Our Team Is Your Team

My Backstory

Raised in the historic city of Suzhou, China, often celebrated as the ‘Venice of the East’ my early childhood memory was mostly exploring the local gardens with temples, pavilions, and rock sculptures; a number of those dating from the 11th to the 19th century. I was always fascinated by nature and strongly curios about how biology worked: from insects to animals. At home, my parents shaped my early fascination with building business and impactful healthcare: my entrepreneurial father built a successful business with lessons from the School of Hard Knocks and a small family savings account, and my compassionate mother, a dedicated nurse worked tirelessly to provide the best care possible to her patients. Inspired by the drive and commitments of my parents, and without knowing anyone in Canada or even speaking a full sentence in English, I followed my passion in biology and decided to move by myself to Canada at the age of 15 to study science. During my Ph.D., studies in neuroscience at the University of Toronto, significant health changes in my family proved to be a pivotal moment in deepening my mission to make an impact from bench to bedside. After completing my Ph.D., I decided to follow an entrepreneurial path and co-founded a digital therapeutics company focused on neurological disorders. That journey was a tapestry of highs and lows, but when the chips were down I always reminded myself of the mission and impact and many thank you letters from patients who benefited from our products. Fueled by this experience I ultimately was open to new paths to make a positive impact on patients. I ultimately ended up pitching the Lumira team for capital and while they turned me down they did offer me the opportunity to join the team and engage in the world of venture capital. The idea of working with a group of really passionate, smart, and hardworking people at the intersection of business and healthcare to make the world a better place for patients reminded me of the inspiration I took from my parents. Just like starting the new chapter of my life in Canada when I was in high school, without any hesitation, I started my journey with Lumira and never looked back…

What Drives Me Today

As a passion-driven investor exclusively focused on healthcare, I am motivated by a profound desire to make a tangible, positive impact on patients’ lives. This goes beyond financial returns and includes being a part of revolutionary advancements that can transform healthcare. Investing in disruptive innovations offers the opportunity to contribute significantly to societal well-being. Additionally, there is a strong commitment to accelerating the commercialization of translational research from academic institutions. Transforming promising research into viable therapeutics or medical devices is crucial in providing better treatment options and improving the healthcare landscape. This holistic approach combines a personal passion for healthcare, a keen eye for innovation, and a dedication to nurturing ideas that can make a real difference in patient care and medical outcomes.

My Backstory

Like many Indian kids, I thought I would grow up to be a doctor (surprise!). I was always excited about life sciences and naively believed that becoming a doctor or a researcher were my two options. However, my professional story traversing academia and management consulting led me to find my passion in venture capital. To go back a few years, I was raised by parents who greatly valued education and hard work. My dad was a professor at a premier academic institution and growing up, every adult around me had a Ph.D., and was deeply rooted in the academic world. My mom, on the other hand, represented a completely different world – she was a fierce leader breaking barriers in the corporate world and paving the way for next-gen women like myself. Unsurprisingly, my professional journey has been a culmination of the two worlds. My decision to pursue a Ph.D., degree and a postdoctoral fellowship was driven by my love for cancer research. I became interested in cancer drug discovery during my undergraduate degree. I recall one defining moment in a biochemistry class, when I learned that complex diseases arise from dysfunctional signaling pathways, and drugging these could potentially reverse disease pathology. While deeply passionate about research, I recognized that I wanted my work to have a meaningful impact on patient lives and go beyond the bench. I started exploring ways to combine my inherent love for life sciences with a deeper understanding of the biotech business. I worked in management consulting providing strategic advice to biotech clients. Subsequently, I took this experience and channeled it towards building and supporting innovative life science companies when I joined Lumira Ventures in 2021.

What Drives Me Today

Finding breakthrough drugs that will translate into effective medicines for patients. Engaging with inspiring entrepreneurs with a vision to shake up the status quo. Interacting with young professionals and next-gen leaders who are dedicated and hardworking. Building and supporting companies that are poised to change patient care for the better.

My Backstory

For many years I’ve enjoyed talking to students just embarking on the beginning of their careers. I tell them about a lesson an early influence of mine shared: that every step along the way is an apprenticeship journey that never ends (perhaps that’s why the mid-stage progression is referred to as Journeyman…).

