Vishal Jain has 20 years of venture capital, investment banking and management consulting experience in many industries including medical devices, biopharma and technology. Vishal has executed over $100 billion in M&A transactions and has raised debt and equity capital and has provided strategic advice to large as well as small corporations with respect to M&A, public offerings & capital markets, divestitures and spin-offs.
Vishal has gained an in-depth knowledge of the complex healthcare ecosystem in the United States. He has worked on transactions across multiple sub-sectors of healthcare including large pharma, biotechnology, diagnostics, healthcare instruments and devices, healthcare services and healthcare IT.
Vishal has a degree in Electronics Engineering from the National Institute of Technology in India and an MBA from Cornell University.
Youssef Sebban brings 10 years of successful experience in the Venture Capital space, having worked at top-tier firms across Europe and Asia.
During his time at Forepont Capital Partners, Youssef has led most of the fundraising activities across both funds (over $200 million) and has been a key asset in sourcing and monetizing some of FCP’s most successful investments. Transactions include Northern Ireland drug delivery company Sisaf or French diagnostics firm Biospeedia which became one of the largest suppliers of Covid-19 tests to the French Government. He began his career at Goldman Sachs’ investment banking division in London, UK.
Youssef developed strategic relationships in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and has been instrumental in developing portfolio companies’ business and in originating and overviewing deals.
Youssef earned a Bachelor degree in Economics from the University of Reading, a Master’s of Science degree in Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Master’s of Science degree in Management from HEC Paris.
Mark Goldstone has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry, encompassing Venture Capital, M&A, operations, commercialization, and consulting. He has led some of the largest specialist consulting and communications groups in the world and was a founding partner at Forepont Capital (VC).
Mark has executed numerous venture investments, M&A, financing and strategic partnership transactions for a broad array of early stage, middle market and emerging growth companies in technology, life sciences and healthcare services.
He was COO of EuroRSCG Life (now Havas), Global CEO of healthcare at top brand and business consultancy, Interbrand and Worldwide President of Doyle, Dane and Bernbach global healthcare businesses.
He has developed successful commercialization strategies and programs from early-stage and market development, to product launch and late-stage lifecycle management for blue-chip pharmaceutical and packaged goods companies including Pfizer, Merck, Novartis, Bayer, GSK, Sanofi, Colgate Palmolive, L’Oreal, Danone, Johnson & Johnson, Roche. In fact, Mark has worked on seven of the world’s top-selling medicines.
Mark began his career as a Pharmacist and is a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. He is Board member of the prestigious Galien Foundation and the Industry Advisory Board for the UK Government’s BRCD initiative.
Lokman Ouijdani has 10 years of experience across Tech and Finance (Microsoft, Google, Clocktower Ventures) in which he has led over $100 million in acquisitions and lead the launch of multiple Cloud and AI offerings. Most recently, Lokman lead the launch from ideation to commercialization of first of its kind value-based AI products and solutions that brought over $500M in Bookings to Google cloud services.
Lokman has gained an in-depth knowledge of the complex technology sector in the United States and has deep connections with some of the most strategic technology acquirers in the United States, the Middle East and Africa.
Lokman has a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington and an MBA from UCLA.
Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy is a cardiologist, politician, and former Minister for Health, Minister of Culture and Foreign Minister of France. He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of UNITLIFE and previously served as the chairman of the executive board of UNITAID, the international drug purchase facility hosted by the World Health Organization.
He was the mayor of Lourdes from 1989-2000 and Toulouse from 2001-2004. Since 2008, Douste-Blazy has been Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General on Innovative Financing for Development. Douste-Blazy is also responsible for organizing the first World Conference of Non-Governmental Donors, which seeks to raise funds to facilitate the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
Through his work with the UN and UNITAID, Douste-Blazy travels extensively throughout the world raising money for governmental and non-governmental global health organizations as well as advising the UN Secretary General on global health issues.
Dr Douste-Blazy holds a number of honors and distinctions for his services to society:
Commandeur dans l’Ordre royal norvégien du mérite
Chevalier dans l’Ordre de la Légion d’honneur
Grand-Croix de l’Ordre du mérite du Chili
Commandeur de l’Ordre d’Isabelle la Catholique
Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay
Honorary Knight Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire
Dr Antonio Frasca provides a wealth of biomedical science and biomed tech development expertise, with 14 years of experience as an academic scientist at Columbia University, The University of Pennsylvania, The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and New York University.
