Lumira Capital, a North American health care venture capital firm, has appointed Richard Glickman, Frank Stonebanks and Brian Underdown as Venture Partners at the firm.
These industry veterans will support Lumira Capital's investment and corporate partnering initiatives and expand the firm's presence in leading centers for life sciences innovation in Canada and the US from offices in Vancouver and San Diego.
Peter van der Velden, Managing General Partner of Lumira Capital, says: "We are excited to deepen our decades-long relationships with Richard and Frank while continuing our relationship with Brian. Our team and our portfolio companies look forward to their active involvement in helping us identify and build best-in-class health care companies across North America."
Dr Glickman currently serves as chairman of the board of Aurina Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: AUPH) and enGene, both Lumira Capital portfolio companies. He was a co-founder and CEO of Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Galencia in 2007 for USD915 million. He has served as CEO of StressGen Biotechnologies, lead director for Cardiome Pharma, and chairman of the board of Essa Pharmaceuticals. Dr Glickman has served on numerous biotechnology and community boards including roles as Chairman of Life Sciences B.C., Director of the Canadian Genetic Disease Network, a member of the federal government's National Biotechnology Advisory Committee, a member of the British Columbia Innovation Council and as a Director for the Vancouver Aquarium.
Stonebanks is currently Managing General Partner of Blackcomb Advisors, a strategic advisory firm serving life sciences and technology companies. Previously he was CEO of Triphase LP, a biotechnology focused fund and operating company, where he structured a USD1 billion partnership with Celgene Corporation. Stonebanks previously served as the Chief Commercial Officer for the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), where he was responsible for corporate partnering and managing the institute's investment fund and intellectual property commercialisation efforts. Earlier, he was a Senior Advisor for IBM, leading its healthcare and life science acquisition efforts, and co-managed IBM's USD500 million venture fund, a limited partner in more than 30 venture capital firms globally. Earlier in his career Stonebanks held a number of senior executive positions at biopharmaceutical firms, including VP and General Manager at Centocor and Johnson & Johnson, where he was head of global marketing for oncology and infectious diseases and served as a VP at JJDC, J&J's corporate venture arm.
Dr Underdown joined Lumira Capital in 1997 and served on the firm's Investment Committee as a Managing Director until the end of 2015. Previously he was assistant Vice President Research at Pasteur Merieux Connaught (now Sanofi Pasteur) where he was responsible for the Canadian Universities Research program and several global vaccine development programs. During his academic career Dr Underdown was Associate Dean, Research at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine and at the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. He has published over 85 articles in immunology in numerous peer-reviewed publications. Dr Underdown has served as a member or chaired a number of government-industry commercialisation panels such as the Canadian Institute for Health Research and the FRSQ-Pfizer Innovation Fund, and he is currently chairman of Ontario Genomics.
