Team
Investment Team
Christopher Colecchi is the Managing Director of Broadview Ventures. He leads the Broadview investment team and operations, and coordinates the activities of Broadview’s Strategic Advisory Board. Chris also oversees the investment activities of Longview Ventures.
Previously, Chris was the Vice President for Research Ventures and Licensing at Partners Healthcare (now Mass General Brigham) – an integrated health system founded by the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. In this role, Chris led business development, technology transfer, and commercialization activities and managed efforts to establish strategic alliances with the life sciences industries. He also created the Partners Innovation Fund – a venture capital fund that makes investments in early stage companies emerging from Mass General Brigham hospitals.
Earlier in his career, Chris was the Director of Clinical Trials and Industrial Relations for the Massachusetts General Hospital and Director of Clinical Monitoring for a clinical research organization at which he oversaw the set-up and management of multi-center, industry-sponsored clinical trials at several hundred sites throughout the U.S. and Canada. Within these roles, Chris worked directly with most of the major international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as many in the device arena.
Chris currently serves on the boards of Ground Fluor Pharma (Chairman), EP Sciences, and Aggamin. He previously served on the boards of CardiAQ (Acquired by Edwards Life Sciences), miRagen (NSDQ: MGEN), Cardero (now Epirium Bio), GI Windows, and InfoBionic.
Outside of Broadview, Chris serves as an advisory board member for the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health and Health Sciences. He is a board member of the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health and the Institute for Cardiovascular Research and Science founded by the Royal Brompton and the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospitals.
Chris holds a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross and an M.P.H. from the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health at Amherst.
Tom Needham, MBA, is a Director and Head of the Biopharmaceuticals practice at Broadview Ventures.
Tom shares responsibility for all aspects of Broadview’s investment activity, from identification and screening of new opportunities, through due diligence, negotiation of deal structure, and portfolio company board involvement. Tom also serves as Managing Director of Longview Ventures, an independent investment vehicle focused on clinical stage opportunities, as a complement to Broadview’s dedication to Seed and Series A financings.
Tom has 30 years of experience in venture capital investing, business development, corporate strategy, and C-suite executive management responsibilities in public and private life science companies. Tom currently serves on the boards of IsomAb Bio and Basking Biosciences, including serving as Basking’s Chairman (2020 through 2023), as well as holds board observer roles at Comanche Bio, HAYA Therapeutics, Alveron Pharma, and Mosanna Therapeutics. Previously, Tom represented Broadview on the board at Antag Therapeutics, Renovacor (NYSE: RCOR, acquired by Rocket Pharma), including serving as Renovacor’s Chairman (2019 through 2021), and held board observer roles at NIDO Surgical (acquired), and Cardero Therapeutics (now Epirium Bio). Tom’s prior venture investment experience also includes working on Astex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ASTX, acquired by Otsuka), Enanta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ENTA), MD Everywhere (acquired by Marlin Equity Partners), Sirion Therapeutics (trade sale to Alcon and Bausch & Lomb), and Aegerion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AEGR).
Prior to joining Broadview Ventures, Tom was most recently Chief Business Officer at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MACK) and Senior Vice President, Business Development at C4 Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CCCC). Previously, Tom spent 13 years as a healthcare and life science venture capital investor, a Managing Director at Synthesis Capital, and as a Principal at the global private equity firm Advent International, as a member of the healthcare venture capital deal team in Boston. Earlier in his career, Tom held Vice President of Business Development positions at private and public biotech companies, where he led the negotiation and closing of a number of strategic transactions, including R&D partnerships with global pharmaceutical companies, licensing, and M&A transactions. Tom holds a B.A. from Bowdoin College and an MBA from Babson College’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.
Daniel Gottlieb, MBA, is a Director at Broadview Ventures.
Daniel focuses on new investment activity and portfolio management within Broadview’s MedTech practice, long-term portfolio strategy, and Broadview investment operations and organizational growth.
Daniel has spent his career focused on the development and commercialization of treatments for cardiovascular disease, including experience in large multinationals and startup environments across medical devices and biotech. Daniel’s experiences include operational roles in marketing and strategy, corporate and business development, and corporate venture capital. Previously, Daniel was Vice President of Corporate Development at Proteon Therapeutics, leading business development, strategic marketing, and corporate development activities from pre-IND through Phase 3 clinical studies. Prior to Proteon, Daniel held marketing roles at Abbott Vascular and Guidant, and was a member of Guidant Compass, Guidant’s corporate venture capital, business development, and corporate strategy group, where he led early-stage investments in coronary and peripheral revascularization, cardiac rhythm management, heart failure monitoring, and cardiac surgery.
