Scott M. Rocklage, Ph.D.
Managing Partner, 5AM Ventures

Scott M. Rocklage, Ph.D. joined 5AM Ventures in 2003 as a Venture Partner and became a Managing Partner in 2004. Dr. Rocklage has over 20 years of healthcare management experience with strategic leadership responsibilities that have led to the successful approval of three U.S. New Drug Applications by the FDA (Omniscan™, Teslascan® and Cubicin®), and entered six drug candidates into clinical trials. Dr. Rocklage has served as Chairman and CEO of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, President and CEO of Nycomed Salutar, President, CEO and Chairman of Nycomed Interventional and has also held various R&D positions at Salutar and Catalytica. Dr. Rocklage currently serves as Board Chairman of Achaogen, Relypsa and Semprus as well as on the Boards of WaveRx, Pulmatrix and Variation and the Board of Associates at the Whitehead Institute. Dr. Rocklage was formerly Executive Chairman of Ilypsa (acquired by Amgen) and Miikana (acquired by EntreMed). Dr. Rocklage received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Rocklage is based in the Waltham, MA office.

Sam Colella
Managing Director, Versant Ventures

A highly respected venture capitalist recognized for his leadership in life sciences investing, Sam Colella co-founded Versant Ventures with six other managing directors in 1999. Over the course of his career, Mr. Colella has acquired more than 20 years of successful operating experience in the high technology industry and more than 25 years of investing experience in the healthcare sector.

Prior to founding Versant, Mr. Colella managed one of the first life science-focused investing groups in the industry as a general partner with Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). Previously, he was president of a New York Stock Exchange company and held a variety of functional positions in a broad array of diverse businesses, including president of Spectra-Physics, the world's leading laser supplier, and senior manager of the Technical Products Division of Corning Glass.

Having managed investments concentrated in medical devices, biotechnology and health care technology companies, Mr. Colella is credited with an extensive list of successful public life science companies, including Alexza Pharmaceuticals, Argonaut Technologies, Arthrocare, Athena Neurosciences, Aviron, CV Therapeutics, Endosonics, Genomic Health Inc., IVAC Holdings, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacopeia, Symyx Technologies, Thermage, Tularik and Vivus. He is currently a director of Alexza Pharmaceuticals, EuroVentures, Flexion, Genomic Health Inc., Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Rennovia, Veracyte, and he is Chairman of Fluidigm.

Mr. Colella’s professional affiliations include terms of service as an officer in the National Venture Capital Association, the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, and American Entrepreneurs for Economic Growth and Chairman of the Stanford Council on Interdisciplinary Biosciences. Mr. Colella has a B.S. degree in Business and Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University.

Bob Wedinger, Ph.D.

Bob Wedinger has over 20 years experience in the specialty-chemicals industry.  After a post-doctoral research appointment at Harvard University, Bob joined FMC Corporation as a Discovery Chemist in the Agricultural Chemicals Group. He held a number of positions of increasing responsibility in the Specialty Chemicals Group of FMC before moving to Honeywell International (Allied Signal). At Honeywell, Bob rose from Director of Research to Vice President and General Manager of the Pharmaceutical Fine Chemicals business. Bob then served as Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Products and the Performance Materials  businesses at JM Huber. Most recently, Bob was the Chief Business Officer and Group President, Performance Materials, at Chemtura Corporation, a $3.7 billion specialty-chemicals company.

Bob earned a Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Kurt Swogger

Kurt Swogger graduated from Case Institute of Technology in 1972 with a B. Che degree and is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas. He joined The Dow Chemical Company in 1972 and retired as a Vice President of Business Development at the end of 2007.

Kurt’s responsibilities at Dow included manufacturing in Agricultural Chemicals, business and marketing in Consumer Products, business systems and finance in Consumer Products, and in research and development in Consumer Products, Plastics, Performance Products and Agricultural Chemicals. The bulk of his career (26 out of 35 years) was in R&D in which he was known as an innovator of new processes and products with a very high success rate of new product commercialization (over 80% in the 15 year span in Plastics).

Kurt was a leader in the development of the Speed Based Philosophy, an internal effort at Dow to accelerate the new product development process. This approach was demonstrated in Plastics over a 15 year span and in Performance Products over 3 year before his retirement. Dow’s Insite Technology program was developed using this approach and was a key element in creating over 20 billion dollars of value in 15 years in the Plastic’s Business.

While serving as a senior R&D leader at Dow, Kurt or members of his group were recognized by receiving The US Medal of Technology, The Corporate Innovators Award, The American Chemical Society’s Chemical Leadership Award and the AIChE Product Innovations Award among others.

Dr. Enrico Polastro is the Vice President and Senior Industry Specialist of the European Pharmaceutical and Fine Chemicals practice of Arthur D. Little. He is based in their Brussels office with particular focus on generic pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical fine chemicals, fields where he has worked in and has been consulting for since now twenty one years.

Prior to joining Arthur D. Little, Dr. Polastro worked for several years for a diversified Belgian company where he held various positions in R&D and production scaling-up both in Europe and the US. Dr. Polastro has written various papers on pharmaceutical manufacturing as well as on the fine chemicals industry. He is a regular contributor to Scrip Magazine and a regular key note speaker to various industry events including the CPhI, ChemSpec, ECN’s Fine Chemical Conference and Ph.R.M.A.-sponsored conferences. He also teaches Business Administration at the Technical University of Brussels.

Dr. Polastro has a Doctorate in biochemistry from both the University of Brussels and the Philadelphia Temple University. He has also a Master in Science of Management from Boston University.