Takeda Partnering Day

Join us for an opportunity to pitch your startup to Takeda Business Development and Takeda Ventures

Network with Takeda Executives and other CEOs/Founders

Thursday, November 7, 2019 2:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Submissions due by Monday, October 21

Location:

Takeda California
9625 Towne Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92121

Sponsored By:

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (“Takeda”) is focused on the therapeutic areas of oncology, rare disease, neuroscience, and gastroenterology.

Takeda Ventures, Inc. (TVI) seeks to partner with entrepreneurs offering differentiated emerging product or technology opportunities, hallmarked by a clear strategic plan, and a management team focused on effective execution. These opportunities should signal the potential for significant value creation through, for example, improved efficiencies in drug discovery and development, identification of new therapeutic targets, or the introduction of innovative new drug candidates.

Takeda is an agile biopharmaceutical company; an ecosystem of focused researchers, external industrial partners academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and venture capital firms. We have a highly experienced alliance team with commercial expertise and a track record of success across the entire product lifecycle. Takeda is open to exploring new and different ways of partnering.

To Apply  

To be considered for this event, you must be a Small Business or Corporate member. Please submit a single page executive summary, or non-confidential slide deck (less than 25 slides) by October 21, 2019 via email to: [email protected]

You will be notified by November 1 if your company has been selected for a 1:1 meeting. ALL APPLICANTS are invited and encouraged to attend the panel discussion and reception.

(Join here: http://www.sdentrepreneurs.org/join_sdee)

Jonathan Lanfear, Vice President and Global Head of R & D Business Development, Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Jonathan Lanfear is Vice President and Global Head of R&D Business Development at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and is based in Cambridge, MA.  Prior to joining Takeda in 2011, Mr. Lanfear spent approximately 8 years at Pfizer Inc as a Senior Director and Transactions Lead in the Worldwide Business Development, Strategy, & Innovation (WWBDS&I) organization based in New York.  Mr. Lanfear’s prior roles also include Biotechnology Equity Research coverage at AG Edwards/Wachovia where his team participated in public offerings of many key Biotechnology Stocks including Human Genome Sciences, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and Onyx Pharmaceuticals.  Prior to joining AG Edwards, Mr. Lanfear spent several years in Business Development at Searle/Pharmacia where he worked on numerous significant licensing transactions prior to the company’s acquisition.  Over his ~25-year career in the industry, Mr. Lanfear has lead hundreds of transactions of all types, integrated acquired entities, and managed strategic alliances/partnerships.  Mr. Lanfear holds a Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Bioengineering, both from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), along with an MBA from Washington University (St. Louis).  He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Molecular Templates, a oncology focused publicly traded company based in New Jersey.

Beth Shafer, Head of Neuroscience Business Development at Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Beth Shafer is the Head of Neuroscience Business Development at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd and is based in Boston.  She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Aquinnah, a private neuroscience company based in Cambridge.  Prior to joining Takeda, she was the Head of Search & Evaluation for Ophthalmology and Disease Area X that encompassed Hepatology, Nephrology and Benign Hematology at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Cambridge, MA.  As an integral member of the Disease Area Leadership at NIBR, she helped to bolster their portfolio and research strategies by creating and executing on external partnership solutions.  Prior to her time at Novartis Dr. Shafer led deal teams, global scouting teams and cross-functional pharmaceutical project teams (to enable strategic decisions, licensing transactions and equity investments) at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland.  In these roles, she was integral to building therapeutic area portfolios and to developing strategies for disruptive technologies, and at Roche, she played a critical role in defining the organization’s Rare Disease strategy and initiatives focused on novel therapeutic modalities.  Prior to her time in Pharma, Beth completed extensive training in the Neurosciences, molecular biology and biophysics. She undertook her Masters degree at Columbia University in New York and PhD at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She also completed her post-doctoral fellowship at UCSD, during which time, she worked as a consultant to Brain Cells Inc in San Diego.

Jayson Punwani, Partner at Takeda Ventures

Jayson is a Partner at Takeda Ventures. He has a long track record of working successfully with entrepreneurs to advance novel therapies through development and onto the market. Jayson is a member of the Board of Directors of ArmaGen, Coho Therapeutics, Palleon Pharmaceuticals, StrideBio and Velos Bio. He was formerly a board observer for Aura Biosciences, Avidity Biosciences, Bioniz, CoLucid (NASDAQ:CLCD, acquired by Eli Lilly), and Lumena Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Shire), among others. Jayson was previously a Senior Principal at Pappas Ventures and prior to that, he was co-manager for the Kenan-Flagler Private Equity Fund. He started his career as a research scientist in the cardiovascular drug discovery group at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

David Weitz, Head of Takeda California and Global Research Externalization, Takeda California, Inc.

David Weitz is Head of Takeda California and Global Research Externalization.  As the leader of Takeda’s research site in San Diego, David works to maintain the center’s agile, Takeda’s research site in San Diego, David works to maintain the center’s agile, collaborative and entrepreneurial approach to drug discovery research and has direct responsibility for several research platform groups including Structural Biology and Biophysics, Early Target Discovery, and Computational Biology.  David also works to enhance Takeda’s research agility, capacity and access to technology through partnering, most recently through alliances with Evotec, Schrodinger and Numerate. 

David has over 25 years of experience in research, business, legal, and intellectual property, as well as a proven track record of alliance formation which he uses to increase Takeda’s agility in securing external partnerships and collaborations as a key source of external innovation.  David is a licensed patent attorney and was a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto focusing on life science intellectual property prior to joining Takeda (then Syrrx, Inc.) in 2002.  David received a B.S. in chemistry from M.I.T., a M.S. in chemistry from University of California, Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from University of California, Berkeley.

Panel Moderator
Killu Sanborn, Managing Director, Oxford Finance

Killu Sanborn, Ph.D., Managing Director, Oxford Finance, LLC, has over 25 years of experience as a venture debt and venture equity investor, banker, executive, entrepreneur and researcher. She was previously, Managing Director of Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Senior Vice President at Comerica Bank, and Principal and Fund Manager with IngleWood Ventures, Director of Technology Commercialization at Stratagene, and first employee and Vice President of Business Development of Phenogenex. As venture debt provider and VC, she has closed over $500 million in financings to dozens of life science and medical technology companies, including syndicated deals. Her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology is from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences/Sloan-Kettering Institute joint graduate program in New York City.