Daniel holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Daniel currently serves on the boards of XII Medical, Cardiosense, Alleviant, and CroíValve, and holds board observer roles at Nyra Medical and CorFlow. Previously, Daniel held board observer roles at Nido Surgical (acquired) and Puzzle Medical, and as a member of Guidant Compass at CardioMEMS (acquired) and Neovasc (acquired). Outside of Broadview, Daniel serves as a member of the AdvaMed Board Investor Advisory Committee, the Selection Committee of the Cleveland Clinic’s Phase 1 Technology Validation and Start-up Fund, and the External Advisory Committee of the DRIVEN Accelerator Hub.
Christopher de Souza, PhD, MBA, is a Director at Broadview Ventures. He brings to this role over 40 years of experience in cardiovascular and metabolic related academic research, biopharmaceutical R&D, corporate strategy and business development.
Christopher started his pharmaceutical career at Novartis as a senior scientist in the Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases group and then as Director of Strategic Alliances with responsibilities for therapeutic area strategy, business development and alliance management. After Novartis, Christopher was Vice President of Business Development at SkyePharma US Inc., a drug delivery company, where he was responsible for out-licensing the company’s clinical assets and drug delivery technologies.
Christopher received a Masters in zoology from the University of Bombay, a PhD in physiology from Louisiana State University and an MBA from Rutgers University. He completed his post-doctoral training at The Upjohn Company and the Joslin Diabetes Center/Harvard Medical School.
Christopher has held board position at multiple companies including Acesion, Allosteros, CellAegis, DecImmune, Gila Therapeutics, Herantis, Mellitus Pulmokine, NuPulse, Provasculon and Ventrinova.
Outside of Broadview Ventures, Christopher served on the board of MassBio and on the grant review committees of the British Heart Foundation and NIH/NHLBI.
Nichole Neal, MBA is the Director of Operations at Broadview Ventures. Nichole brings more than 15 years of experience in operations management and administration.
Nichole oversees and manages the Boston office operations for Broadview Ventures. She manages the day-to-day business and administrative activities, ensuring efficiency and alignment with strategic goals and the Broadview mission. She develops and manages operational budgets, builds and maintains relationships with internal and external stakeholders – including vendors and partners, triages investment opportunities, spearheads meeting and event planning, and supports a high-functioning investment team.
Prior to joining Broadview Ventures, Nichole was the Program Manager for both the Cardiovascular Program (Heart Center) and the Medicine Intensive Care Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital. There, Nichole worked alongside the Vice President of Nursing and Critical Care Services, and was responsible for overseeing business operations, leading and coaching administrative staff, developing and executing best practices, and improving processes and compliance in support of the hospital’s mission.
Nichole earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Science in Healthcare Management and Policy at the University of New Hampshire and a Master’s Degree (MBA) in Business and Healthcare Management from the University of Phoenix.
Benjamin Kreitman, is a Principal at Broadview Ventures.
Benjamin shares responsibility for the day-to-day investment activities at Broadview Ventures, including identification and screening of new opportunities, due diligence, negotiation of deal structure, and portfolio company board involvement. Benjamin serves on the boards of HAYA Therapeutics and Alveron Pharma, and holds board observer roles at IsomAb Bio, AtaCor Medical, and Cardiosense.
Prior to joining Broadview, Benjamin was a Consultant at Monitor Deloitte, the strategy management consulting arm of Deloitte Consulting, LLP. At Monitor Deloitte, Benjamin worked alongside senior executives on a variety of engagements including commercial strategy development for biotechnology startups as well as global pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, and corporate development and investment due diligence across a number of industries.
Benjamin earned undergraduate degrees in Biological Sciences and Financial Economics Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University.
Hewmun Lau, MBA, is a Principal at Broadview Ventures.
Hewmun shares responsibility for the day-to-day investment activities at Broadview Ventures, including identification and screening of new opportunities, due diligence, negotiation of deal structure, and portfolio company board involvement.
Hewmun’s 15 years of experience in the life science industry spans across business development, commercial operations, consulting and R&D. Previously, Hewmun was at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals where she held several roles with increasing responsibility eventually serving as Director of Corporate Development where she led the company’s business development activities. Her prior positions within Merrimack include Associate Director of New Product Planning and Senior Manager of Commercial Analytics where she supported the launch of Merrimack’s first marketed drug, Onivyde, for second line pancreatic cancer. Before Merrimack, Hewmun was a Senior Consultant at Navigant Consulting’s Life Sciences Practice. At Navigant, she worked on engagements involving big pharma and emerging biotech companies across all therapeutic areas. Client engagements ranged from commercial opportunity assessment to launch strategy and product lifecycle management. Hewmun began her career in biomedical research including lab research positions at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and McLean Hospital.
