Throughout her career, Virginia has managed a wide range of projects spanning the life cycle of biopharmaceutical firms:

Startup Origination – technical due diligence, identification and evaluation of intellectual property, business planning, leadership recruitment and business model development and implementation;

• Early stage fundings – due diligence and business viability assessments; and
• Growth firms – fund-raising strategy development and presentation, executive coaching, technology evaluation and acquisition, business strategy and execution including business development and corporate partnering.

Virginia completed her undergraduate education at the University of Michigan where she received her BS (Honors) in Cellular and Molecular Biology, and did her doctoral work in Biology at Yale University, specializing in molecular genetics.  She did post-doctoral work in Immunology at Bristol Myers Squibb.

Virginia has also completed an extensive program in personal leadership development at The Empowerment Institute, done post-graduate training at The College of Executive Coaching and is licensed with The Boston Coaching Group.

In 1990 Virginia joined the Branford, CT based biotechnology consulting firm, Scheer & Company where she became Vice President in 1996. There, Virginia led a broad range of projects for both investors and companies throughout the biopharmaceutical industry. In 2000, she left Scheer & Company to start Herndon Company where she continues to offer a broad range of consulting services to both companies and investors.

Virginia’s achievements include.

• Origination of Start-Up Companies: (Viropharma, Inc. and Esperion Therapeutics):
• Identification, evaluation and acquisition of intellectual property, identification and recruitment of scientific founders and senior management candidates, and business plan development.
• Technology evaluation and due diligence for venture capital and money management firms, as well as pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies:
• Evaluation of a wide variety of early stage and public companies with technologies or products related to genomics, functional genomics, gene therapy, pharmacogenomics, bioinformatics, DNA sequencing, cardiovascular therapeutics, antivirals, cancer and animal model systems.
• Strategy Consulting:
• Presented strategic overviews and competitor analyses for emerging technologies to senior executives of Schering-Plough, Eli Lilly, Hoffman LaRoche and Johnson & Johnson;
• Evaluated and made recommendations for handling Pharmacia & Upjohn’s divestment portfolio;
• Provided technical due diligence, strategic counsel and business development for acquisitions in chemistry and genomics by PPD Discovery.
• Facilitated development of business plan and corporate strategy for Zygogen, LLC.
• Business Development/Corporate Partnering:
• Established three major discovery-based corporate alliances with pharmaceutical companies for PPD Discovery;
• Established multiple collaborations between Zygogen, LLC and several multinational pharmaceutical companies in role as acting Vice President of Business Development.
• Organized an international conference on business development for executives and investors in the biopharmaceutical industry.
• Board Service:
• Served on the Board of Managers for Zygogen, LLC.
• Executive Coaching:
• Provided executive coaching services to CEO’s, senior management and entrepreneur’s concurrent with strategy consulting for firms in the biopharmaceutical industry.
• Provided leadership development and life coaching services for entrepreneurs and professionals in a variety of fields including pharmaceuticals, financial services, academia, and engineering.
• Volunteer Service
• Volunteer Mentor for Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA)
• Volunteer Mentor for World Pulse

Peter Lutes

Vice-President

Peter Lutes has over ten years experience in finance, executive administration, and operations of early-stage biotech companies. He has played significant roles in the creation and launch of several start-up companies, including Immune Control, Anethon, LLTech and others. After evaluating technology potential, he has raised over $20 million from state resources and venture firms for early-stage companies. Peter writes business plans, presents at various industry events, has coordinated three INDs and is currently pursuing a 510k submission. Operational efforts include building teams of employees and consultants, recruiting principal investigators for clinical trials, and organizing patents and maintaining corporate documents. On the financing side, Peter was Senior Venture Officer at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority where he evaluated life sciences companies for nearly $30 million in investment and tax-based incentive programs. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lutes worked at Genentech for a short stint and at an former investment bank that brought over one dozen companies public (Ariad, Calgene, DNAP, Guilford Pharmaceuticals, Incyte, and La Jolla Pharmaceuticals). Peter has BA in Economics from the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and Master's degree in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania.