Board of Directors
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Timothy Mills, Ph. D., Managing Director
Sanderling Ventures
Dr. Mills has over twenty-five years of experience in biomedical research, corporate management and venture investing. Dr. Mills joined Sanderling as an Operating Partner in July 1998, and was promoted to Managing Director in 2000. At Sanderling, Dr. Mills has focused on early stage investments in Medical Devices, Biotherapeutics, and i-Health. He has served Sanderling's portfolio companies as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Director, and/or management team member. Portfolio companies served include Stereotaxis (NASDAQ: STXS) and Stentor, acquired by Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI). Currently, his services include Chairman of Torax Medical, Taligen Therapeutics, Pulsar Vascular, Theregen and Director for CardioNet, Novostent, InfraReDx, TriageWireless and others.
Prior to joining Sanderling, Dr. Mills served as the Corporate Vice President of New Business Development and Chief Scientific Officer of Target Therapeutics, a medical device company that was acquired by Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) in 1997. From July 1994 to July 1997, he was a director for Prograft Medical, a Target affiliate that was acquired by W.L Gore & Associates.
Prior to joining Target in 1994, Dr. Mills served as Director of Business Development and Advanced Research & Development in the Interventional Cardiology Division of Baxter Healthcare, now Edwards Life Science (NYSE: EW). Dr. Mills' previous academic appointments included service as the Director of the Artificial Heart Program at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center and membership in the University of California, San Francisco Radiology Department.
Dr. Mills received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley & San Francisco School of Medicine, his M.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
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Pete McNerney, Managing Partner
Thomas, McNerney & Partners
Mr. McNerney has over 25 years of health care operating and venture capital experience. In addition to co-founding Thomas, McNerney & Partners, Mr. McNerney co-founded Coral Ventures in 1992 where he was responsible for health care investing. Mr. McNerney is currently a board member of AxioMed Spine Corporation, M2 Group Holdings, Inc., Intuity Medical, Inc., Torax Medical Inc. and Ascent Healthcare Solutions. Prior to joining Coral in 1992, he was a co-founder and Managing Partner of The Kensington Group, a firm specializing in providing management services to early stage companies in the health care field. In 1986, he founded and was Chief Executive Officer of Memtec North America, a company established to commercialize cross flow membrane microfiltration technology in North America. Previously, Mr. McNerney spent 11 years with Baxter Healthcare Corporation, where he held various general management positions in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. He has served as President of the Minnesota Venture Capital Association and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. A Certified Public Accountant, Mr. McNerney received a B.A. from Yale and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.
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Charles E. Larsen, Managing Director
Accuitive Medical Ventures
As a co-founder of Accuitive Medical Ventures, Charlie brings over 35 years of operating experience, as well as expansive technical understanding and experience in the medical device industry. Charlie was a co-founder of Novoste Corporation with Tom Weldon where his efforts as a director and executive were critical to its ultimate success. Charlie co-founded The Innovation Factory and serves as its Vice Chairman. Through his role at The Innovation Factory, he is co-founder of AcuFocus, LipoSonix, Cerebral Vascular Applications (CVA), NeoVista, Neuronetics, Cellutions, OsteoLign, AqueSys and Halscion. He holds over 20 issued U.S. patents on medical devices.
Before joining Novoste, Charlie held positions with Novoste Puerto Rico, Cordis Corporation, Key Pharmaceuticals and Parke-Davis/Warner Lambert in executive, senior engineering and project management roles. Charlie received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Charlie currently serves on the boards of Inogen and CardioFocus.
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Chris Grant, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director
Kaiser Permanente Ventures
Mr. Grant is Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Kaiser Permanente's venture capital and corporate development group. He oversees Kaiser Permanente's venture investment strategy which is designed to support the company's healthcare mission while generating venture capital rates of return. Additionally, he oversees corporate development and merger and acquisitions company-wide. Mr. Grant is a Director or has observation rights to the board of numerous portfolio companies. Prior to the formation of the venture fund in 2000, Mr. Grant was responsible for creating, developing and managing a portfolio of new products and business lines for the organization. Before joining Kaiser Permanente in 1995, Mr. Grant held several positions on the Business Development and Financial Management Team of Rockwell International Corp. Additionally, Mr. Grant serves on the Board of Trustees of the Public School District and two charitable funds.
Mr. Grant has a Bachelor's degree in Business from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has completed executive management programs at Kenaan Flagler School of Business (UNC at Chapel Hill) as well as Venture Capital Institute Graduate and Undergraduate programs.
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Todd Berg, Co–Founder, President and CEO
Torax Medical
Mr. Berg brings over fifteen years of experience with pioneering technologies and a proven track record in funding and marketing early stage start-ups to the Venture Capital and clinical community.
Prior to Torax Medical, Mr. Berg was with St. Jude Medical where he was the Vice President of Emerging Technology.
Prior positions at St. Jude Medical included General Manager of the Anastomotic Technology Group and Vice President of Research and Development for the Cardiac Surgery Division. He joined St. Jude Medical through the acquisition of Vascular Science in 1999 where he was the Vice President of Research and Development. Prior to Vascular Science he was with SciMed Life Systems and Boston Scientific.
Mr. Berg holds over sixty patents in the area of medical technology and has published numerous articles in professional journals. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