Hewmun holds a B.S. in Biochemistry, Biology and Economics Cum Laude from Brandeis University, an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a M.S. from the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.
Hewmun currently holds board roles at Mosanna Therapeutics (Director), Basking Biosciences (Observer), and ZZ Biotech (Observer).
David Prim, PhD, is a Principal at Broadview Ventures.
David shares responsibility for the day-to-day investment activities at Broadview Ventures, including identification and screening of new opportunities, due diligence, negotiation of deal structure, and portfolio company board involvement.
Prior to joining Broadview, David was a Senior Associate at Locust Walk, a global life sciences transaction firm, where he led engagements for biopharma and medtech clients guiding corporate development strategy and supporting sell-side, buy-side, and financing deal execution. Previously, David was a consultant at ClearView Healthcare Partners, a premier life science strategy consulting firm, where he supported completion of high-impact strategy projects for a broad range of industry clients across all aspects of the product lifecycle, including new product planning, R&D, commercial, medical affairs, market access, and lifecycle management.
David earned a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of South Carolina, where his research focused on vascular grafting. His research projects covered a wide range of vascular mechanics, hemodynamics, and tissue engineering, with a specific focus on understanding and improving remodeling of coronary artery bypass grafts. David also holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of South Carolina with honors from the South Carolina Honors College.
David serves on the Board of Directors for CorFlow Therapeutics, Relief Cardiovascular, and Puzzle Medical Devices. He is a Board Observer to Vascular Graft Solutions.
Khushbu Modi, BA is the Executive Assistant at Broadview Ventures.
Khushbu oversees the day-to-day clerical operations at Broadview Ventures. She works directly with the Director of Operations to support the Broadview activities and provides administrative support for the Broadview team.
Prior to joining Broadview, Khushbu worked in the Corporate Wellness industry and comes with broad administrative experience. In her previous role, Khushbu was responsible for all parts of operations for multiple businesses while also serving as a coach and mentor.
Khushbu earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Religion from the University of Delaware.
Dr. Anubodh Sunny Varshney is a Venture Advisor at Broadview Ventures and Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, specializing in advanced heart failure, cardiac transplant, and mechanical circulatory support. Dr. Varshney leverages his clinical experience and research insights to source and evaluate opportunities, advise select portfolio companies on clinical trial design and clinical adoption, and educate the Broadview team regarding advancements in cardiovascular disease epidemiology, treatments, and clinical trials.
At Stanford, Dr. Varshney cares for patients with advanced heart disease, including those requiring heart transplantation or mechanical circulatory support. He is also an outcomes researcher and conducts studies to identify patient populations with unmet medical needs, define outcomes that next generation therapies should improve upon, and understand factors that influence clinical adoption of novel technologies. Lastly, he serves as Associate Director of the Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology fellowship program, where he plays an active role mentoring trainees.
Dr. Varshney earned a degree in biomedical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and an MD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and fellowship in Advanced Heart Failure, Transplant Cardiology, and Mechanical Circulatory Support at Stanford University.

David Milan, MD is the Chief Scientific Officer of the Leducq organization.
David’s most recent position was at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School where he was Assistant Professor of Medicine, and worked both clinically and conducted research in the field of cardiac Electrophysiology. He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in Chemistry and performed his medical training at Harvard Medical School. His residency in Internal Medicine was at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital followed by fellowships in Cardiology and Cardiac Electrophysiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research focus at MGH was on the molecular basis of cardiac arrhythmias using zebrafish and stem cell models, as well as studies of valvular heart disease.
Strategic Advisory Board

Eugene Braunwald, MD, is the Distinguished Hersey Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the founding Chair of the TIMI Study Group at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Braunwald received his medical training at New York University and completed his Medical Residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He served as the first Chief of the Cardiology Branch and as Clinical Director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, founding Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. From 1972 to 1996 he was Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was a founding trustee and Chief Academic Officer of Partners HealthCare System.
Dr. Braunwald’s first major paper was published in Circulation Research in July 1954, and he has been a major force in cardiology in the past sixty years. His early work focused on the control of ventricular function and he was the first to measure both left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular dp/dt in patients. His group showed the first neurohumoral defect in human heart failure, defined the pathophysiology of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and demonstrated salvage of ischemic myocardium following coronary occlusion. They defined myocardial stunning and ventricular remodeling following myocardial infarction. For the past 35 years, he and his colleagues at the TIMI Study Group demonstrated improved patient survival with a patent coronary artery which led to the widely accepted “open artery hypotheses.” They were the first to show the benefit of preventing adverse remodeling of the infarcted ventricle with ACE inhibition. In the PROVE-IT TIMI 22 Trial, in 2004, they demonstrated the benefit of more intensive reduction of LDL in high risk coronary artery patients, which has changed practice guidelines and will favorably affect the lives of millions.
