About

Bill has more than 25 years of start-up experience in a broad range of medical specialties intersecting science, technology, clinical medicine, and business strategy. Prior to founding Octave Bioscience, he served as the CEO of Crescendo Bioscience which created novel measurement tools and software in the field of rheumatology. Prior to this, he was the President of Alpha BioPartners, a strategic consulting firm advising the launch of new life sciences companies. While at Alpha BioPartners, Bill created the business plan for Crescendo and co-founded Altheus Therapeutics and Biolytx Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, he served as the initial CEO of Selexys Pharmaceuticals and interim CEO of Inoveon in ophthalmology. In the 1990s, Bill was Chairman and CEO of UroCor, a urology specialty diagnostics company which he scaled from start-up through IPO. Earlier in his career, he was Vice President of Baxter International’s $1.0 billion Scientific Products Division and held management positions at the American Hospital Supply and Becton Dickinson. He currently serves on the board of directors for CareDx, Navican, Genalyte and CoFactor. Previously he was on the board of Prometheus Laboratories. Bill holds a BS in Business Management from Bob Jones University.

Brook Byers is a founding member of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. A venture capital investor since 1972, Brook has been closely involved with more than 60 new technology-based ventures, many of which have become public companies. He formed the first life sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led KPCB to become a premier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare and biotechnology sectors. KPCB has invested in and helped build more than 110 life sciences companies that have developed hundreds of products to treat underserved medical needs for many millions of patients. Brook was the founding president and then chairman of four biotechnology companies that were incubated in KPCB’s offices and went on to become public companies with an aggregate market value of more than US $8 billion.

Tom Hawes is a member of the BlueCross BlueShield Fund Management team at Sandbox Industries and serves on the Sandbox Management Committee. He is the Board Chairman for Patientco, serves on the Board of Directors of HeartFlow, BehaveCare, Healthify, Oncology Analytics, and AbleTo and is a board observer of Phreesia, Lumiata, and WellspringHealthcare. Before joining Sandbox, Tom matched at Yale School of Medicine for residency and completed his first year of medical training at Greenwich Hospital. During his medical training, he worked on clinical studies at the ISK Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and on outcomes research at the National Cancer Institute and NYMC’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department. Tom holds a BA from Brigham Young University, an M.D. from New York Medical College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is also a Kauffman Fellow.

Grant has innate skill at anticipating emerging technology and market trends coupled with an ability to coalesce teams of people around a shared vision. He has been in the venture capital industry for over 30 years. During his tenure, Grant co-managed Mayfield’s health care initiative and helped established its renowned franchise in health care. Prior to joining the firm, he was a Vice President at Wood River Capital. During his venture career, Grant has been on the Boards of more than 20 public and private companies.He was the President of the Western Association of Venture Capital and a former Member of the Board of Directors of the National Venture Capital Association. In 2009, Grant received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Venture Capital Association. He holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in Human Biology from Stanford University. Grant continues his active role in venture capital as an angel investor.

Andrea Jackson is a Director at Northpond Ventures and leads the firm’s work in convergent technologies. Previously, Andrea was the commercial lead at FarcastBiosciences, an oncology clinical diagnostic company. Prior to Farcast, Andrea held various senior commercial leadership roles in life science startups and large companies such as PerkinElmer and Millipore. Before her operating roles, Andrea worked in JPMorgan’s Healthcare Investment Banking team and focused on life science tools, diagnostics, and biotechnology companies. Andrea received an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA with honors from Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Michael Pellini is a Managing Partner at Section 32 and Chairman of Foundation Medicine. He previously served as the Chief Executive Officer at Foundation Medicine from 2011 until February 2017. Prior to this he served as Chief Operating Officer at PLUS Diagnostics and was President and Chief Operating Officer at Clarient. He also served as Vice President of Life Sciences at Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. Michael serves as Director and Scientific Advisory Board Member at Cira Discovery Sciences, Chairman of Foundation Medicine and is currently on the boards of Veneti, Adaptive Biotechnologies, Tango Therapeutics and Singular Genomics and The Personalized Medicine Coalition. Michael holds a Medical Degree from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, an MBA Degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia and a BA in Economics from Boston College in Massachusetts.

George Scangos, Ph.D., is the chief executive officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Vir. Previously, he was the chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of Biogen since July 2010. From 1996 to July 2010, George served as the president and chief executive officer of Exelixis, Inc., a drug discovery and development company, where he continues to serve on the board. From 1993 to 1996, George served as president of Bayer Biotechnology, where he was responsible for research, business development, process development, manufacturing, engineering and quality assurance of Bayer’s biological products. Before joining Bayer in 1987, George was a professor of biology at Johns Hopkins University, where he is still an adjunct professor. He served as non-executive chairman of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from 2005 to July 2010 and was a director of the company from 2003 to July 2010. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Agilent, Exelixis, and Decibel Therapeutics. George served as the Chair of PhRMA from March of 2016 to January of 2017. He also served as the chair of the California Healthcare Institute in 2010 and was a member of the board of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development until 2010. He is a member of the boards of trustees of the Boston Museum of Science and the Biomedical Science Careers Program, and a member of the National Board of Visitors of the University of California, Davis School of Medicine.