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About Us : Industrial Advisory Board

The Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) provides strategic business advice and links to financial and management resources to support the commercialization of Cleveland Clinic technology. The IAB is made up of venture capitalists, corporate executives, and technologists. The IAB offers guidance on high-potential technology licenses, strategy, and all potential spin-offs. The IAB Investment Committee advises on investments and company creation.

Harry Rein Harry Rein
IAB Chairman and General Partner
Foundation Medical Partners
Tim Biro Tim Biro
Managing Partner
Ohio Innovation Fund I, L.P
Glenn Brown Glenn Brown
President
Generation Foundation
Brian Canann Brian Canann
Vice President
The Carlyle Group
Andrew D. Firlik, M.D. Andrew D. Firlik, M.D.
General Partner
Foundation Medical Partners
Patrick J. Fortune Patrick J. Fortune, Ph. D.
Partner
Boston Millennia Partners
pat@bmpvc.com
Jack Granowitz Jack Granowitz
Senior Technical Advisor to the Executive Director
STV
Ken Higgins

Ken Higgins
Managing Director
Greene Holcomb & Fisher LLC

Keith Kerman, M.D. Keith Kerman, M.D.
Managing Director
Primus Capital Funds, Inc
Steve Lindseth Steve Lindseth
Chairman
Axentis, Inc.
Duncan McVean, Ph.D. Duncan McVean, Ph.D.
Consultant
Pharmaceutical Industry
Doug Morton, Ph.D. Doug Morton, Ph.D.
Consultant
Pharmaceutical Industry
William C. Mulligan William C. Mulligan
Managing Director
Primus Capital Funds, Inc
Jessica Owens Jessica Owens
Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Rebecca B. Robertson Rebecca B. Robertson
Managing Director
Versant Ventures
Bill Sanford Bill Sanford
Founder and Chairman
Symark LLC
Stephen Sullivan, M.D. Stephen Sullivan, M.D.
Partner
Skyline Ventures

CCI Industrial Advisory Board Bios

Harry Rein, Chairman IAB and General Partner, Foundation Medical Partners. Prior to Foundation Medical, Mr. Rein served for 15 years as the founder and managing general partner of Canaan Partners, he also was president and CEO of GE Venture Capital Corporation. Mr. Rein has extensive experience with small and mid-sized companies, including the supervision of all investments made by GE Venture Capital during his tenure as president. He joined General Electric Company in 1979 and directed several of GE’s lighting businesses as general manager before joining the venture capital subsidiary. He also worked for Polaroid Corporation in several manufacturing positions; with Transaction Systems, Inc., a strategic consulting firm, as a vice president; and with Gulf Oil Corporation as director of corporate planning. Mr. Rein is a director of Anadigics, CardioNet, IlluminOss and Spine Wave, Inc. He is a trustee of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation and The University of Virginia Darden School Foundation. He is also on the board of Waveny Care Center, where he serves as vice chairman. Previously he was a member of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) board of directors and was the recipient of the 2002 NVCA Outstanding Service Award. Mr. Rein attended Emory University and Ogelthorpe College, and he holds an MBA from The Darden School at the University of Virginia.

Tim Biro, Managing Partner, Ohio Innovation Fund I, L.P. and Partner with Reservoir Venture Partners. Both Ohio Innovation Fund and Reservoir Venture Partners are venture capital partnerships focused on investing in early-stage technology based companies primarily in Ohio and the Midwest. Technologies of interest include life sciences, information technology and advanced materials. From 1980 to 1989, Mr. Biro was with Merck & Co., Inc. holding management positions in Operations Management. He most recently served as Superintendent of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing. Prior to Merck, Mr. Biro worked in cancer research at Hershey Medical Center and in business planning in the Chemical Products Group of FMC Corporation. Mr. Biro holds a B.S. in Microbiology from Pennsylvania State University, a B.S. in Pharmacy from Temple University, and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from The Wharton School of Business. Mr. Biro currently serves on the Board of Directors of DATATRAK (NASDAQ:DATA), and several private companies and not-for profit organizations.