Dr. Braunwald has been an editor of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine for 12 editions, and the founding editor of Heart Disease, now in its 11th Edition, the most influential textbooks in their fields.
Science Watch listed Dr. Braunwald as the most frequently cited author in Cardiology; he has an H index of 227. Based on his contributions, Dr. Braunwald has received numerous honors and awards including the Distinguished Scientist and Lifetime Achievement Awards of the American College of Cardiology, Research Achievement, and Herrick Awards of the American Heart Association, the Gold Medal of the European Society of Cardiology. He received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Oxford and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from twenty three other distinguished universities on three continents. The American College of Cardiology has established an annual lecture in his name. The European Society of Cardiology, Heart Failure Association has established an annual lecture in his name. Dr. Braunwald was the first cardiologist elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. The living Nobel Prize winners in medicine voted Dr. Braunwald as “the person who has contributed the most to cardiology in recent years”.

Anne Parrish Titzell Professor of Neurology; Director and Chair, Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York
Dr. Iadecola is a clinician-scientist who is an internationally recognized expert in the field of cerebrovascular diseases and dementia. Dr. Iadecola received an MD degree from the University of Rome, Italy, and completed Neurology Residencies both at the University of Rome and at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY.
After completing his training, Dr. Iadecola joined the Department of Neurology of the University of Minnesota, where he rose through the academic ranks serving as Professor and Vice-Chair for Research. In 2001, Dr. Iadecola was recruited back to Cornell as the G. C. Cotzias Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, and Director of the Division of Neurobiology. In 2012 Dr. Iadecola was appointed Anne Parrish Titzell Professor of Neurology and Director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, a new Department at Weill Cornell focused on basic and translational neuroscience research.
Dr. Iadecola’s research focuses on the basic mechanisms of neurovascular function and on the cellular and molecular alterations underlying ischemic brain injury, neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment. A pioneer in establishing the concept of Neurovascular Unit, Dr. Iadecola has championed the involvement of neurovascular dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases, and the role of innate immunity and the microbiome in ischemic brain injury. He is active in several national and international research organizations and funding agencies, including the NIH, the American Heart Association (AHA) and the Alzheimer’s Association. He has been President (Chair) of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Fondation Leducq and is an advisor to the several research consortia in the US and Europe. Dr. Iadecola has served as Editor or Editorial Board member for a number of journals including: Stroke, Journal of Neuroscience, Circulation research, and the Annals of Neurology.
Dr. Iadecola has received the McHenry Award from the American Academy of Neurology, two Jacob Javits Awards from the National Institutes of Health, the Willis Award-the highest honor in stroke research bestowed by the American Heart Association (AHA), the Zenith Fellow Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Excellence Award in Hypertension Research (Novartis) from the Hypertension Council of the AHA. In 2015, he was elected to the Association of American Physicians. In 2019 Dr. Iadecola was elected Distinguished Scientist by the AHA and in 2021 he received the AHA Basic Research Prize. In 2022 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. Since 2018, Clarivate Analytics listed Dr. Iadecola as one of world’s “Highly Cited Researchers” for ranking in the top one percent of the most-cited authors in the field of neuroscience and behavioral sciences. His career was recently profiled in Nature Neuroscience (https://rdcu.be/drhr2).

Dr. Karabelas is a Partner at Care Capital, LLC, a life sciences venture firm. He is also a member of the board of RegenXbio, a publicly traded gene therapy company; a member of the board of Bausch Health Companies, Inc., a public company; and a member of the board of Braeburn Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company focusing on treatments for addiction and pain. Dr. Karabelas is also a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of Broadview Ventures.
Previous to these positions, Dr. Karabelas founded the Novartis Bio Venture Fund; was the CEO of Worldwide Pharmaceuticals, Head of all Healthcare Businesses and member of the Executive Committee at Novartis, AG; was Executive Vice President of Pharmaceuticals at SmithKline Beecham, Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Executive and Development Committees, and a member of the Executive Committee of SmithKline Beecham. Previous to these senior executive positions, Dr. Karabelas had a typically progressive career in pharmaceutical sales and marketing at SmithKline and French. He was also a Professor of Pharmacokinetics.
Dr. Karabelas has founded several companies: CytoTherapeutics, Inc., Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Minerva Pharmaceuticals. He is former Chairman of Human Genome Sciences, Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc., Renovo, NitroMed, Inc., and SkyePharma plc.
Dr. Karabelas holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacokinetics from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and a Bachelor of Sciences in BioChemistry from the University of New Hampshire.

