fisher’s strategy in Cell and Gene Therapy. Before joining Thermo Fisher, Mr. Poltilove served as the Director of Revenue Strategy & Operations for the Corporate Executive Board and held several commercial strategy roles with Johnson & Johnson. He holds Bachelor’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Economics from MIT as well as an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
How to Select your Beachhead Market?
Strategic Partnerships and Co-Development
30yrs experience working across a breadth of biotech related companies from industrial enzymes, to bioinformatics, to drug discovery and development, to bio analytical tools. Last 11yrs at Danaher – half the time in M&A, a few years heading up strategy and business development for billion dollar operating companies – Sciex and Beckman Coulter and last 4 years starting up Danaher’s corporate venture group. Heading up investments on east coast in life sciences and diagnostics. Presently serving on multiple board of directors and advising numerous start ups.
Lead for business development for Thermo Fisher’s Protein and Cell Analysis business.
Working for new business development through the collaboration with startups, companies and universities in the US and other countries.
Tad leads the Agilent team that sources, negotiates and manages the partnership relationships of over 30 early stage biotech companies and licenses. He has been in the life science industry for 20 years, serving in a variety of research, business development, financial and management roles. Prior to joining Agilent, Tad co-founded two companies as well as worked in the venture capital and petrochemical industries. He serves on multiple Boards; is a Professional Engineer; holds multiple patents and degrees from Wharton, UT Austin and UC Berkeley.
Sales and Marketing for life science tools
Seasoned leader helping deliver solutions that enhance human health. Over 23 years of well-rounded experience in the life sciences tools industry leading commercial organizations to high growth. Excel in development and execution of business strategy, sales, marketing, and innovation planning. Expert in problem solving and deployment of business processes to maximize efficiency and drive growth. Intimate understanding of life sciences customers and market segments.
Skillful combination of deal-making experience with subject matter expertise. Active in screening, modeling and due diligence on numerous acquisition projects with deal value up to $2B for Sartorius. Built >$3B segmented deal pipeline for Sartorius across life science laboratory equipment and consumables, research reagents and equipment, biopharmaceutical workflow covering mAbs, cell and gene therapies and biopharma software (SaaS). As business lead for M&A, led opportunities from inception through screening and due diligence to closing. Involved in acquisition and divestment projects at Danaher and Sartorius.
Kim is a dynamic sales management professional with over 25 years of experience breaking into new markets, executing strategic plans and surpassing market CAGRs. She brings to the event her historical ‘fixer’ success in pragmatically building out early-stage sales organizations, focused messaging of differentiating advantages and motivating under-performing teams to success. Her broad technical expertise ranges from academic research and pharmaceutical drug discovery through to commercial process development and production for consumables, benchtop equipment, cGMP ancillary production materials and multi-million $ milestone project delivery of custom automation and service solutions. She is currently the VP of Sales at InDevR, an innovative microarray SME that is accelerating vaccine analytics.
Mark has over 25 years’ experience in sales and marketing for established and start-up companies. He received his BS at the University of California in Santa Barbara in Pharmacology. Following his achievement as a top sales performer for Waters Corp., he founded an online laboratory equipment marketplace which was successfully merged with SciQuest.com. which went public in 1999.
Using his extensive startup experience, Mark joined Eksigent in 2003 initially overseeing sales and moved to marketing programs where he guided the branding and lead generation efforts. Following a successful sale of Eksigent to Danaher, Mark was recruited to lead Global Sales at Fluxion Biosciences where he led the product release of 2 novel technologies and developed cost effective and productive methods for sales management and lead generation.
Currently Mark and his team of associates is now applying his 25+ years of experience in start-ups to guide emerging companies to success by providing interim solutions for tactical sales and marketing. He has redefined the sales process, developed key techniques for market validation and created methods for young companies to determine the best go-to-market approach. His background in sales and marketing in younger environments enables him to develop and execute plans for all facets of life science reagents and equipment.
Product Development and Manufacturing
Working for new business development through the collaboration with startups, companies and universities in the US and other countries.