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Glenn Brown, President of the Generation Foundation. He was appointed as Science and Technology Advisor to Governor Voinovich in June of 1996 and served in that role for both Governor Voinovich and his successor Governor Taft. Dr. Brown received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Penn State University and a Ph.D. in the same discipline from the Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University). Dr. Brown was associated with Standard Oil (now BP Amoco) for 33 years. He served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (as well as Board Member) with responsibility for research and development, engineering, patenting and licensing, health, safety and environmental affairs, alternate energy, and corporate planning. After retirement from Standard Oil, he spent seven years at Case Western Reserve University. While with the University, Dr. Brown was the first Dean of the combined faculties and Vice Provost of Corporate Research and Technology Transfer. Dr. Brown has served on numerous corporate boards including Central Bank, Society National Bank, Ferro Corporation and Nordson Corporation. He has also served as a trustee of the Cleveland Playhouse Square Foundation (Chair, 1991-1996), The Cleveland Opera, The Botanical Garden of Cleveland, Hawken School, Cleveland Reads (Chair, 1987-1993), the Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program, Cleveland Engineering Society, the American Red Cross, Notre Dame College, United Way Services, and the American Chemical Society (Chair, Cleveland Section, 1983).

Brian Canann, Vice President, The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm. Brian specializes in early and growth-stage medical device companies as part of the U.S. Venture and Growth Fund at The Carlyle Group. He has 12 years of operating and venture capital experience with medical device companies. Brian joined Carlyle from Medtronic, where he was the marketing lead for the Endeavor drug-eluting stent development program. He previously worked in the critical care division of Edwards Lifesciences in strategic planning and global product management. He was also a CPA in the Boston office of Price Waterhouse. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Carefx and a Board Observer for AcuFocus, Cellutions, PixelOptics, Primary Health and Endius (sold to Zimmer). Brian received an MS and BS in accounting from Brigham Young University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Andrew D. Firlik, M.D., General Partner, Foundation Medical Partners. Dr. Firlik joined Foundation Medical Partners in 2005 to concentrate on medical device and biopharmaceutical investments. Prior to Foundation, he was a venture partner at Sprout Group and a managing director of its healthcare technology spinout, New Leaf Venture Partners. Previously, he was a principal at Canaan Partners. Dr. Firlik has led investments and served on the board of directors of many early stage companies. He is a co-founder and inventor of the core technology platform of Northstar Neuroscience (Nasdaq: NSTR), a medical device company that is currently in late stage clinical trials of a neuromodulation technology for stroke recovery. Dr. Firlik is the Chairman of NovaVision, a medical therapeutics firm focusing on neuroplasticity for visual disorders. He currently serves on the board of directors of BioNeuronics, SpineWave, and Frontier Medical. Dr. Firlik is a member of the Cornell University Council. He studied biology at Cornell University and Oxford University, received his MBA from the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, and his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. Dr. Firlik is a board certified neurosurgeon and has published numerous scientific articles in the field.

Patrick Fortune, Ph.D., Partner, Boston Millennia Partners, a venture capital that invests in healthcare, life sciences and certain parts of information technology. Dr. Fortune has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare, life sciences and information technology sectors. He was previously President and Chief Operating Officer of New Era of Networks; Vice President at Monsanto; Vice President, at Bristol Myers Squibb;, Group President at Baxter International; and VP R&D at Baxter International. Dr. Fortune currently serves on the boards of directors of Parexel International Corp, Combinatorx, Inc. and Epix Pharmaceuticals as well as several private life sciences companies. He has been responsible for nurturing start-up activities from idea to prototype to standalone business. He has also been involved in some 30 M&A transactions from sourcing the company to closing the deal and successfully integrating the result. Pat has served on the engineering and scientific advisory boards of The University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois, and the University of Chicago. Pat holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, an MBA from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin.

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Jack Granowitz, Senior Technical Advisor to the Executive Director of STV, with special focus on STV Partnerships (an expanding technology transfer consortium of academic centers to enhance the impact and speed the use of university-generated discoveries). Mr. Granowitz joined Columbia University's technology transfer office, Columbia Innovation Enterprise, in 1983, and served as Executive Director from 1988 through 2000. Under his leadership, the office was built and staffed with more than 30 people. Revenue from intellectual property and support for research and development grew to more than $167 million per year. As a result, Columbia University leads U.S. universities and research centers in revenues from the transformation of knowledge products to public use. Columbia University now has equity interest in over forty startup companies, several of which have gone public. As Executive Director, Mr. Granowitz directed several significant collaborative academic deals, most notably including a major research and licensing collaboration with Oxford University, Pasteur, and Eli Lilly Corporation; formation of publicly-held Pharmacopeia, Inc. in conjunction with Cold Springs Harbor Laboratories; and establishment of MPEG LA, LLC., which pools MPEG II patents from Columbia and seven industrial partners. He led development of numerous major licensing and research collaborations, including the licensing of technologies for co-transformation, chimeric antibodies and diagnostic kits. Prior to joining Columbia University, Mr. Granowitz worked in the corporate health care industry. He was Vice-President and General Manager of the International Division of IPCO Corporation and before that was an executive with American Cyanamid Company and Pfizer, Inc. He was involved with the development and marketing of medical and pharmaceutical products including the first surgical scrub sponge and the first total hip prosthesis. He holds several patents related to medical and surgical devices. Mr. Granowitz holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in chemical engineering from New York University and an MBA from Iona College.

Ken Higgins, Managing Director of Greene Holcomb & Fisher LLC, a Minneapolis-based boutique investment bank that provides a merger & acquisition and financial advisory services to middle market companies. Mr. Higgins joined Greene Holcomb & Fisher in April 2007 to lead the firm’s healthcare practice. Previously, Mr. Higgins was a founding partner of Sightline Partners and Managing Director of its predecessor, Piper Jaffray Ventures. Venture capital funds managed by SightLine / Piper Jaffray Ventures made more than 40 investments in the medical device, healthcare services and biotechnology sectors during Mr. Higgins’ ten-year tenure. Prior to joining Piper Jaffray Ventures, Mr. Higgins was a Vice President at Piper Jaffray & Co., where he led the firm’s healthcare services M&A practice. Previously, he practiced law at Dorsey & Whitney in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago, Illinois, focusing on leveraged buyouts, mergers & acquisitions and venture capital transactions. Mr. Higgins is a board member of Kadent Corp., a healthcare revenue cycle management company. Mr. Higgins is a graduate of the University of Michigan (BBA, Finance) and the Harvard Law School (JD).

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Keith Kerman, M.D., Managing Director, Primus Venture Partners. Dr. Kerman joined Primus Capital Funds, Inc in 2003 and has over 12 years of private equity and operating company experience. Prior to joining Primus, Dr. Kerman was a general partner with Morgenthaler Ventures for six years and a partner with Marquette Venture Partners for two years. He has been active in both early and later stage healthcare, medical technology and life science companies. Dr. Kerman was previously an operating executive at U.S. Healthcare, where he was president of that company's subsidiary providing outsourced services to self-funded health plans. Prior to joining U.S. Healthcare, Dr. Kerman was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served on the clinical faculty at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and was a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics at The Wharton School. Dr. Kerman has an M.D. from Brown University and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kerman focuses on the firm's medical technology, healthcare services and life sciences investment activities. Dr. Kerman is responsible for the firm's investment in excelleRx, Inc. and serves on the Board of Directors of AxioMed, Inc. and Cardio-Optics, Inc.

Steve Lindseth, Chairman, Axentis, Inc. Steve has been a founder of a number of software, high-technology healthcare, manufacturing and consumer-products companies. Most recently, Mr. Lindseth founded Axentis, Inc, a leading venture backed provider of enterprise software serving the governance, risk and compliance market, where he serves Chairman. Prior to Axentis he founded and served as Chief Executive Officer and then Chairman of Complient Corp., a venture-backed, business-process outsourcing company, sold to Cardiac Science, Inc (NASDAQ) in 2003. He was a founding shareholder of Dental Research Corporation, sold to Bausch & Lomb (NYSE) and Thermoscan Inc., sold to The Gillette Company (NYSE). He has raised over $175 million in private equity for the companies he has helped found. Mr. Lindseth holds a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Pitzer College, a member of the Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California.