Dr. Joseph Loscalzo is currently the Samuel A. Levine Professor of Medicine and Hersey Distinguished Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Harvard Medical School as well as Physician-in-Chief Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Loscalzo received his A.B. degree, summa cum laude, his Ph.D. in biochemistry, and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His clinical training was completed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he served as Resident and Chief Resident in medicine and Fellow in cardiovascular medicine.
After completing his training, Dr. Loscalzo joined the Harvard faculty and staff at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1984. He rose to the rank of Associate Professor of Medicine, Chief of Cardiology at the West Roxbury Veterans Administration Medical Center, and Director of the Center for Research in Thrombolysis at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He joined the faculty of Boston University in 1994, first as Chief of Cardiology and, in 1997, Wade Professor and Chair of Medicine, Professor of Biochemistry, and Director of the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. He returned to Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2005 as the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, and Soma Weiss, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chair of the Department of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He transitioned from Department Chair in 2022 to his current roles.
Dr. Loscalzo is recognized as an outstanding cardiovascular scientist, clinician, and teacher. He has received many awards, including the Clinician-Scientist Award, the Distinguished Scientist Award, the Research Achievement Award, a MERIT Award, the Paul Dudley White Award and the Gold Heart Award from the American Heart Association; a Research Career Development Award, a Specialized Center of Research in Ischemic Heart Disease Award, and a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health; the George W. Thorn Award for Excellence in Teaching at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Educator of the Year Award in Clinical Medicine from Boston University, and the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentorship Award from Harvard Medical School; the Glaxo Cardiovascular Research Award, the Rector’s Silver Medal from the University of Rome, Sapienza, and the Outstanding Investigator Prize from the International Society for Heart Research; election to fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the National Academy of Medicine. He holds three honorary degrees. Castle Connolly has named him one of America’s Top Doctors over many years. He served as an associate editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for nine years, Chair of the Cardiovascular Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Chair of the Research Committee of the American Heart Association, Chair of the Scientific Board of the Stanley J. Sarnoff Society of Fellows for Research in the Cardiovascular Sciences, and Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. He is a former member of the Advisory Council of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and a former member of the Council of Councils of the National Institutes of Health. He is currently Director of the NIH-funded Center for Accelerated Innovation (the Boston Biomedical Innovation Center), and of the NIH-funded Harvard Undiagnosed Disease Network program. He is also former Editor-in-Chief of Circulation, currently Editor-at-Large of the New England Journal of Medicine, and a current senior editor of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Loscalzo has been a visiting professor at many institutions, holds three honorary degrees, has authored or co-authored over 1,200 scientific publications (over 145,000 citations, h-index 174), has authored or edited 54 books, and holds 33 patents for his work in the field of nitric oxide, redox biology, and vascular biology. He is also the recipient of many grants from the NIH and industry for his work in the areas of vascular biology, thrombosis, atherosclerosis, and, more recently, systems biology over the past thirty years. His most recent work has established the field of network medicine, a paradigm-changing discipline that seeks to re-define disease and therapeutics from an integrated perspective using systems biology and network science.
Dr. Mendelsohn is the Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Strategy Officer of Cardurion Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage cardiovascular biotechnology company. He is an internationally recognized cardiovascular physician-scientist, industry research leader and business executive with broad experience in healthcare.
Currently, Dr. Mendelsohn serves as a Board Director for Foghorn Therapeutics (FHTX) and Cyclerion Therapeutics (CYCN), and a Senior Advisor and consultant to the head of R&D at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He is also a Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. From 2013-2017, Dr. Mendelsohn was a Venture Partner at SV Health Investors in Boston.
From 2010-2013, Dr. Mendelsohn served as SVP and Global Head of Cardiovascular Diseases at Merck & Co., with end-to-end responsibilities for cardiovascular scientific strategy, research & development, business development and customer engagement. In this role, he had responsibility for all cardiovascular research, from early drug discovery through late clinical development. At Merck, Dr. Mendelsohn directed preclinical and clinical programs in four major CV areas: heart failure, atherosclerosis, specialty hypertension, and thrombosis. He also worked closely with Merck’s Global Human Health division to align Merck’s research and commercial marketing, and with Merck business development to source, evaluate and advance a wide variety of partnerships and licensing agreements, including the worldwide joint venture between Merck and Bayer involving soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) stimulator drugs.
Prior to Merck, Dr. Mendelsohn worked for 25 years as an academic cardiovascular physician-scientist in Boston. Dr. Mendelsohn received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry and English from Amherst College in 1978, and his MD from Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 1982. From 1982 to 1993, he completed a residency in internal medicine and from 1985-1988, a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and HMS. He then spent five years as an assistant professor of medicine on the faculty of HMS, where he was a member of the BWH Cardiology Division and ran an independent, NIH-funded basic science laboratory focused on molecular cardiovascular biology.
