New BHI Executives-In-Residence, Jennifer Butler and Luis Gutierrez, join VP Economic Development Sarah Miller on BioTalk with Rich Bendis to discuss the recent launch of this program and cultivating the local life sciences ecosystem by working with start-up and growth-stage companies in diagnostics, medical devices, digital health, bioinformatics, AI/machine learning and therapeutics within Montgomery County, Maryland.
Listen now via Apple https://apple.co/3uJ1NhD, Google https://bit.ly/3W8RZcv, Spotify https://spoti.fi/3Hv93FA, Amazon Podcasts https://amzn.to/3hgMeL4, or TuneIn https://bit.ly/3WbCRem.
Jennifer Butler brings nearly 25 years of strategic marketing, commercial leadership, and start-up expertise to her role as part-time Executive in Residence. Throughout her career, Ms. Butler has led and built multiple global and US commercial teams across several therapeutic areas. For the past 5 years, she has been working and advising start-up companies from pre-clinical to commercial, creating and executing corporate, commercial, and business operations strategies. She is passionate about leading companies and teams undergoing significant transformation.
Most recently, she has advised Georgiamune, Inc, a private, Series A funded pre-clinical stage biotechnology company focused in oncology and autoimmune based in Gaithersburg, MD regarding corporate development, R&D and business operations, as well as project and portfolio management leadership.
Prior to Georgiamune, Jennifer was Executive Vice President, Head of Global Commercial and US General Manager of Innate Pharma, an oncology-focused biotech, where she was responsible for the commercial strategy of the company's antibody-based pipeline and launched the company’s first commercial product in the US. At Innate, she built the company's US infrastructure and capabilities from the ground-up, bringing the US operations to Rockville, MD. In 2019, she was a key member of the executive team, supporting the raise of $79M for Innate's Nasdaq Initial Public Offering.
Prior to Innate, Jennifer served as Chief Business Officer, Chief Commercial Officer and Head of US at Tessa Therapeutics, a Singapore-based clinical-stage oncology company. Jennifer helped expand Tessa’s small, initial US-office located in Houston to further support employees across several functions including regulatory, CMC, research located across the US.
She served for more than 10 years in various commercial roles at AstraZeneca/Medlmmune. She led the Global Respiratory, Inflammation and Autoimmune (RIA) commercial team through critical investment decisions commercially guiding over $1BN in R&D budget. She also led the global commercial readiness for the first global launch of Imfinzi / durvalumab, AZ’s first checkpoint inhibitor in oncology which reached $1.5bn in global sales within two years of its first approval.
Ms. Butler holds a B.A in Biological Basis of Behavior, Physiology of Neural Systems Concentration from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and 3 children.
Luis T. Gutierrez, Jr. is a business leader with over 25 years of experience in managing companies providing consulting, clinical research, informatics/digital, and commercialization services to the biopharmaceutical and life sciences industries. His expertise is in helping novel medical technologies with scientific and clinical promise make the transition to becoming successful commercial enterprises. He presently serves as an independent consultant to medical product companies as well as investors who are active in the biopharmaceutical, medical product, and life sciences markets. Specific areas of expertise include commercialization and market access strategy, and navigating the U.S. reimbursement system. Previously, he served as Chief Commercial Officer of Veranex, Inc., a private-equity backed company created by acquiring and integrating 8 leading providers of contract product development services to the medtech industry. Before that, he served as President, CEO, and Board Member of Theranostics Health (now TheraLink Technologies) a start-up molecular diagnostics company that provides proteomic testing services to oncologists, academic institutions, and the biopharmaceutical industry. Mr. Gutierrez also served as EVP and CCO of Aptiv Solutions, which was an innovator in designing and executing adaptive clinical trials and other clinical studies for developers of biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic products. He ultimately positioned that company for a successful sale to industry leader ICON, PLC. The bulk of his career was spent rising through the ranks at Covance Inc., ultimately serving as President of Covance's Commercialization Services group, where he was responsible for over 800 employees and $100M in revenue. The group he led helped biopharmaceutical and medical technology companies quantify the clinical and economic value of their products. The also designed and managed a variety of innovative programs to address risk management and patient access issues in a real-world clinical practice setting. Mr. Gutierrez earned a Master’s in Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Harvard College.
For the past 20+ years, Sarah Miller has served in a variety of positions that have given her the tools necessary to help communities recognize and build upon their unique assets. In her work across both Pennsylvania and Maryland, she has created high-quality civic spaces, helped industrial communities reinvent themselves, supported new farmers, built technology business incubators and managed local public art programs. Prior to joining BHI, she was the Vice President of Strategy for the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, the lead economic development agency for Maryland’s most populous county. Immediately before that, she was appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Sarah is a graduate of Ohio University, where she studied community health. She then earned a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Public Policy & Management, with a concentration in economic development. In her spare time, Sarah serves her community as a commissioner with the City of Rockville Planning Commission and as a youth cross-country coach. She has also served on the Montgomery County Food Council and as a member of the Bethesda Green incubator committee. Sarah and her husband Craig live in Rockville with their son Zak—a proud Julius West MS Jaguar.