PCI Ventures February Office Hours
PCI Ventures offers office hours to address business questions on topics such as company formation, legal agreements, benefits, and insurance. Everyone is encouraged to take advantage of these office hours, so please sign up!
Here is our schedule for the month of February:
Office hours on Wednesday, February 5th from 9am -12pm are with Yi-Yen Chen, PhD, Portfolio Manager. They will be virtual; sign up for a time here!
Dr. Yi-Yen Chen has over 10 years of healthcare-related experience. Prior to joining PCI Ventures, she oversaw the life sciences investment and portfolio management at Echo Investment Capital. She also worked in business development and drug licensing at Microbio Group in Taiwan. Dr. Chen was the R&D project head and led the development of the world’s biggest antibody portfolio for the zebrafish research community at GeneTex. She completed her PhD in developmental biology from Nobel Laureate Professor Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard’s lab at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany. Her postdoctoral training was in molecular biology at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Mainz, Germany, and in cancer immunotherapy at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam.
Office hours on Wednesday, February 12th from 9am -12pm are with Bhavana Mohanraj, PhD, Portfolio Manager. They will be virtual; sign up for a time here!
Prior to joining PCI Ventures, Bhavana was the Director of R&D for Biorez, an early-stage regenerative medicine company, where she developed implants for the sports medicine market. Her interest in entrepreneurial ventures developed during her time in academia, where she co-founded a startup based on a drug delivery system to improve orthopedic tissue repair. Bhavana graduated with a B.S. and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
As part of the PCIV team, Bhavana manages a life sciences portfolio and partners with Penn faculty and staff to build companies around innovative medical devices, therapeutics, and diagnostic technologies.
Office hours on Wednesday, February 19th from 9am-12pm are with Melisa Lopez-Anton, PhD, Assistant Director of PCI Ventures. They will be virtual; sign up for a time here!
Dr. Lopez-Anton manages a portfolio of PCI Venture startup companies focusing on life sciences including medical device, biotechnology, and therapeutic sectors. Her primary responsibility is to build businesses that commercialize Penn intellectual property by recruiting management, developing business strategies, fundraising, supporting company operations, and executing deals.
Prior to joining PCI, Melisa worked with Yale University ventures commercializing their life science portfolio. Her interests in entrepreneurial ventures developed during her time in academia, where she combined her research work with a venture fellow position at FundRx, and spearheaded the planning of courses on entrepreneurship and venture capital addressed to increase diversity in scientific ventures. She is also an active member of the Spanish Scientists in USA (ECUSA), a non-profit organization where she contributes to the entrepreneurship and gender equality programs.
Melisa graduated with a B.S. in Biology from the University of Valencia (Spain) and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Research from Cardiff University (UK).