In 1993, Dr. Mendelsohn moved to Tufts Medical Center, where he created and served as the first executive director of the Molecular Cardiology Research Institute, a research department of 18 faculty and approximately 120 members exploring basic and translational research in heart and vascular diseases. Dr. Mendelsohn was the first recipient of the Elisa Kent Mendelsohn Professorship of Molecular Cardiology and Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and in 2008, Dr. Mendelsohn was named the first-ever Chief Scientific Officer at Tufts.
As an academic physician-scientist, Dr. Mendelsohn focused on signal transduction pathways regulating vascular and myocardial function. His laboratory at Tufts contributed to deciphering the mechanisms of action of endogenous vascular protective molecules, including key pathways implicated in cardiovascular disease, with an emphasis on cyclic GMP signaling pathways in blood vessels and heart and on nuclear hormone receptor actions in the vasculature. He has been the principal investigator on numerous National Institutes of Health awards, including a Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) in Ischemic Heart Disease, a Program Project Grant (PPG) studying molecular mechanisms of vascular relaxation, and multiple RO1 awards.
Dr. Mendelsohn has served broadly on the editorial boards of research publications and has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles on numerous cardiovascular scientific and clinical topics. He was an invited speaker for the 1999 Nobel Symposium in Karlskoga, Sweden, “Estrogen and Women’s Health” and for the 2008 Nobel Symposium in Stockholm, “Recent Advances in Understanding Estrogen Signaling”. He is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Association of University Cardiologists (AUC) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP).
Dr. Meredith is currently a Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne Australia and a Non-executive director serving on the boards of both US and Australian private and public companies. He recently retired as the Executive Vice President and Global Chief Medical Officer at Boston Scientific in mid 2023.
At BSC, he led clinical innovation, pre-clinical science and medical affairs across the global organization and provided leadership of the company’s clinical trial and R&D strategy. He focused on driving a vision of transformative clinical science and innovative care for all patients with chronic non-communicable diseases through critical clinical input into the company’s new business development plan, M&A strategy, and Venture portfolio.
Prior to joining Boston Scientific in 2017, Ian was Professor & Director of MonashHeart, the internationally recognized cardiology service within Monash Health, a position he held for 12 years.
For over 25 years as an Australian practicing clinician, clinical trialist and interventional cardiologist. Ian mentored and fostered the career of a generation of academic and clinical cardiologists, and personally performed more than 20,000 invasive cardiac and coronary procedures. He championed new treatment paradigms into daily clinical practice and was the chief investigator or a principal investigator on many major international, multi-centre, randomized trials including many world-first-in-human studies.
He has published more than 500 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, delivered more than 500 invited lectures internationally and nationally and presented as the first operator on numerous live-case operation broadcasts from MonashHeart to most of the leading international clinical conferences globally.
Ian served as a board member and medical vice-president on both the Heart Foundation of Australia’s National and Victorian state boards and as a national board member of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand from 2008 until 2016. Ian was the chief medical advocate and face of the Heart Foundation’s national public education campaign on the “Warning signs of a heart attack.” He has also served on numerous professional, state and federal government committees and advisory boards, including the Department of Human Services Cardiac Services Review and the Federal Government Department of Health & Aging Cardiac Prostheses Advisory Group.
Most notably for Monash University, Ian conceived of, and developed the concept for, the Victorian Heart Hospital in 2005. He spent the subsequent 12 years as the principal driving force and chief medical advocate for the concept as well as the design and planning of the VHH project, Australia’s first purpose built, dedicated, stand-alone, technologically advanced heart hospital.
Alongside his recent role as EVP and Global CMO for Boston Scientific, Ian served the Victorian State Government as Medtech business ambassador to North America.
In 2012 Ian received an Order of Australia (AM) in the General Division for outstanding service to medicine in the field of Cardiology as a clinician and researcher and for advisory roles with a range of public health and organizations. In 2019 he received a Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa for outstanding service to Monash University.

Eric Rose, MD is an academic physician and entrepreneur with interests in drug discovery, biodefense, clinical evaluative research and health policy. From 2007 through 2020 he served as CEO and board chair of SIGA Technologies developer of anti-viral drugs directed at potential agents of bioterror. In 2008, he assumed the chairmanship of the Department of Health Policy at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. From 1994 through 2007, he served as Surgeon in Chief at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he held a distinguished professorship. An accomplished heart surgeon, researcher and entrepreneur, Dr. Rose grew one of the nation’s premier departments of surgery while managing, investigating and developing complex medical technologies ranging from heart transplantation and novel approaches to Alzheimer’s disease to bioterrorism.
