GENERAL INCEPTION

Vikram Chaudhery is founder and president of General Inception and a partner at Genoa Ventures, focusing on life sciences investments. His background includes work with Fortune 500 and 1000 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in M&A, R&D, and commercial strategy, with particular expertise in diagnostics sales, operations, and growth. His investment interests center on genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics.

Alan Dance is Chief Executive Officer at sCellgen. He has over twenty-five years of experience in commercializing technology in the life science R&D market, with senior management roles across sales, customer support, marketing, and corporate development. His work has included the commercialization of technologies such as whole genome expression arrays, high-density 100K SNP genotyping arrays, and DNA sequencing technologies including energy transfer dyes, ThermoSequenase, and capillary sequencing systems.

Arunan Skandarajah is an independent technical and management consultant focused on medical product strategy, R&D, and commercialization. His background spans research at UC Berkeley, malaria elimination work at the Gates Foundation, corporate strategy at McKinsey, and roles at the FDA, and he has invested as an impact investor in areas including point-of-care ultrasound in Sub-Saharan Africa and automated diagnostics manufacturing. At ARPA-H, he joined as a Presidential Innovation Fellow supporting a White House biomedical initiative, contributed to building the agency as it grew to over 300 staff, and managed its SBIR program.

Autumn Lee serves as Chief of Staff at General Inception and is President-Elect of the PDA West Coast Chapter. She has experience managing venture programs and leading projects across clinical and commercial supply organizations, with a focus on translating innovative life sciences technologies into scalable companies through global collaboration with executives and entrepreneurs.

Brad Nelson is Chief Executive Officer of Enable Medicine, a company focused on a translational data layer for AI-powered drug development. His background covers investing and operating roles across life science tools, diagnostics, and medical device sectors, including company creation, portfolio strategy, and CEO and board leadership. His work involves shaping strategy, building leadership teams, and coordinating product, capital, and go-to-market execution.

Carol Tillis is Vice President of Finance at General Inception. Her experience spans finance, accounting, auditing, FP&A, financial modeling, and investor relations, including areas such as GAAP and SOX compliance, system integrations, revenue recognition, equity accounting, SEC filings, and month-end closes. She has also worked with boards, audit committees, and external auditors.

Chris Barbazette is an Executive in Residence at General Inception. His background includes leading commercial functions across markets in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, with experience in both emerging and mature markets. His areas of work include direct sales team management, distribution management, outbound marketing, product management, and service and support leadership.

Christopher Hoppe is Vice President, Investor, and Co-Builder at General Inception. He brings 20 years of experience in operations and corporate strategy across startups and multinational corporations, with particular expertise in life sciences, biotech, and healthcare sectors. His background includes leading product launches, managing M&A transactions exceeding $300 million, implementing operational plans, and conducting quantitative risk assessments for large organizations.

David Ferrick is Chief Executive Officer of Moddik Inc., a company focused on life science tools and immunotherapy. He has more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology sector, working across drug discovery, strategic partnerships, and the commercialization of life science products in areas including immunology, cancer, neurological diseases, and cell and gene therapy. His work has included advancing drug development programs and in vitro diagnostic tests.

Elodie Dormes is Director of Business Development at Ennovate Pharma. Her work covers industrial property and licensing, including hybrid business models, along with the management of innovation and alliances in the life sciences sector.

Francois Valencony is Chief Investment & Business Officer at General Inception, where he supports companies in the life science, clean tech, and deep tech sectors in Europe and North America. He spent 15 years in private equity, venture, and growth/buy-out investing, and built and managed Mérieux Equity Partners from 2009 to 2022. He also participates in non-profit initiatives.

Greg Timblin is CEO and co-founder of Inapill, a company developing therapeutics that target immune cell metabolism to treat age-related chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. He holds B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Biology from Nebraska Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley, and completed postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and UCSF studying proinflammatory gene expression and metabolic-epigenetic pathways in the immune system. He co-founded Inapill with Josh Farahzad; the company is supported by venture studio General Inception and operates out of Bakar Bio Labs on the UC Berkeley campus.

Ingrid Caton is a Project Director at General Inception with over 18 years of experience in program management within regulated diagnostics, IVD, biotech, and medical device settings. She has established portfolio governance, KPIs, delivery frameworks, and risk management systems, working across R&D, Engineering, Marketing, Supply Chain, Commercial, Regulatory, and Quality functions. Her background includes new product introductions on the Bio-Rad BioPlex 2200 platform and compliance with standards such as FDA, ISO 13485, ISO 14971, MDSAP, and IVDR.

Jeff Caputo is President, CEO, and a Board Member at ClearCut Surgical. He has over 20 years of experience in the life sciences industry, spanning sales, marketing, business development, general management, operations, strategy, clinical research, and product development.

John Leonard is an Entrepreneur in Residence at General Inception and works as a scientist, chief scientific officer, and R&D consultant. He has over 25 years of R&D experience spanning therapeutic modalities including small molecules, biologics, and cell and gene therapies, as well as disease areas such as autoimmune/inflammatory conditions, immuno-oncology, and rare diseases. His work has included advancing programs from discovery through early clinical development and proof of concept.

Laure Bouchez is an Executive in Residence at General Inception with over 14 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Her work in drug discovery includes an inventorship role in identifying six clinical candidates, two of which reached Phase I/II and one of which is on the market, along with 40 publications and eight published patents. She has managed cross-functional teams of up to 21 scientists, received the 2012 European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry "Young Medicinal Chemist in Industry" award, and has tutored at Oxford and Bern.

Marsha Hartman is a board member at FlowView Diagnostics, a company working on the integration of AI and machine learning with clinical diagnostics and flow cytometry, and a member of the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Society. She previously held a role at Slingshot Biosciences overseeing marketing, sales, business development, and product management, and is a founding member of BLPN. Her background is in epidemiology and commercial operations.

Neil Kubica is the Therapeutics Division Lead at General Inception. He has worked in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, with experience in venture capital and scientific advisory roles, and a focus on drug discovery related to the genome.

Peter Seufer-Wasserthal is Executive Chair at Planet Smart and Chairman of the Board at Imperagen. He also works as a biotech consultant and serves in board roles, with a background in business development, technology commercialization, life sciences, product portfolio management, and supply chain operations.

Sanket Agrawal is a biopharma executive with over 20 years of experience across therapeutics and diagnostics, having held roles including general manager of large biopharma units, chief business officer, and CEO of early-stage companies. He has worked across discovery, clinical development, and commercialization, launching drugs, diagnostics, and AI/software platforms, and served as general manager for the industry's first KRAS therapy. He currently works as a business advisor at a stealth-mode biotech company.

Soraia Silva Romão is a Trainee Lawyer at AFMA – Antonio Frutuoso de Melo e Associados, Sociedade de Advogados. Her stated areas of interest include law, health, management, human resources, marketing and communication, consulting, training, and coaching.

Mourad Yesayan is a Managing Director at Paladin Capital Group and an investment lead for the firm's Cyber Fund, which backs early-stage cybersecurity and digital resilience companies in the US and Europe. He joined Paladin in 2009, having previously served as VP of Finance and a corporate officer at a Nasdaq-listed industrial infrastructure company and as a senior consultant at an M&A and restructuring advisory firm. He holds an MBA and a BS in Finance from Fresno State University.

François Valencony is Chief Investment & Business Officer at General Inception, where he supports life science and clean tech companies across North America and Europe. He previously spent 15 years in private equity and venture capital, including building and managing Mérieux Equity Partners from 2009 to 2022, focusing on healthcare and life science investments. His experience encompasses project structuring, business development, and talent identification within the healthcare and life science sectors.