In any apprenticeship, success is a function of hours devoted to the craft and the skill and temperament of the master guiding you. My early apprenticeship under my parents had passed 157,600 hours by the time I went off to college to study biology and business. From humble roots in small towns of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay and with one high school diploma between them, their success and values still inspire me (Dad, a three-decade career as a Coast Guard captain, after an early stint as a commercial fisherman; Mom, a self-taught accountant for non-profits). With their guidance, I was no longer a greenhorn when it came to devotion to duty, curiosity, compassion, and leadership. These lessons continue.

Summers tending the register, stocking the shelves, and delivering orders at my grandfather’s modest grocery store in my hometown of two thousand (1,650 hours). Humility, patience, how to make change in my head. Arguably still my favorite apprenticeship; there was free ice cream and penny candy. A heart attack and then Parkinson’s disease took my grandfather from us far too early. It was not a battle, which implies a fair fight, because he didn’t have a chance. A profession helping give other people one seemed a worthwhile pursuit. After college and graduate school, the apprenticeship clock re-set, with stints in investment banking (8,230 hours) and healthcare management consulting (15,620 hours). Here, the mentors were peers, bosses and clients, some masters and some still novices themselves. Their lessons were equally valuable regardless of tenure – teamwork, analytical rigor, have fun, love what you do.

Two start-ups later as a co-founder and operator (12,780 hours), I thought I’d made it to Journeyman. But in 2002 I was about to start what is a true apprenticeship business. Now approaching 53,900 hours as an investor and venture capitalist, my team and portfolio company management teams have been my latest mentors. More lessons: challenge assumptions, do the work, and keep patients first. I’m still hopeful to become a Master soon. A few more hours perhaps.

And what exciting hours these promise to be. I’m still driven by the opportunity we have to make a difference for folks brought low by sickness. I feel privileged to work at our four-way intersection of science, medicine, business, and impact. I’m also grateful to share with our entrepreneurs what the hours honing this craft and the ones that came before it have taught me. And fortunately, I meet new mentors and masters every day, as the apprenticeship never stops.

My Backstory

I was born in a small town just outside Toronto to immigrant parents who came to Canada with nothing but hopes for a better life. Their life experiences (including surviving the Depression and WWII (my father spent 3 years in a German work camp)) ultimately defined their values and behaviors. For my mother moving to Canada meant access to the higher education she craved and that she knew would not be available to her in Holland (she started her career as a nurse, became a teacher, and went on to get a PhD in Linguistics late in life). For my father, who had watched his father lose everything in the depression, the goal was a career in a country that offered more stability and certainty. They came to Canada with $150 and built a life. Neither spoke English, my father’s certifications as an accountant were not recognized and shortly after my sister was born my mother, sister and I were in a horrific car accident that left my mother in hospital for 4 months and my sister with permanent brain injuries that would forever define her life. Despite the challenges, my parents built successful careers, my father in government and my mother as a special education teacher. Two working parents in a household with a special needs child put unique demands on all of us, and for the first 2 decades of her life, I was really my sister’s only friend and playmate. Our relationship was the basis for me wanting to do something in the healthcare field.

By the time I started university, I was committed to the idea of a career in medicine or healthcare. But, by the time, I was completing my master’s in Pathology I realized that the lab and the hospital were not for me. Truly an inflection point. So, on the recommendation of a friend, I took the GMAT – no studying – got a good mark and went to do an MBA. Within weeks, I knew I had found my vocation. I loved everything about business, and finance and policy got me particularly engaged. I was fortunate, a professor who was on the board of Connaught Biosciences, Canada’s largest vaccine manufacturer, recruited me to the company allowing me for the first time to combine my vocation and passion. Within a year, I was working for the largest venture capital firm in the country and so began my journey…

My Reset

In June of 2019, with no warning, I transitioned from healthy to very very sick. Within 24 hours, I found myself fully incapacitated (no ability to walk or even feed myself), in the ICU with a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and with a doctor telling my wife it would be “prudent” to get our affairs in order. The experience was truly transformative. 45 days in hospital, more than 1 year of rehab and recovery to learn to walk again, and trying recover a life that, at least for a while, felt like it might be lost. So many parts of this journey have re-shaped me, but none more so than spending countless hours each day rehabbing and connecting with other patients, learning of their journeys, their trials and tribulations, their successes and their failures. It was heartbreaking, humbling, inspiring and eye-opening. Every day since, those insights have offered me a new lens, perspective, and frankly appreciation for what we, and the entrepreneurs Lumira works with, do and why it all matters so very much.