He has authored or co-authored more than 300 scientific publications which have been cited more than 5000 times and has received more than $100 million in NIH support for his research. Dr. Rose pioneered heart transplantation in children, performing the first successful pediatric heart transplant in 1984, and has investigated many alternatives to heart transplantation, including cross-species transplantation and man-made heart pumps. He served on the board of directors of Abiomed from 2008 until its sale to Johnson and Johnson in 2022 for $17 billion. Siga’s oral smallpox antiviral drug was approved by the FDA in 2019, with more than $1 billion in sales to the US Strategic National Stockpile. He has served on the board and more recently as Chief Medical Officer at Mesoblast, a company founded by Silviu Itescu MD in Rose’s lab at Columbia. A public company with a market capitalization of $1 billion, Mesoblast has pioneered the use of off-the-shelf mesenchymal lineage stem cells in multiple diseases and anticipates the first FDA approval for such cells to treat graft versus host disease in children who have received allogeneic bone marrow transplants with a PDUFA date in early January, 2025.
In 2011, Dr. Rose himself was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, treated with chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation, and remains in remission for more than 13 years. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and has been treated with Deep Brain Stimulation.
He received both his undergraduate and medical degrees from Columbia University.

Radcliffe Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford; Honorary Consultant in Cardiology, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
Professor Watkins was Head of the Radcliffe Department of Medicine from its foundation in 2012 until March 2022 when he stood down in order to lead the CureHeart programme funded through the British Heart Foundation’s Big Beat Challenge competition. From 1998-2005 he was Programme Director of the Wellcome Trust Cardiovascular Research Initiative at the University of Oxford; he then directed the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence at Oxford from 2008-2024. Professor Watkins was a member of the Fondation Leducq Scientific Advisory Committee from 2011 to 2017. Honors and distinctions have included the Thomas Lewis Lecture, British Cardiac Society, 2004, the Paul Dudley White Lecture, American Heart Association, 2011 and the Mackenzie Medal of the British Cardiovascular Society in 2018.
Professor Watkins has made a series of major contributions to the understanding of the molecular genetic basis of cardiovascular disease, using genetic approaches to define disease mechanisms and to improve diagnosis and treatment of patients and families with inherited diseases. Through both his Mendelian and complex trait genetics work, Professor Watkins has defined some of the most medically important disease genes affecting the cardiovascular system. He is best known for his work on inherited heart muscle diseases, in particular hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His work on genetic causes of this, and other, inherited cardiac syndromes has been translated into clinical practice, with adoption in international clinical guidelines and commissioning of DNA diagnostic services for the NHS. Current efforts focus on understanding the polygenic contribution to cardiomyopathy and, through the CureHeart programme, advancing the potential for genetic therapies to correct the underlying genetic disorder in monogenic forms of cardiomyopathy. He has an h-index of over 130 and is a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher.
In 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the United Kingdom.
Clinical Advisory Board
Annabel Chen-Tournoux, MD, is a cardiologist at the Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Her expertise includes cardiovascular prevention and echocardiography, and she has extensive experience in medical education, knowledge translation, and quality improvement in the clinical setting.
She is a former co-Director of the McGill adult cardiology training program and is currently the Associate Chair – Education, of the McGill Department of Medicine. As the medical director of the Jewish General Hospital Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit/Cardiology Teaching Unit, she is responsible for the organization and delivery of care to meet the clinical and academic missions of the inpatient cardiology service. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Society of Echocardiography, and a member of the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.
Dr. Chen-Tournoux received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. She completed her training in internal medicine, cardiology, and advanced echocardiography at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Teo is a neurosurgeon and neurophysiologist with special interests in neuroplasticity and neurosalvage. He holds appoointments as Professor of Neurosurgery at the Mayo College of Medicine and Science, Honorary Professor at Queen’s University Belfast and Honorary Professor at the William J. Clinton Leadership Institute in Northern Ireland. He serves as ambassador to the United States and International Surgical Advisor for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Deputy Chair of its Surgical Specialty Board in Neurosurgery. Previously, he served as chairman of both the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast and of its School of Management.
Earlier, he directed the Harvard-MIT Program in Biomedical Entrepreneurship, established of a program for translational science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and served on the board of the Goergen Institute of Entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania.
In addition to his affiliation to Broadview, he is currently a senior advisor to CURAM, the medical device initiative at the National University of Ireland in Galway, the Biomedical Collaborative at the Frist College of Medicine at Belmont University, and the Centre for Health and Community Research at the University of Prince Edward Island.
In addition to his advisory roles, Teo was a founder of Cordova Technology Ventures, and a Partner at HLM Venture Partners. He has also advised a number of states, universities, and sovereign wealth funds on translational innovation and investment in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors. He teaches at the Advanced Course Venture Capital Course for the US Venture Capital Association.