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Duncan McVean, Ph.D., is a self-employed consultant specializing in manufacturing, pharmaceutics, and quality control as applied to pharmaceuticals. Most recently, he was CEO of Ridgeway BioSciences, a business spin-off of CCI. At the same time, he was Chairman of the Board of Scanlabs, a health and wellness company of which he was one of the founders. Prior to that, Dr. McVean was employed by Ben Venue Laboratories as Vice President from September 1984 to October 1999. Previously, he had been employed at Merrell-National Laboratories in Product Development and, later, in Quality Control. His final position at Merrell was Director of Quality Control. He left Merrell National Laboratories to become a co-founder of Gentek, Inc, a manufacturer of generic pharmaceuticals. At Gentek, he was responsible for Product Development and for Manufacturing. He next joined Adria Laboratories, Inc. as Manager of Product Development and shortly thereafter became Director of Manufacturing. He earned a B.S. in Pharmacy, an M.S. in Pharmacy, and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry (Physical) from the University of Michigan , and, later, an MBA (Humanistic Management) from Xavier University of Cincinnati. He is a Registered Pharmacist in Michigan and Ohio.

Doug Morton, Ph.D., is a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, specializing in discovery, early development and strategic alliances. He was previously CEO of the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, an incubator/accelerator that provides wet-laboratory space, access to venture funding and business services to emerging companies in the life sciences arena. Dr. Morton spent the majority of his career in the pharmaceutical industry, joining the Upjohn Company as a research scientist in 1973. He remained with the surviving entity through Upjohn's merger with Pharmacia AB (in 1996), the consolidation of Pharmacia & Upjohn with Monsanto (in 2000), and Pharmacia's merger with Pfizer (2003), serving in a series of increasingly significant discovery research management positions. At the time of the Pfizer merger, he was Group Vice President, Technology Acquisitions & Operations for Discovery Research in Pharmacia Corporation. In this position, he was responsible for technology acquisition and operations for worldwide Discovery Research throughout Pharmacia. Dr. Morton holds an A.B. in chemistry from Kenyon College and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Columbia University. He completed postdoctoral studies in organic chemistry at Stanford University. Dr. Morton has served on the Board of Directors of TissueInformatics, Inc. from May 2003 until the closing of Paradigm Genetics' acquisition of the company in 2004. He was a member of the Board of Directors and Interim CEO of Icoria, Inc. (formerly Paradigm Genetics, Inc.) until its acquisition by Clinical Data, Inc. in 2005. He now serves on the Scientific Advisory Board and Management Committee of the Southwest Michigan Life Science Fund and also serves on the Boards of NanoMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc., TCH Pharmaceuticals, Inc., NephRx Corporation and MichBio.

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William C. Mulligan, Managing Director, Primus Venture Partners. Mr. Mulligan joined Primus, a Cleveland-based private equity firm, in 1985 from McKinsey & Company, Inc., the international management consulting firm. Mr. Mulligan has served as a Managing Director of Primus since 1987. His previous work experience includes management positions at Deere and Company and First Chicago Corporation. Mr. Mulligan serves as director of several private companies and Universal Electronics, Inc. (NASDAQ: UEIC) and Golf Galaxy (NASDAQ: GGXY). Mr. Mulligan is a Trustee of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Mr. Mulligan is also a trustee of Denison University, the Western Reser ve Land Conservancy, and the Institute for Educational Renewal. Mr. Mulligan also served as chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board from 2002-2007. Mr. Mulligan received a B.A. in economics from Denison University and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Jessica Owens, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2006 and focuses on investments in life sciences including biotechnology, diagnostics, and medical devices. Jessica brings experience in global public health and infectious disease research from four years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she was a scientist in the Special Pathogens Branch. Her work resulted in the discovery and demonstration of genetic shift among Hantavirus strains. She also developed a number of PCR-based diagnostic assays for the detection of rare infectious diseases. Jessica also conducted research in the Department of Cancer Biology at Stanford University on cell cycle and checkpoint proteins. At KPCB she has been a founding team member of four start-up companies in the areas of diagnostics, antivirals, oncology, and personalized medicine. Prior to KPCB, Jessica worked in equity research at Thomas Weisel Partners covering the diagnostics industry. She also worked in corporate finance as part of the life sciences investment banking team at Robertson Stephens. In addition, Jessica worked in Oncology R&D Project Finance at Genentech. Jessica received an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS from the Department of Cancer Biology at Stanford University, and a BA in Biology from Agnes Scott College.