What Drives Me Today

For me, passion engagement is a huge part of the equation. I want to work with people who share my values and passions, and who are truly driven every single day to build something that will ultimately be transformative for patients. But passion is not enough. I am also looking for people who can combine that passion with business/scientific acumen, processes, and leadership to turn vision into reality. It’s a huge ask, but the very best entrepreneurs we partner with do this seamlessly.

As a parent and proud Canadian, I also like to get deeper into the Canadian part of our business. It matters deeply to me that we build next-generation jobs and create a sustainable ecosystem that translates this country’s incredible innovations into transformative healthcare companies and impactful products for patients. As such, I believe we have a responsibility to proactively engage with governments and other key stakeholders in the shaping of smart policy that is influenced by those looking to better the country and the world, and not just those looking to put another dollar in their pockets. It is why I took on the role of transforming the CVCA in 2011, it is why I am so pleased to see the incredibly positive impact of programs like the Venture Capital Action Plan, and it’s why I lead our firm’s philanthropic engagement.

I am fundamentally of the view that this is a great time for what we do, and I believe we are just in the first innings of a transformation that will see great healthcare companies emerge as they leverage the knowledge of the past two decades while layering in the new technologies, data, and insights that will shape how they develop, deliver and administer next-generation technologies and treatments to patients.

My Backstory

My parents immigrated to Canada from India with almost nothing to their names to pursue a better education and life. My father landed in 1979 to complete a PhD in Molecular Biology at Carleton University and an MBA at the University of Ottawa and my mother followed shortly after. My mother was born with severe asthma, and with no access to effective treatments at the time, she was told for most of her upbringing that she likely wouldn’t live a normal life. Against all odds, she persevered and put herself through medical school and eventually secured a residency position at the University of Ottawa. Fast forward to today, my father recently retired from his position as Manager of Infectious Diseases in Health Canada’s drug approvals division after nearly 35 years (and approved a cure Sovaldi/Harvoni for Hepatitis C which Lumira had a hand in), and my mother continues to practice as a child psychiatrist with The Royal. Goes without saying, my parents are my role models.

My affinity and appreciation for medical innovation are simple and very personal. Like my mother, I was born with severe asthma that put me in the ER on three separate occasions, and one time in particular I am told I almost didn’t make it. But today, mine and my mother’s asthma are now under control in large part due to innovative therapies, dubbed ‘miracles’ by my mother whose only option as a child was to simply wait out her attacks. This is how I learned medical innovations can truly change lives and today I hope to help advance new ‘miracles’ for patients in need.

I began my education at McGill University intent on becoming a doctor to help patients, but eventually concluded I could make a bigger impact pursuing this through business. After 4 years at ZS consulting for big pharma and another 3 with DRI Capital acquiring healthcare royalty streams, I wanted to be closer to innovation and as a proud Canadian I wanted to do that here at home. At the end of 2018, just before leaving for an MBA program at INSEAD, I reached out to Lumira to understand what opportunities would be available to me after graduating. After being inspired by Lumira’s mission, I decided to forego my start date (and a sizeable deposit) to apply to Lumira – the rest is history!

What Drives Me Today

Unfortunately, I’ve lost people close to me for a variety of reasons: prostate cancer, atrial fibrillation/heart failure, mental health, and degenerative genetic conditions. I have had others whose quality of life has been impacted in living with their conditions or helping family members live with theirs: asthma, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and dementia, macular degeneration, etc. My list goes on and I imagine everyone has a list of their own.

As healthcare venture capitalists, we are in the fortunate position of being able to influence which potential life-saving treatments get funded and advanced to patients. However, this opportunity also comes with a significant responsibility to do right by the patients we hope to serve while treating those we work with fairly along the way. It is our duty to ensure these treatments are both safe and effective for patients and that our companies are operating with strong ethics and integrity.

My Backstory

From my humble beginnings as a child raised by immigrants (arriving in Canada with only a suitcase in hand at the age of 20 years in the early 1950’s) from war-torn central Europe I learned very early a lot about what it takes to survive and prosper when starting on a shoestring. I’ve always been curious and have had a knack for all things technical. In my early teens, at a time when there was no such thing as a personal computer, I would spend copious hours on weekends playing with and programing mini computers (perhaps typical for a shy, more introverted kid) and tinkering with mechanical things like cars). I also had a fascination with how technologies become products for the masses – but was far too shy and did not have the network to help guide me with this innate passion. Ultimately, perhaps somewhat randomly, I decided to enter a biology program convinced I would go into medicine. After some time exploring the field through volunteering, I decided to turn my curiosity toward a PhD, and subsequent post-doctoral studies at McGill. Not convinced academic research was my ultimate passion I moved into the industry and joined a bioinformatics startup right at the start of the first wave of the genomics revolution. While venture-backed, the company ultimately failed post the 2000 crash, but the learnings were immense. Through a connection of my former CEO, I was introduced to the predecessor of Lumira where I took on an operating role to create the firm’s back-end data analytics and computing infrastructure. Post the management buy-out I was recruited to take on additional investment roles with a focus on neuroscience.