Teo received an AB from Columbia College, an MD and MPH from Johns Hopkins, an MTS from Harvard an MBA from Wharton, the DMedSc from QUB, and the DHC from Kaunas Technical University. He trained in Neurosurgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Maudsley, Guy’s and King’s College Hospitals in London. He holds Fellowships at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh (ad hominem), the Faculty of Rural, Remote and Humanitarian Health of the Royal College of Surgeons, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgery, the College of Critical Care Medicine (by election), and the American College of Surgeons. He was appointed the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Fellow at Harvard University, a Fellow of the Society for Health and Human Values, a Mendeleyeff Traveling Fellow, and a Neuroresearch Foundation Fellow. He is an Overseer of the Beth Israel Lahey Hospital and the Shapiro Foundation in Boston, an immediate past Director of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and past spokesman and committee chair for the American College of Surgeons. He has received numerous teaching awards.
Earlier in his career, Teo served as an active-duty neurosurgeon, combat surgeon and flight surgeon in the Medical Corps of the US Airforce and the US Army. He held appointments to the Reserve Council of the United States, and consultant to the Surgeons General of the US Army and Air Force, and to the US Federal Aviation Agency. He is currently commissioned in the national guard as Colonel and Deputy Command Surgeon of the Georgia State Defense Force. He is an elected member of the Excelsior Surgical Society of the American College of Surgeons. Among other decorations he was awarded the US Humanitarian Service Medical.
Teo is an author or editor of several books, over 250 articles and abstracts, and more than 300 presentations.
Marc Semigran, M.D.
Chief Development Officer- Edgewise Therapeutics
Marc Semigran, M.D. has served as Chief Development Officer of Edgewise Therapeutics since 2022. Dr. Semigran brings considerable clinical development and translational medicine experience to Edgewise, having most recently served as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Renovacor through its acquisition by Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and previously served as CMO and Senior Vice President of medical science at MyoKardia through its acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2020 for $13.1 billion. During his tenure at MyoKardia, Dr. Semigran built and expanded his research and development team in order to execute successful translational and development programs including the advancement of mavacamten for patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Prior to entering the biotechnology industry, Dr. Semigran led the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Program as Section Head and Medical Director and a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty. His NIH-funded research focused on the role of nitric oxide signaling on cardiac function in heart failure and pulmonary hypertension. Dr. Semigran earned A.B., A.M., and M.D. degrees from Harvard University. He completed his internal medicine residency, cardiology, and heart failure fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Viviany Taqueti, MD, MPH is a cardiologist, clinical investigator and Director of the Cardiac Stress Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She is also Director of Cardiometabolic and Physiologic Imaging at the Baim Institute for Clinical Research and Advisor at Broadview Ventures. She has expertise in cardiometabolic, ischemic and inflammatory heart disease. Her research applies multimodality imaging technology to quantify coronary blood flow, atherosclerotic plaque, microvascular dysfunction and body composition to redefine risk across patients with obesity and cardiometabolic disease.
Over a decade on faculty at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Taqueti pioneered the role of residual inflammation, coronary microvascular dysfunction and skeletal muscle adiposity on adverse cardiovascular outcomes, including heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, in patients with cardiovascular kidney metabolic syndrome. Her work has facilitated clinical translation of advanced imaging biomarkers in the evaluation of heart disease and the development of national and international evidence-based guidelines for diagnosis of coronary microvascular dysfunction in patients with chronic coronary disease.
Viviany is a physician-scientist, collaborative leader and strategic thinker with a global perspective. She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in biochemical sciences, magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School through the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and completed internal medicine and cardiovascular disease and imaging training at Mass General Brigham. She has a Master from the Harvard School of Public Health and executive leadership training from Harvard Business School. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease, Echocardiography and Nuclear Cardiology. She is an elected member of the Faculty Council at Harvard Medical School and associate member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. A former editorial assistant at The New England Journal of Medicine, she is immediate past-Chair of the Scientific Publications Committee of the American College of Cardiology where she oversaw expansion to the 10-member JACC Journal portfolio and Chairs the Digital Transformation Committee with a $19 million strategic project budget. She is on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, the Editorial Board of the European Heart Journal and has served on writing committees for the AHA/ACC Guidelines and the National Academy of Medicine. Her research is supported by federal and foundation grants and has been published in top academic journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation, European Heart Journal, JAMA: Cardiologyand the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. She is an experienced member of Data Safety Monitoring Boards and Clinical Endpoint Adjudication Committees for major multicenter cardiovascular outcomes trials, and a frequent invited national and international speaker. She was born in Vitoria, Brazil, and spent her early years in Brazil’s northern Amazon region and Connecticut.