In the course of his academic work, Antonio conceived and validated foundational hypotheses opening new vistas for the understanding of disease and the development of interventional biotechnologies in diverse fields, including developmental epigenetics, cardiovascular surgery, and critical care. Antonio is also himself an inventor of several intellectual properties. These include protective modifications against deleterious biochemical mechanisms for interventional biomaterials as well as enhanced testing paradigms for biomaterial-based medical device development and personalized medicine applications. Antonio has been an invited participant in major biomed tech accelerator programs, received top prize from the competitive BiomedX program at Columbia University for his biomaterial modification technology, and has successfully engaged major biotech venture capital firms for biotech spinout funding.
Antonio received his Bachelor’s in Biochemistry from Columbia University and his PhD in Biomedical Sciences with a focus on Epigenetics from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Alexander Chikin brings a strong background in finance and investing. He most recently worked as an investment analyst primarily trading in macro and growth equities in pharmaceuticals and MedTech sectors.
Prior to Eckuity, Alex managed a portfolio across public and private equities and has generated over 40% IRR for 7 years, covering healthcare services, biotech, IT, basic materials, and energy.
Alex earned his bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from Warwick University.
Outside of his investing interests, Alex was also a professional triathlete and pro cyclist and has won multiple races globally.
Dr Richard Pasternak has spent the last 40 years as an academic and biopharmaceutical clinician-scientist. He is a recently retired Clinical Professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College and remains a strategic consultant. He has served on multiple Boards including Cerenis Therapeutics (now ABIONYX), where he also served as CEO 2018-19. He is presently on the Boards of Anthos Therapeutics Magenta Medical Ltd. and Milestone Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Pasternak was previously VP, Clinical Research and Head of Cardiovascular at Merck & Co. and then VP, Head of Global Scientific Affairs and Scientific Leadership (2008-2010). Dr. Pasternak worked on key strategic business development issues, regulatory affairs, medical affairs, and political affairs; and he was also a Merck policy liaison for medical and scientific issues.
Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Pasternak was Director of Preventive Cardiology and Cardiac Rehabilitation at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He received his B.A. and M.D. from Yale University and completed his medical and cardiology training at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Pasternak has long-standing research interest in vascular disease, lipid disorders and atherosclerosis, as well as in epidemiology, prevention, and patterns of practice and disease management. He was a member of the NIH’s Coordinating Committee of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) and of the third Adult Treatment Panel (ATP III), has served on many national and international committees, and has published and spoken extensively.
Frederic Gilghas worked for the past 15 years with prominent private equity groups exclusively focused on fast growing consumer brands – most notably L Catterton and TSG Consumer Partners with a global origination role focused on Europe and spanning across all consumer verticals (beauty, healthcare, wellness, retail, fashion, consumer services, consumer tech). As an entrepreneur, he cofounded / was an early investor in several high impact/disruptive companies including among others Cellprothera, a global leader in regenerative medicine; Babo Botanicals, a US organic digitally native babycare brand; PR Group, a pioneer of renewable energies in South East Asia; Biofuture, a European organic food and supplements brand.
Frederic started his career in Foreign Affairs (NATO) and has lived and worked in Singapore, Paris, New York, Brussels, Hong Kong and Madrid. He is a graduate of IEP Paris (Sciences Po) and HEC (MS), speaks French, English, Spanish and German.
He believes supporting genuine, uniquely differentiated and responsible brands bringing together communities can help shape the world we live in as they spontaneously align talent, purpose and conviction.
Daniel Vial brings a wealth of healthcare experience, both as an investor and former pharma executive.
Daniel started his career through the launch of a daily newspaper for doctors : “Le Quotidien du Médecin” in France and “Arzte Zeitung” in Germany. “Le Quotidien du Médecin” merged with the medical arm of the Vivendi Group while “Arzte Zeitung” merged with IMS (now Iqvia).
Subsequently, he founded PR INT, a consultancy dedicated to supporting pharma corporations, medical institutions and scientific associations from drug development to commercialization. PR INTernational become one of the leading global consultants in drug evaluation, pharma marketing issues and market access, as well as one of the largest scientific event organizers in Europe. Daniel joined SANOFI as the special advisor to the CEO, Chris Viehbacher, from 2008 to 2014.
More recently, Daniel, a successful investor in French & US biotech companies, serves as a consultant to pharma, biotech, e-health and institutions with a focus in Asia where he advises public institutions such as regions and cities in China. He is the President of the International committee for the Safeguard of the Great Wall of China.
Daniel holds a Master’s in Marketing and Public Relations from the University of Vincennes.
He is a “Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur”.