Amanda Drobnis is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hilltop BioSciences, a veterinary biotech company helping animals heal through innovative regenerative therapies. Amanda has spent many years looking for ways to combine her passion for animals (especially horses) with business. First working for a non-profit planning large conferences and events and then in marketing for a large pet retail company. She then moved on to sales and marketing for several medical and veterinary companies. Before founding Hilltop Bio, Amanda co-founded and managed a New England based medical regenerative therapy distribution company that continues to thrive and grow today. When not at Hilltop Bio’s lab Amanda can be found riding her favorite horse, Addie, or lost in a great book!

Martha C. Farmer, PhD, founded North Shore InnoVentures (NSIV), a non-profit incubator in Beverly, MA, which has fostered 59 life sciences and cleantech startups that have raised $414M so far. Dr. Farmer served as CEO from 2008 until 2018 and still serves on the NSIV Board. She currently serves on the Board of two companies, Atentiv and TSRL, and on multiple non-profit and corporate advisory boards. Her biotech industry career began with the launch of Baxter Healthcare’s Hemoglobin Therapeutics Division in 1987, which she helped grow from 3 people to 130 over ten years. Prior to starting NSIV, Dr. Farmer co-founded one start-up and consulted for a few others and she is an angel investor. She earned a BS in zoology and a PhD in physiology and pharmacology from Duke University, did postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University and was a Medical Ethics Fellow at Harvard University.

Steve’s background ranges from CEO of a public biotech company to co-founder and Managing Director of a life sciences venture capital firm, co-founder of startups, strategic advisor for academia, published author and public speaker, and academic scientist. Steve’s network and expertise extends from academic research to Wall Street. He has managed teams through successful financings, scale-up of operations, clinical trials, deal negotiations, IPOs, and M&As. My public speaking opportunities extend globally including at TED and TEDMED, and he is co-curator of TEDxNatick. With Juan Enriquez, Steve co-authored a book entitled Evolving Ourselves. In addition, he has advised companies in the U.S. and Europe over several decades on strategy and financings. He is currently a board member or advisor to a number of life science companies. Steve began his career as a professor at Harvard Medical School, has co-authored over 130 scientific papers, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Heart Association.

John Hallinan joined MassBio in 2012 as the Chief Business Officer and oversees the MassBio Innovation Services programs. John’s fiscal experience in the life sciences and software industries reflect positions of increasing responsibility across a broad range of strategic and operational disciplines. His background encompasses venture financings, corporate development, technology licensing, and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to MassBio, John was the Chief Financial Officer at Cytel, a leader in the design and implementation of adaptive clinical trials, and he had been active with MassBio—serving on the Economic Development Advisory Group and as co-chair of the Finance Committee & Entrepreneur’s University. Before joining Cytel, John served as CFO at Signet Laboratories, a leading supplier of diagnostic assays to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to Signet, John was interim CFO at Cambium Learning, a private equity-backed publishing company that completed two acquisitions during his tenure. John was the Chief Financial Officer of AnVil, Inc. a venture-funded silico drug discovery company, where he led the company’s healthcare market business development efforts. At CambridgeSoft Corporation, John rose to CFO of that leading pharma/bio applications and enterprise solutions supplier. As Animation Technologies’ CFO, he guided the company’s first and second rounds of venture funding. John currently sits on the Advisory Board of MTTC (the MA Technology Transfer Center) and Charité BIH Entrepreneurship Summit. John holds a BBA from St. Bonaventure University and is a certified public accountant. He lives with his wife Denise in Marlborough, MA.

John Hession is a Partner at Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton, and a member of the firm’s Corporate, Venture Capital and Life Sciences practice groups. Previously, John was a co-founder of Cooley LLP's Boston office, and served as the Managing Partner of the Cooley Boston office for its first several years of operation, helping to steer and grow the Boston office from ten to seventy-plus professionals and staff. For the last thirty-five years, John has represented emerging-growth companies, as both a legal and business advisor, principally in the life sciences, medical device, hardware, software and software services sectors, as well as angels and venture capital funds in the investment process. John is also angel investor in emerging companies. John’s practice includes both start-up, emerging growth and later-stage company work, where he serves as outside general counsel. This work includes corporate governance; equity-based compensation strategies; mergers and acquisitions (representing buyers and sellers); and strategic alliances, corporate partnering, joint ventures, collaboration and development projects, and other strategic alliances involving technology transfers; as well venture capital and angel financings of companies in these sectors, representing principally companies and their management teams. John has structured and negotiated more than 400 debt and equity financings, ranging in scale from $500,000 to $250 million, and more than 350 acquisitions ranging in size from $1.0 million to $4.2 billion. During his thirty-five year career, John has represented more than 400 companies from the earliest stages of development, from cradle to culmination, from inception to liquidity (including public offering and acquisitions). John has won a number of industry awards during his career, including Best Lawyers in America, IP Stars (Managing Intellectual Property), Lawdragon 500 Leading Deal Makers, a Massachusetts Super Lawyer, and Best Lawyers in New England.

Gary Paul Magnant, MS, is a Managing Partner at ICV Venture Engineering Funds. He served as the founding CEO of Sage Science (www.sagescience.com), Thrive Bioscience (www.thrivebio.com) and Owl Scientific (now ThermoFisher). Mr. Magnant has served on numerous boards, raised substantial venture and angel capital for his companies and guided them to successful exits.