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Rebecca B. Robertson, Managing Director of Versant Ventures. Beckie specializes in early-stage investing in medical devices and diagnostics at Versant. Her career encompasses 23 years of venture capital and operating experience in medical products as an engineer, entrepreneur, corporate executive and investor. Before co-founding Versant, Beckie was a general partner at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). From 1994-1996, Beckie served as Senior Vice President at Chiron Diagnostics, a division of Chiron Corporation, where she had responsibility for the $200 million Critical Care business unit. In addition, Beckie was Vice President of Business Development where she led numerous deals in support of Chiron Diagnostics business and technology objectives. Prior to that, she was a co-founder and Vice President at Egis, an IVP portfolio company, and held senior management positions in operations and finance at Lifescan, a Johnson & Johnson Company. During her seven-year term at Lifescan, the company grew from an early-stage venture-funded company to a worldwide market leader in diabetes diagnostics. Beckie has served as a director of Pro•Duct Health (sold), Appriva Medical (sold), Quantum Dot (sold), and Coalescent (sold), and currently serves as a director for NeoGuide, Myocor, Intuity Medical, Liposonix, Benvenue, and Spiration. In addition, Beckie serves as an advisor to The Innovation Factory, a medical devices incubator. Beckie holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.

Bill Sanford, Founder and Chairman of Symark LLC, a private equity, technology commercialization, and business development organization headquartered in Naples, Florida. He is also Executive Founder and retired Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Steris Corporation (NYSE:STE), a global leader in infection and contamination prevention systems, products, services, and technologies. Mr. Sanford is an experienced entrepreneur, executive, consultant, investor, and board member with extensive new venture, merger and acquisition, turnaround, senior management, and market development experience. His business career has focused on the development and commercialization of healthcare and scientific products, health services, advanced information systems, and other innovative technology applications. He holds several patents related to medical technology and devices. Mr. Sanford serves as a Board member and Advisor to numerous organizations, including KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY), Greatbatch, Inc. (NYSE:GB), BIOMEC Inc., Cardinal Commerce, MicroGroup, NanoScale Corporation, NutriJoy, Inc., Cleveland Clinic, Kansas State University Foundation, and several early and growth stage technology companies and investment partnerships. He is founding and past Chairman of BioEnterprise Corporation, Chairman Emeritus of NorTech, past Vice Chairman of Omeris, a charter member of the State of Ohio Technology Action Board, Vice Chairman of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

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Stephen Sullivan, M.D., Partner, Skyline Ventures, joined Skyline Ventures, a leading early stage healthcare venture investor, in 2000. He has been involved managing and investing in healt hcare companies and in practicing medicine since 1981. He completed his three year residency and was Chief Resident in Medicine at Stanford in 1985, and then for a decade had one of the larger medical practices in Silicon Valley, during which time he became intimately involved with the venture capital community. He completed the Program in Management Development at Harvard Business School in 1995. Shortly thereafter, he became the first clinician and one of the original employees of Eclipsys (NASDAQ:ECLP), a healthcare information technology company where he served in sales, product management and business development roles. He has had clinical faculty appointments at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Stanford University Medical School. He received a B.S. Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University, and an M.D. from New York University Medical School. He also sits on outside advisory boards for the University of San Francisco School of Business and Management and Duke University's School of Engineering, and served as an internist for the National Hockey league's San Jose Sharks during their inaugural season in 1991-1992.

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