Positioning Your Startups for Success

Jeffrey Hausfeld MD, MBA, is the Chairman of the Board of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, who moderated a panel for Pismo Venture’s first Life science Symposium. This panel details how you can position your start-ups for success with panelists from the community.

Panelists include:

Errol Arkilic, PhD is a nationally recognized leader in technology transfer and entrepreneurship, is the Chief Innovation Officer at the University of California, Irvine, and Executive Director for UCI Beall Applied Innovation. Previously, Errol was the founding and lead program director for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program where he led the I-Corps effort from its inception.

Erika Bechtold, PhD is currently leading US commercial activities for two early-stage commercial companies headquartered in Vienna, Austria. She is the VP of Strategy for a digital health company called Image Biopsy Labs. Prior to that, she was the Director of Technology Commercialization at Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development, supporting the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Darren Cooke, Esq. is the Executive Director of the Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Center at UC Berkeley, and Professional Faculty at the Berkeley Haas business school. He chairs the Bio Track at Berkeley SkyDeck, and is on the faculty for the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program. He is also the past chair of Medical Device and Digital Health at Life Science Angels.

Nishta Rao is currently Managing Director at First Republic Bank where she is responsible for the growth and expansion of the Bank’s Life Science vertical. Prior to this, Nishta was Managing Director, BioLabs@NYULangone where she supported the translation of technologies into commercially viable products and therapies. In addition, Nishta has also launched and led Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs (PICb). Nishta served as Senior Director of Scientific Operations at Kadmon, a biotech startup based in New York City that focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialization of small molecules and biologics. Nishta has also worked at Mt. Sinai Innovation Partners, the technology transfer office at Mt. Sinai as a Business Development Analyst evaluating technologies and developing partnerships aimed towards the commercialization of new technologies.

To view other upcoming events with SoPE and partners, please visit our events page.