Panel session 3

Funding Future Breakthroughs in Prevalent Diseases

Industry Sector: Entrepreneurship & Investing

Historically, prevalent diseases have been overlooked and undervalued, with capital disproportionately funneling to lucrative disease areas with the highest anticipated commercial potential. This panel will explore how investors can think about funding the next potential breakthrough therapies and interventions in widespread, high unmet need disease areas (e.g. global infectious diseases, anticipating the next pandemic), and how to value companies and opportunities in spaces that are getting increasingly crowded (e.g. obesity / GLP1s).

Panelists will share insights into the trends and challenges in scaling solutions for widespread diseases, and the impact of this funding on global health equity, providing a diverse set of perspectives across the investor ecosystem, from early-stage VC to multi-billion dollar asset managers and large pharma BD / M&A.

Yuxi lin, ph.d. | senior director, business development strategy & growth, eli lilly

Yuxi has been with Eli Lilly since 2022, currently as part of the Business Development Strategy & Growth team. Prior to this, she was part of the Lilly’s Ventures team, where Yuxi led investments in early-stage biotech startups. 

Before joining Eli Lilly, Yuxi spent two years at Autobahn Labs, an incubator started by Samsara Biocapital, where Yuxi worked with principal investigators across academic institutions to spin out multiple therapeutic companies. Yuxi joined Autobahn Labs after her time at University of California, San Francisco's InVent Office, as part of  Business Development and Alliance Management team, where she worked on large drug discovery partnerships between academia and industry.

Yuxi’s scientific background is in obesity and diabetes, with expertise in metabolism, adipose cell biology, insulin resistance, and immune regulation. Yuxi earned a PhD from Columbia University, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco.

irina margine, ph.d. | biotech sector lead, private equity, wellington management

As a private equity investor, Irina works closely with the Private Equity Team, global industry analysts and other research resources within the firm to identify, conduct due diligence on, and negotiate investments in private companies within the biotech sector. 

Prior to joining Wellington Management in 2019, Irina was an equity research vice president at Cowen and Co., covering small and mid-cap biotechnology companies (2017 – 2019). Previously, she worked in risk management within JPMorgan’s wholesale lending businesses (2014 – 2017).

Irina earned her PhD in microbiology from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York (2014) and her Master of science in Biomolecular Sciences from Utrecht University in the Netherlands (2009). She also earned a BS in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from Jacobs University in Germany (2007).

robert tepper, m.d. | partner & co-founder, third rock ventures

Bob Tepper is a co-founder and Partner of Third Rock Ventures and a distinguished physician-scientist with more than 35 years of experience building and operating leading research and development organizations in the biotech industry. Bob focuses on the formation, development and scientific strategy of new Third Rock companies. He also assumes active leadership roles in portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Third Rock, Bob served as President of Research and Development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and was vital in its expansion from a drug discovery company to a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company. Prior to joining Millennium, he served as principal investigator in the laboratory of tumor biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. Bob is also a founder and former member of the scientific advisory board of Cell Genesys/Abgenix Inc.

Bob currently serves as an adjunct faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital and is a member of the Massachusetts General Hospital Research Institute Advisory Council. He has also served as a Council member for the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Bob holds an A.B. in biochemistry from Princeton University and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

ricky sun, ph.d., mba | partner, bain capital life sciences

Dr. Sun joined Bain Capital Life Sciences in 2016 and is a Partner. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Emalex, Adarx, and Tenacia. Previously he was a board member of Savara (NASDAQ: SVRA), Arcutis (NASDAQ: ARQT), Annexon (NASDAQ: ANNX), Avistone, and served as board observers of Pharvaris (NASDAQ: PHVS) and Replimune (NASDAQ: REPL). He also served as a member of the trustees of the Boston Museum of Science. He also serves on the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Science Alumni Association Counsel.

Prior to joining Bain Capital, from 2013 to 2016, he was a Director of Corporate Development and Strategy at Biogen. Prior to Biogen, Dr. Sun served as a Vice President at BlackRock, as a member of the Fundamental Equity division of BlackRock's Alpha Strategies Group and senior analyst for BlackRock's Fundamental Large Cap Growth equity team, covering the health care sector. Prior to that, he was a senior healthcare analyst at Citadel and Alyeska Investment Group in Chicago and worked as a pharmaceuticals equity research analyst on Wall Street, spending time at Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley. Dr. Sun began his career as a senior scientist at Ironwood Pharmaceutical where he was involved in the discovery and development of the drug Linzess for irritable bowel syndrome.

Dr. Sun received a PhD degree in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University and was an NIH post-doctoral fellow in Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School.  He also received an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business, where he was a Mildred Elperin Scholar.  He graduated summa cum laude from Berea College with a BA in chemistry.

rebecca john | mba class of 2026

Rebecca is a first-year MBA student at Harvard Business School. Previously, she was Director, Trial Solutions Design at Care Access, a decentralized clinical research startup working to expand patient access and reduce bottlenecks in clinical trial operations for the biotech / pharma industry. Prior to Care Access, she was in Healthcare Equity Capital Markets at Oppenheimer & Co. She started her career at the Trout Group, a biotech investor relations and capital markets advisory firm. Rebecca graduated from Cornell University in 2017 with a Major in Biology and Society and a Minor in Business.