SPEAKERS

•  Philippe Berthon, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Vaxon Biotech

Dr Berthon is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Vaxon Biotech. He founded UroGene in 1998, and was successively CEO and President & CSO. Prior to these appointments, Dr Berthon was co-founder and CEO of the Center for Research on Prostate Pathologies (CeRePP) at Hospital Saint Louis, Paris, from 1995-1999; senior post-doctoral fellow at the Cancer Research Unit, University of York, UK, for 3 years; and research fellow at Paris VI University for 5 years. Dr Berthon co-authored more than 50 scientific and international publications, and received his PhD in Reproductive Physiology at Paris VI University, France.

• Steven Kirsher, CEO of Cartagen Molecular

Mr. Kirsher has over twenty years experience in the biotechnology industry having held a variety of positions in research, product marketing, and operations management.  Currently he is the founder and CEO of Cartagen Molecular Systems Inc.  Cartagen was founded in 2003 to bring innovative technologies to the market in support of researchers involved in agricultural biotechnology.  Mr. Kirsher first started his career in the early 1980’s as the biotechnology industry was just beginning.  He held research positions that focused on the characterization of natural and recombinant proteins at organizations such as UCSF’s Gladstone Foundation for Cardiovascular Research, California Biotechnology, and Syntex Research.  In 1990, Mr. Kirsher joined the corporate marketing group at Applied Biosystems and spent several years working in support of ABI’s protein instrumentation both in the US and in Japan.  He spent a total of five years in Japan working for ABI, Cruachem and Life Technologies.  At Cruachem and Life Technologies, he was responsible for establishing and managing oligo synthesis facilities in Japan.  Later as product development business manager for Life Technologies, he oversaw the global oligo business.  Lastly, he joined Arcturus, a manufacturer of laser capture microdissection equipment where he held positions both in product management for kit development and managing their Asian sales.  Mr. Kirsher holds bachelor’s degrees in Science and Economics from the California State University system.

• Charlotte Rogers, Life Science Consultant

Charlotte Rogers is a seasoned business development and marketing executive with over 15 years of life science experience in therapeutics, genomics, and diagnostics. She provides business development and marketing services to companies ranging from pre-Series A to publicly traded companies.  She is experienced in all aspects of a start-up company including fundraising, strategic planning, business development, marketing, investor/public relations, and building infrastructure.  She has closed numerous technology and therapeutics licensing transactions valued at over $240 million.  She has directed commercial strategy, all aspects of market development, and has provided marketing direction to development and scientific teams for products with projected revenues exceeding $2 billion.  Charlotte has held management positions at Syntex, Roche, Neurex, Elan and IntraBiotics.  Most recently, she was Vice President, Business Development at NuGEN, a genomics company.  She successfully built the company with the founders by transitioning the company from an incubator, completing two rounds of financing, and bringing  two genomic products to market in three years.  She holds an M.B.A and B.S. from Santa Clara University.

• Douglas Crawford, Ph.D, Associate Executive Director QB3 Incubator

Douglas Crawford is the associate director of QB3 - California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research. His primary goal is to act as a "knowledge broker," helping researchers accelerate discovery by forming alliances across disciplines and institutions. Previously, he was the executive director of the UC San Francisco (UCSF) Innovation Accelerator, a group dedicated to stimulating entrepreneurship on the UCSF campus, and an assistant licensing officer at the UCSF Office of Technology Management. Crawford received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at UCSF. He worked with Dr. Cynthia Kenyon studying the regulation of lifespan in C. elegans.

MODERATOR

Moderator: Didier G. Perez, Managing Partner of Inovation Venture LLC
Didier Perez, Managing Partner of Inovation Ventures LLC is a venture capitalist specializing in early stage life science companies. In his last position, Didier Perez was Chief Operating Officer of Investigen Inc, a molecular diagnostic company. Previously Mr. Perez was Managing Director of Plantagenet Capital management, an investment banking firm specializing in turnaround situations

REGISTRATION.

French American Chamber of Commerce
info@faccsf.com
Tel: 415 442 4717 / Fax: 415 442 4621
703 Market Street, Suite 450 - San Francisco, CA 94103
 

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