What Drives Me Today

I get to work with technology at the forefront of healthcare and IT innovation with passionate teams and individuals with a tenacity that is electric. This gets me up in the morning every day knowing that something I do will contribute to making a real change in this world. Working in my first company in the 1990s as the genomics revolution was starting to unfold, we had great ideas for gathering copious amount of …omics and biological data combined with the outstanding research in the world but the tools were just not powerful enough. Today that’s all changed, as a function of advances in all areas of our understanding of biological systems through new computational tools, big data, and AI. Today we are living through another major shift in the technological landscape which will afford us the opportunity to develop new products to manage or perhaps even cure diseases and deliver healthcare on a global scale which we’ve never seen before. I’m in a fortunate position to work with and mentor passionate entrepreneurs to help move the needle on some of these innovative technologies. It’s fantastic.

The Formative Years

Much to my parent’s dismay, I spent my early years in Costa Rica, playing soccer believing, “Football is Life”. My parents were immigrants who had fled discrimination and persecution, and for whom education had been the ladder to escape. As a result, my parents were pretty traumatized – preferring I be more studious but the reality was, soccer gave me a better and more complete lens on the world – yes it was fun, but more importantly, it was also about the teamwork, collaboration, and spontaneity (have the ball will play). At the same time, it afforded me an opportunity to be with people from virtually every socio-economic background and age. Thereby allowing me to develop my own unique understanding and appreciation of the social fabric of a society, the types of challenges that poor and disadvantaged individuals face almost daily, and the importance of obtaining a good education and access to healthcare to remove barriers to success.

Late in my high school education, we moved to Paris as my father went on sabbatical. There I learned French and became much more disciplined and focused on my education. While the transition was tough, our family values; a positive attitude, hard work, and tenacity supporting each other, got my sisters and I through it. This was a formative time for me, in which I was influenced by a few great teachers, two parents with eclectic and broad interests, and my reading of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”. That book was the game changer that narrowed my interest in the biological sciences.

The idea of a career in medicine started to emerge as the most impactful way to change patients’ lives and so I moved to the US to start that journey. The initial focus was to improve my English – but ultimately I ended up securing a scholarship from Rice University. After graduating, I believed I was destined for a brilliant career as an academic researcher and the next step on that path was to study Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at McGill University in Canada. I completed my Ph.D., I got married, moved to Toronto, and started my post-doctoral training at the Ontario Cancer Institute, which at the time was home to many of the world’s leading scientists.

Deviating from a Linear Trajectory and Embracing Risk

By the time I completed my post-doctoral training, the funding model for medical research, particularly for new investigators had pretty much dried up (sounds like this might be my first exposure to the realities of VC). Fortunately, serendipity interceded, and one of my academic mentors encouraged me to consider going into the industry. This was of course pure heresy and it felt like a huge risk, one that might forever dislodge me from my path. But, with some trepidation, I chose to embraced that risk and doing that ultimately gave me a huge degree of freedom to consider several alternative innovative research opportunities outside of academia. This included an offer for a basic research position at a small pharmaceutical company in Toronto that was putting in place a major program to develop a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Over the next 13 years, the program expanded significantly, I ultimately ended up leading a multifunctional global program that included multiple collaborations with other innovative biotech start-ups, and the firm expanded multi-fold through a series of M&A activities. With growth came bureaucracy, and just as I started to think about “what next” I was offered an opportunity to join a VC firm. I knew nothing about VC and being a life sciences investor had never been a goal of mine, BUT the prospect of helping founders and entrepreneurs translate scientific innovation into therapeutics for clinical unmet needs was something that really excited me. This has ultimately turned out to be the most interesting and rewarding professional undertaking in my career particularly after Peter joined and we led the buy-out that allowed us to build the firm in our vision and with our values. My family is often surprised to see how happy I have been at Lumira, but the reality is this isn’t a job, it’s my passion. My journey is a reminder that in life one has to openly embrace risk, and be tenacious but also flexible enough to allow us to recognize and capitalize on unforeseen opportunities.

