Emerging Technology and Best Practices Seminar Series

Nanotechnology in Medicine: From Diagnostics to Therapeutics

Back to agenda

Panel Discussion Bios

Glenn Batchelder

Glenn Batchelder is President and Chief Executive Officer of BIND Biosciences, a privately held company developing target nanoparticle therapeutics. Prior to joining BIND Biosciences, Mr. Batchelder was CEO of Acceleron Pharma, a company developing biotherapeutics for cancer and musculoskeletal disorders. He grew Acceleron from a research start-up to a clinical stage company with promising bone loss therapy in the clinic and a robust preclinical pipeline. Prior to Acceleron, Mr. Batchelder was Senior Vice President of Operations at Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he played an integral leadership role in the launch of VELCADE and was responsible for the commercial supply chain and technical operations for INTEGRILIN. Mr. Batchelder is on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University.

Alan L. Crane

Mr. Crane is currently President and CEO of Tempo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He has also been a venture partner at Polaris Ventures since April of 2002. From 2002 until 2006, Mr. Crane was President and CEO of Momenta Pharmaceuticals. He joined Momenta as the fifth employee and built the company into a public company, creating an advanced and diversified pipeline, entering into two strategic collaborations with the Sandoz division of Novartis, and raising $275M. Prior to this, Mr. Crane was senior vice president of global corporate development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for leading Millennium's strategic partnering, mergers and acquisitions, and licensing activities, generating over $2B in partner funding and acquiring 19 development stage products. Prior to Millennium, Mr. Crane was a marketing executive at Dupont-Merck and a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and Arthur D. Little.

Boards:
He serves on the boards of Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Sirtris Prmaceuticals, Adnexus and Vaccinex, and is a member of the board of Children's Hospital Trust and a founder and member of the board of the Autism Consortium.

Education:
He received his M.B.A. in 1992 and his B.A. summa cum laude and M.A. in 1986, all from Harvard University. Mr. Crane also attended Harvard Medical School from 1986 to 1988 before pursuing a business career.

Doug Levinson, Ph.D., Partner

Doug joined Flagship in 2006, bringing to Flagship’s venture investment and new venture creation activities over fifteen years of experience in the biotech industry. Prior to Flagship, Doug was with TransForm Pharmaceuticals since 2000 as part of its scientific founding-team joining Professors Bob Langer and Michael Cima of MIT. Most recently, he was Vice President of Emerging Science and Technology and led the design, development and implementation of TransForm's basic technology platforms and business model. TransForm was acquired by Johnson & Johnson for $230 million in 2005.

Prior to TransForm, Doug was with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which he joined as a founding scientific team member. At Millennium for seven years, Doug was responsible for establishing the company's early scientific program in Immunology/Inflammation, which he grew to the largest research effort at Millennium with a staff of 170 researchers. Before joining Millennium, he was with Creative Biomolecules where he was responsible for the generation of synthetic single-chain antibody molecules.

Doug holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard University and a B.S. cum laude in Molecular Biology from the University of Massachusetts. He has authored numerous patents in the field of high throughput platform technologies and molecular genetics and has published extensively in scientific journals.

At Flagship, Doug is a member of the investment team and focuses on early-stage companies in the biotech industry. He is currently Founding CEO and Director of T2 Biosystems and serves on the Board of Resolvyx.

John McDonough

Chief Executive Officer of T2 Biosystems.

John McDonough joined T2 Biosystems in 2007. Prior to joining T2, Mr. McDonough was President of Cytyc Development Corporation and had responsibility for designing and executing Cytyc Corporation’s acquisition and investment strategy for growing the company from a single product company with revenue of approximately $300 million in 2003 to a company with revenue of approximately $750 million from multiple products in 2007. In total, Cytyc acquired five companies totaling over $1 billion in acquisitions and also entered into alliances and investments with several early stage companies. John most recently led the efforts that resulted in Cytyc’s acquisition by Hologic, Inc. in October, 2007 for over $6 billion, representing almost a four times increase in Cytyc’s market cap over a four year period. During Mr. McDonough’s tenure at Cytyc, he also had responsibility for Cytyc’s Research & Development, Operations and Regulatory functions.

Mr. McDonough came to Cytyc after serving as co-founder, CEO and president at SoundBite Communications, a customer communications company which went public in 2007. Previously, he was COO of Direct Hit Technologies, an Internet search engine company that was successfully acquired in January, 2000 for over $500 million, and CEO and President of Workgroup Technology, a publicly held company that developed and marketed product development management solutions. Mr. McDonough also spent 10 years with Easel Corporation where he held the role of CFO, COO and then CEO of a start-up company that grew into a publicly held company in 1990 and which was acquired in 1995.

Linda K. Molnar, Ph.D.

Dr. Linda K. Molnar is a Program Officer in the Office of the Director, National Cancer Institute (NCI). In her role, she coordinates program and research activities for the NCI Alliance in Cancer Nanotechnology, a $144M initiative. Her background includes business development and research and development roles at the NASA Ames Center for Nanotechnology, Caliper Life Sciences, and Rohm and Haas Company. She received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her B.S. in Chemistry with Honors from the University of Pittsburgh (magna cum laude), and she has completed the Wharton Management Program. She is the holder of 10 issued patents in the nanotechnology field and has published in leading journals.

Amir Nashat

Amir Nashat is a general partner in our Boston office. Amir joined Polaris in April 2002 and focuses on investments in the life sciences.

Experience:
Prior to joining Polaris, Amir completed his Ph.D. as a Hertz Fellow in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a minor in Biology under the guidance of Dr. Robert Langer. Amir’s doctoral research focused on information flow through neurons, neural implants, and neural tissue engineering. During his time at M.I.T., Amir completed an internship in the London office of Goldman, Sachs & Company, where he worked on interest rate derivative products.

Boards:
Amir currently represents Polaris as a Director of Adnexus Therapeutics, Athenix Corporation, aTyr Pharmaceutials, Avila Therapeutics, Hydra Biosciences, Promedior Pharmaceuticals, Pervasis Therapeutics, Inc., where he was founding president, T2 Biosystems and WaveRx. Additionally, Amir is a Board Observer to GI Dynamics, and supports Polaris' investment in Advion and BIND Biosciences.

Amir currently serves on the Board of the New England Venture Capital Association, on the Advisory Board of the Simmons School of Management Entrepreneurship Initiative, and is a Catalyst for the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at M.I.T.

Education:
Prior to obtaining his Ph.D. at MIT, Amir earned both his M.S. and B.S. in Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.