New Members to Add Experience to Board of Directors

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) announced that its Board of Directors unanimously has approved the appointments of six new board members:

• Sean Augerson, Vice President, Head of Operations Americas and APAC, QIAGEN
• Peter Briskman, Executive Managing Director, JLL
• Juergen Klenk, Ph.D., Principal, Deloitte
• Dr. Jay Perman, MD, Chancellor, University System of Maryland
• Aaron Ren, Head of Business Development and Operations, Viela Bio
• Tracey Vetterick, Vice President and COO, Oncology R&D, AstraZeneca

“I am privileged to welcome these new members to our board,” said Richard Bendis, BHI President and CEO. “The addition of their leadership experience in the BioHealth Capital Region and beyond ensures in BHI’s ability to have our finger on the pulse of innovation and fresh viewpoints. I also would like to thank Rip Ballou of GSK, Robert Caret of the University System of Maryland, Doug Liu of QIAGEN, Ashish Kulkarni, of Avantor, and Beth Meagher of Deloitte Consulting LLP for their many years of service on our Board of Directors.

New Board Members:

Sean Augerson is Vice President, Head of Regional Operations Americas/ APAC and Chairman of QIAGEN’s North America Executive Leadership Team. Sean’s leadership experience includes responsibility for Americas, and APAC Manufacturing and Supply Chain.

During more than eighteen years with QIAGEN, Sean previously held leadership roles as Vice President Global Supply Chain and Customer Care, Vice President, Operations Strategy, Vice President North America Operations, and Chairman Americas Management Council. He was also responsible for creating QIAGEB+N Business Center in Manila, Philippines. Sean began his career with QIAGEN in 2000 as Executive Director of Operations for QIAGEN’s first U.S. Manufacturing Plant located in Maryland. Sean’s career has included Operations and Management roles with Dade Behring, Baxter Diagnostics, Invitrogen, Eastern Airlines, and Medical Scope Service Center. Sean has an MBA from Nova Southeastern University and a BS from Barry University.

Peter Briskman is the Executive Director and Broker Lead for JLL’s Maryland Region. His primary focus is on Tenant Advisory Services working with Life Science Occupants locally and nationally on complex real estate and leasing strategies for Headquarter transactions, relocations, build-to-suits, renewals, expansions, and consolidations. His applied expertise includes strategic real estate planning, municipal incentive negotiations, lease structuring/transactions, portfolio management, and capital markets investment sales.

He is the recipient of GWCAR’s Commercial Leasing Broker of the Year and has been recognized with GWCAR Office Leasing Transactions of the Year for multiple clients.

Juergen Klenk, Ph.D. is a Principal in Deloitte’s Federal Health Sector. He has a deep technical expertise combined with strong business acumen and a track record of over 20 years of experience in leadership, strategic planning, business development, consulting, project management, science and technology, analytics, and research. Dr. Klenk is highly experienced entrepreneur and thought leader who has demonstrated the ability to start up, grow, and successfully establish innovative businesses in Health Analytics. He has successfully led teams across a wide variety of health and science focused organizations including government health care organizations (e.g., HHS, NIH, FDA, CDC, CMS, and VA), academic medical centers, commercial health care providers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and nonprofit organizations. He served as CEO and CTO of a bioinformatics startup company that pioneered AI technology for image and text analytics of biomedical data. For the past 15 years, his work has beeb focused on topics including precision medicine, health data strategy at the intersection of ML/AI, Cloud, and Cyber, clinical trials optimization, health outcomes research, and scientific research and innovation.

Dr. Klenk has authored numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, holds multiple patents, and has been invited to present at multiple international conferences. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (Germany), and a masters degree in mathematics and Physics from Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (Germany), as well as a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Jay A. Perman, MD, became the fifth chancellor of the University System of Maryland (USM) in January 2020. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Perman, a pediatric gastroenterologist, served as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) for nearly a decade. As UMB president, Dr. Perman strengthened that institution’s ties to the city of Baltimore, growing innovation-based economic development activities and spearheading programs to improve the health and well-being of UMB’s closest neighbors.

Dr. Perman’s UMB presidency was marked by excellence in education and research. Each of UMB’s professional schools—medicine, law, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and social work—has been singled out for recognition in national and international publications, most notably in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools, U.S. News & World Report’s Global University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

As chancellor, Dr. Perman has committed to advancing higher education affordability for all students in Maryland. He also plans to build on USM’s reputation for educational innovation, particularly in research, economic development, and community engagement.

Dr. Perman received his Doctor of Medicine degree with Distinction in 1972 from Northwestern University. After his residency in pediatrics at Northwestern University Children’s Memorial Hospital, he completed a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at Harvard Medical School and at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston in 1977.

Dr. Aaron Ren is the Head of Business Development and Operations at Viela Bio, where he currently leads business development, sourcing and contracts, quality, and information technology functions. As a founding executive of Viela, Dr. Ren worked with Viela’s CEO to lead the company's efforts for $250 M USO series A financing to spin off Viela Bio from MedImmune of AstraZeneca in 2018. Before Viela, Dr. Ren was MedImmune’s China lead, managing the company's R&D initiatives for China, and serving on both AstraZeneca's China Development Unit leadership team and China Portfolio Committee. He was also a Director within BioPharmaceutical Development group in company's headquarter at Gaithersburg, MD. He first joined Medlmmune in its Strategy and Partnering team, leading strategic projects and business development transactions.

Before joining Medlmmune, Dr. Ren was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company, serving biopharmaceutical companies on strategic, commercial, and organizational topics. Dr. Ren also held various roles with increasing responsibilities respectively with SR One, Schering-Plough, and Abbott Labs, where he started his career as a senior clinical pharmacologist for Humira.

Dr. Ren received his B.S. in Cell Biology and Genetics from Peking University in China, a M.B.A. with honors in Finance and Healthcare Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the University of Washington, during which he was an Eli Lilly Fellow.

Tracey Vetterick is Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca. She is responsible for the overall operations of the Oncology R&D organization including integration and strategy, and for site operations for AZ’s US R&D locations. Tracey has been with AstraZeneca since 2011, most recently serving as head of the Emerging Portfolio Strategy in the Oncology Business Unit.

As head of Global Marketing for Immuno-Oncology Lung she led the global commercial launch strategy for IMFINZI, AstraZeneca’s lead immuno-oncology asset, in Stage III Unresectable NSCLC. Tracey joined AZ as director of oncology business development from Genzyme Corporation (now Sanofi Genzyme) where she held roles of increasing responsibility in business development, program management, commercial operations and global marketing.

About BioHealth Innovation, Inc.

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) is a public-private nonprofit organization focused on accelerating biohealth (therapeutic, diagnostic, medtech, and health IT) commercialization in the BioHealth Capital Region (Maryland, DC and Virginia). BHI’s team of expert Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, in-house venture analysts, and other professional staff work in the region to:

• Facilitate technology commercialization,
• Raise the profile of the industry cluster and individual organizations,
• Increase access to capital for early stage and growing companies, and
• Expand the pool of talent with commercially relevant experience.

BHI’s early stage company support includes market research and commercialization plan development; non-dilutive funding application assistance; a jobs board and event calendar; and introductions to investors, strategic partners, business advisors, and potential clients.

BHI also manages wet lab space and provides referrals to other space for early stage companies, offers soft-landing support for international companies, and works with partners to co-host the annual BioHealth Capital Region Forum and an annual BioHealth Capital Region investor partnering conference. For more information: www.BioHealthInnovation.org