What Drives Me Today

Learning about the latest innovations in life sciences and talking to founders and serial entrepreneurs about their dreams and goals is a key driver in my daily activities. There is nothing more stimulating than discussing with them and my partners at work the opportunities that emerge from the application of the latest innovations.

I thrive in environments where teamwork is the norm and where knowledgeable, visionary colleagues challenge each other respectfully to achieve consensus and alignment of goals. My investment objective is to only support passionate founders and entrepreneurs who want to build transformative businesses with clearly defined therapeutic outcomes that may improve patient lives.

My Backstory

Sports were my world growing up, despite being incredibly injury-prone. This blend of passion and setbacks ignited a dream: to become a sports doctor and help injured athletes like myself get back to doing what they love. I threw myself into this vision, volunteering at a sports medicine clinic and shadowing orthopedic surgeons. I was certain I’d found my calling.

But while studying life sciences at university, I felt a growing itch – a realization that I wanted to make an impact beyond a single field. My turning point came during a second-year genetics class when an upper-year professor gave a guest lecture. She emphasized the critical need for people who could speak the languages of both science and business. She painted a picture of bridging the gap between cutting-edge lab discoveries with real-world patient impact, and suddenly, I saw my future crystallize. Without missing a beat, I applied to the Ivey Business School that very week. It felt like finding a missing puzzle piece – exciting and a little terrifying, but absolutely right.

After graduating with both a genetics and business degree, I dove into the world of management consulting in Boston. It was a crash course in problem-solving, critical thinking, and teamwork that pushed me to new limits. But the call of merging science and business never faded. When I reached out to Lumira, it felt like the perfect fit. Now, I wake up every day excited to be part of a team that’s turning groundbreaking lab discoveries into life-changing solutions for patients. It’s the perfect fusion of my passions, and I couldn’t imagine a more fulfilling path.

What Drives Me Today

Today, I am driven by the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on patient lives through innovative healthcare solutions. At Lumira, I am inspired by the incredible advancements we support in the life sciences sector. The chance to work with brilliant entrepreneurs and cutting-edge technologies that have the potential to transform patient care is what gets me excited every day. Ultimately, what drives me is the knowledge that our efforts at Lumira Ventures contribute to a larger mission of making a real difference in people’s lives. This blend of purpose and passion fuels my dedication to our work and inspires me to continuously strive for excellence.

As a kid I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. Perhaps cliché but my dog was truly my best friend. Nothing would have ever stopped me from caring for him to the point that the only time I was bitten by a dog was by trying to protect him. There was no way I would ever miss any visit to the veterinarian. I was fascinated by what seemed to me like the greatest job in the world!  In retrospect, the desire to care for others stayed with me through the years but not that I didn’t like animals anymore, it would be people that I wanted to care for and medicine would enable me to do that.

Medical school taught me a lot about physiology, diseases, diagnostics and treatments. It also taught me about people, courage and resilience.  In medicine, you see first-hand how a diagnosis can have a dramatic impact on an individual and their family, particularly when medicine has so little to offer for one’s condition.  What became obvious was the lack of potential treatment options for so many diseases.  At the same time, it highlighted the importance of therapeutics for patients where there were no drugs or other treatment modalities available.

I started to explore different ways I could make a difference through the combination of my medical background and business, which I had a keen interest in, which led me to take night classes first and eventually transitioning to a full time MBA.  It changed the course of my professional career!  Contrary to medical school, at the core of the MBA is teamwork and I was able to experience the synergy resulting from working with people of diverse professional backgrounds and work experience.  It was my first real exposure to entrepreneurship and provided the opportunity to meet with and learn from entrepreneurs who had built major companies and organizations across different industrial sectors.  Coming out of these early experiences I considered joining the ranks of big pharma but instead decided to move into investment banking which I hoped would eventually give me the opportunity to work in the slowly emerging biotech industry in Canada — and it did.

Along the way came the opportunity for me to join a fast-growing biotech company at a very exciting time in the industry. It’s one thing to be an advisor or consultant to a company, it is another to work within an organization. Working with great colleagues, I lived the highs and lows (fortunately more highs than lows) of a biotech company developing new drugs and vaccines and learned so much along the way.

What Drives Me Today

As a VC I am more than ever passionate about science and innovation as it relates to the development of new drugs and devices. I truly believe in the importance of the biotech industry as the main driver of innovation in the development of new medicines and it is a privilege to work with entrepreneurs and their team who share that passion.