Dr. Maharaj K Bhan Former Secretary Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India
Dr. Bhan has spear headed the ongoing renaissance in the Indian Biotech space. He formerly headed the department of Pediatrics at AIIMS and is a global leader in research on nutrition-infection linkages. He obtained his MBBS (1969) from AFMC, Poona University and MD (1974) from Delhi University, Delhi. He has been at the forefront of promoting primary health care for children in rural India including promotion of oral rehydration therapy, micronutrient supplementation, introduction of new vaccines and greater coverage with existing ones. He has made indelible contribution in addressing varied key issues like childhood diarrhea for which he developed a low osmolarity oral rehydration solution, which has been introduced in the Diarrheal Disease Control Programme by WHO and identified zinc deficiency as a major problem in public health and pushed for zinc based treatment for childhood diarrhea which is now a global recommendation by WHO. Owing to his vast body of work he has played a major role in policy formulation of esteemed organizations such as WHO, UNICEF, ICMR, CSIR.
Rajiv Doshi, MD Co-Founder, Ventus Medical
Rajiv Doshi, MD is the Executive Director (United States) of the Stanford-India Biodesign Program which began in 2007. He is also Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Ventus Medical, a venture capital-backed medical device company in Belmont, California that markets products for obstructive sleep apnea. Prior to finding Ventus Medical, he was a Principal at De Novo Ventures. Rajiv has taught medical device design courses at Stanford since 2000. The first, “Medical Device Design” is a prototyping-intensive, graduate level course within the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The second, “Medical Device Innovation” is an undergraduate course within the Department of Bioengineering that teaches the fundamentals of medical device entrepreneurship. Rajiv earned a BS in chemical engineering, an MSE in biomechanical engineering, and an MD, all from Stanford University. He also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of Lunar Design. Rajiv has roughly thirty US patents issued or pending.
Jasmin Patel, Venture partner, Aarin Capital
Dr. Jasmin Patel is an international executive with broad experiences in the areas of Pharma R&D, business development, M&A, sales, marketing, and investing broadly in the healthcare sector. Since 2005 he has been based in Mumbai. Most recently, Jasmin was Managing Director at Fidelity Growth Partners India, where, he led growth capital investments in healthcare & lifescience companies as well as other sectors of the Indian economy. Prior to Fidelity, Jasmin held multiple roles with Novartis including the COO for the India business and Global Head of disease area strategy and M&A for their Pharma business out of Switzerland. He has also spent several years in the US with McKinsey & Company advising companies across the world on the entire range of activities in the life sciences. Early in his career, he was a scientist focused on drug discovery and technology development and had the privilege of taking one biopharmaceutical into the clinic. Jasmin has a B.Pharm degree from Bombay University (gold medalist), a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry with Honors from Duquesne University, and an M.B.A. from Wharton. He also spent 2 years as a PPG Post-doctoral Fellow at the world-renowned Scripps Research Institute in California.
Vinny Bhutani Professor of Neonatology, LPCH at Stanford
Dr. Bhutani received his postgraduate training in Neonatal-Developmental Medicine at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. His prior academic appointments in Philadelphia, from 1980 to 2005, included Temple University (Pulmonary Physiology), University of Pennsylvania Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Hospital. At the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), he was elected to the Executive Committee, Section on Perinatal Pediatrics from District III, appointed to the Committee of Fetus and Newborn and to the Subcommittee on Hyperbilirubinemia.
Dr. Bhutani was elected to the American Pediatric Society, appointed to Co-Chair the Audrey K. Brown Kernicterus Symposium and coordinates the Bilirubin Club. He also serves on the Board of California Association of Neonatologists and is the Chair of California’s Committee of Fetus and Newborn.
Recently, through The Programme for Global Paediatric Research (PGPR) he has launched the Global Prevention of Kernicterus Network (GlobalPKN). His heath-societal research interests include prevention of jaundice-related newborn brain damage and ventilation induced respiratory injury through systems-approach, biotechnologies, biodesign of affordable medical devices and chemoprevention as well as development of low-cost, high quality strategies and health policies for global reduction of infant mortality and morbidities.