Epidarex Capital, a leading early stage life science firm, is delighted to announce the addition of two veteran life science professionals to its transatlantic team. Dr. Henning Steinhagen has joined as a Venture Partner and will support Epidarex in building exciting life science companies around novel innovations in under-ventured markets. Ms. Jeani Delagardelle will become the latest member of Epidarex’s Advisory Board advising the team on growing the Epidarex platform and in Medtech strategy.
Dr. Henning Steinhagen
Henning is a senior executive with 20 years of experience and a track record in the Pharma, Biotech and CRO/CDMO industries. Prior to joining Epidarex, Dr. Steinhagen served as President of Research and Development (R&D) at Aptuit, a leading R&D organization. As an operational leader he led significant growth and transformation of the integrated ex-GSK site in Verona, Italy into a profitable organization. Henning was a key player in the $300 million sale of Aptuit to Evotec in 2017.
Prior to moving to Aptuit, Henning served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Drug Discovery at Grünenthal in Germany. His accomplishments include the build-up of the immuno-inflammation area as well as advancing Grünenthal’s CNS portfolio, including executing several R&D partnerships and licensing deals. Before joining Grünenthal, Henning served as a Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Sanofi-Aventis for many years. He started his career at Bayer Pharma. His overall experience spans multiple therapeutic areas and all phases of research and early development.
Henning currently serves as Senior Advisor for several organizations including Max-Planck Innovation and the Osthus Group. He is a member and former chair of the board of MedLife, a not-for-profit MedTech association.
Henning holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Heidelberg with a degree in Molecular Genetics. His academic experiences include post-doctoral study with Nobel laureate Prof. E.J. Corey at Harvard University as well as an Adjunct Professorship at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He recently completed a global executive MBA program at the IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Henning can be contacted at henning@epidarex.com
Jeani Delagardelle
Jeani Delagardelle is an experienced venture investor and business leader who specializes in founding and developing healthcare technology companies, across all stages of development and therapeutic areas, for either acquisition or IPO. She is a Co-founder and former Managing Director of New Leaf Venture Partners, a leading life science venture capital firm, spun out of the Sprout Group. Throughout her tenure at New Leaf, Jeani helped raise over $760 million from institutional and private investors. She led the medical device practice and invested $210 million in 10 companies, producing strong returns for her investors including the successful exit of Interlace to Hologic in less than 5 years.
In 2000 Jeani joined Sprout Group, one of the oldest venture capital firms investing in early stage healthcare technology companies. She became General Partner in 2001 and led their medical device investments, sitting on seven Boards, including NxStage Inc and Visiogen Inc. Jeani began her venture career in 1997 as a General Partner at Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners where she was recruited to help fundraise and build out the medical device practice. Throughout her venture career Jeani has served on 24 Boards, both private and public, across all therapeutic areas and stages of development. She was a co-founding investor in 12 medical device start-ups, a number of which successfully exited through acquisition or IPO.
Before becoming a venture capitalist, Jeani spent 15 years in senior marketing, sales, business development and management positions in the healthcare industry, including as Vice President of Global Marketing for Target Therapeutics Inc. She spent nine years with the Medi-tech division of Boston Scientific in several senior management roles. In addition, Jeani served as Director of Business Operations for Roche Laboratories and Director of Global Marketing for Cell Pro, Inc.
Jeani received her MBA from the University of California at Irvine and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Occidental College.
Please join us in welcoming Henning and Jeani to the team.