MODERATOR:
Eli Mansour, Partner, Snell & Wilmer
Eli Mansour is a partner in the Snell & Wilmer's San Diego office. He counsels clients on a variety of technology transaction matters including the discovery, development, protection, licensing, and commercialization of pharmaceuticals, novel life sciences solutions and medical devices, and related intellectual property. Eli regularly drafts and negotiates clinical trial agreements, development, manufacturing, distribution, and complex licensing agreements and has extensive experience in device discovery agreements, joint venture agreements and technology assignment, and transfer transactions.
PANEL:
Alex Arrow, MD, Co-Founder & CEO, Corramedical
Dr. Alexander Arrow is a medical device executive and serial entrepreneur who left his surgical residency in 1996 and spent the following 28 years in management roles and/or as a board member of medical device and biotechnology companies in the fields of interventional cardiology (CFO of Arstasis, Inc.), neuroscience (CMO of Circuit Therapeutics, Inc.), immuno-oncology (COO of Neumedicines, Inc.), dentistry (COO of Biolase, Inc. – Nasdaq: BIOL), otolaryngology (CEO of Zelegent, Inc.), hemostatic agents (Director of Medcura, Inc.), neuro-active peptides (CFO of Protagenic Therapeutics, Inc. – Nasdaq: PTIX), spine surgery (CFO of Carlsmed, Inc.), solid organ transport (Director of Paragonix Technologies Inc.), ophthalmology (Director of Insightful Instruments, Inc.), automation of drug discovery research tools (CFO of Strateos, Inc.), and now, pathology (CEO of Corramedical, Inc.). Three of those were EvoNexus portfolio companies: Zelegent, Carlsmed, and Corramedical. He co-founded four companies: The Patent & License Exchange, Inc., Rindex Medical, Inc., Triathlon Scientific, and Corramedical, Inc. He is an inventor on four issued U.S. patents and 12 pending applications.
He began his career as a resident at the UCLA Medical Center, but left clinical practice to become a sell-side equity research analyst covering medical technology. In that role, his annual review publication Medical Technology in Perspective was one of the most popular pieces of sell side medical device equity research for three years running 2005-2007 and three of his picks grew over 100x in value from the date of his published research recommendation (Abiomed, Dexcom, and Intuitive Surgical). He switched careers a second time in 2007 when he left Wall Street to become the Chief Financial Officer of Johnson & Johnson – backed interventional cardiology start-up company Arstasis, Inc. During his five years as CFO the company grew from 30 to 120 employees and took a product concept through a multi-center clinical trial and into 140 U.S. hospitals. His new company, Corramedical, is developing tools for physicians who perform biopsies, with the goal of making use of all the cellular resources they extract from their patients. He has an MD from Harvard Medical School, and a BA in Biophysics, magna cum laude, from Cornell University.
Tallis Chang, PhD, Co-Founder & COO, Obsidian Sensors
Tallis Chang co-founded Obsidian Sensors and is currently the COO of the company. From 2009 to 2017, he was a Senior Director of engineering with Qualcomm, leading an engineering team to develop the next-generation MEMS reflective displays. He has more than 30 years of technical and management experience, developing optical and MEMS devices and systems for commercial, space, and military applications with technology development and management roles with Rockwell Science Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Chromux Technologies, Panavision Federal Systems, and Qualcomm. He has authored or coauthored more than 100 journal articles and conference publications and holds 29 U.S. patents. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California in 1981 and 1986, respectively.
With seed money invested from Qualcomm, the Obsidian team spun off and continued to develop a glass substrate that was capable of producing sensors with Video Graphics Array (VGA) resolution at high volumes. The company’s breakthrough was to use glass instead of traditional 8-inch diameter silicon water. Obsidian uses a glass that is roughly 24 inches by 30 inches. The significantly larger substrate allows for greater resolution, and glass also is significantly cheaper than silicon wafers.
Warren Chang, Co-Founder & COO, DeepWater Exploration
Warren Chang, one of the founders of DeepWater Exploration, serves as its Chief Operations Officer. A mechanical engineer from UCSD, he co-founded DeepWater when he and fellow students recognized the need for easily integratable subsea computer vision solutions. Via its software and hardware products, the team has accrued over $600k in cumulative revenue. It has been recognized in the SDBJ, and admitted to Connect San Diego's Cool Companies cohort of 2024. To empower the growth of autonomous marine robotics systems, the team will continue to develop advanced, accessible solutions integratable with virtually any marine system.
ABOUT SNELL & WILMER
Founded in 1938, Snell & Wilmer is a full-service business law firm with more than 500 lawyers practicing in 16 locations throughout the United States and in Mexico. The firm represents clients ranging from large, publicly traded corporations to small businesses, individuals and entrepreneurs. Snell & Wilmer and its lawyers have been recognized by clients and peers for exceptional legal skills and ethical business practices with various distinguished awards. The firm is renowned for having extensive experience in a full range of transactional and litigation legal services. The firm’s range of practices include, among others: bankruptcy, bioscience, business litigation, construction, corporate, employee benefits, energy/environmental, healthcare, intellectual property, international, labor/employment, product liability, real estate/zoning, tax, and trusts/estates.
ABOUT EVONEXUS
EvoNexus is California’s leading nonprofit technology startup incubator located in San Diego. EvoNexus has successfully incubated over 260 startups with a survival rate of over 85%. Since the incubator’s formation in 2010, EvoNexus companies have secured over $1.6B in venture funding, $10B in pre-exit valuation, and had over 54 acquisitions valued at over $2.1B. YTD $240M invested. EvoNexus is supported by corporate partners, including some of the largest multinational corporations in the world such as Qualcomm, Viasat, muRata, pSemi, and more! For more information, please visit
evonexus.org.
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