About Us

Mike is a general partner at Lightstone Ventures, where he focuses on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical device industries. Earlier in his career, Mike served as a director of business development for Inhale Therapeutic Systems (now Nektar Therapeutics), a venture-backed pulmonary drug delivery company, where he led partnering activities with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies internationally. Mike was also a principal at The Wilkerson Group and currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. Mike sat on the board of directors for the National Venture Capital Association and remains active in helping to shape policy affecting both innovation and healthcare. Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business.

Tak joined NEA in 2018 as a principal on the healthcare team. He focuses on medical device investments. He currently serves as a board member of Allay Therapeutics, Magenta Medical, Spyglass Ophthalmics and Vesper.

Prior to NEA, Tak was a venture partner at Merieux Development Venture Fund where he led all phases of investment for healthcare startups, including sourcing, diligence and investment approvals. Tak also co-founded Lexington Medical, a commercial-stage medical device startup in the gastrointestinal surgery space. Prior to Merieux and Lexington, Tak was vice president of business development for the Global Surgical Division at Bausch & Lomb and was responsible for all business development efforts in the ophthalmic surgical division. Tak has held various corporate and business development leadership roles at Edwards Lifesciences in the heart valve therapy division and Advanced Medical Optics (acquired by Johnson & Johnson).

Tak received a bachelor’s degree with honors in engineering and applied science from the California Institute of Technology, an M.D. from the University of California, Irvine and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mark has been an operating partner of Lightstone Ventures since 2013, where he advises the medical device team with deal sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio company management. Mark is also a co-founder of The Foundry, LLC, the premier medical device company incubator that has founded and financed over twenty new medical device companies. Prior to that role, Mark served as a co-founder and consulting director of research and development for Ventrica, Inc. Previously, Mark was a senior member of the research and development team at Medtronic Micro Interventional Systems. He has spent over thirty years in the design, testing and manufacture of medical devices. Mark also serves in governance or advisory roles for several other medical device innovators, including as chairman for FIRE1, as a director for Half Moon Medical and as a board observer for Nuvaira and Shoulder Innovations. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Boston University.

Josh Makower, M.D. has served on the board of Allay Therapeutics since January 2019 and is a special partner on NEA’s healthcare team. In addition to his role at NEA, Josh serves on the faculty of the Stanford University Medical and Engineering Schools as a professor of medicine and bioengineering and is director and co-founder of The Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. Josh is also the founder and executive chairman of ExploraMed, a medical device incubator that has created nine companies over the past 25 years. Notable transactions from the ExploraMed portfolio include Acclarent, acquired by J&J in 2009; EndoMatrix, acquired by C.R. Bard in 1997; TransVascular, acquired by Medtronic in 2003; Nuelle, acquired by AyTu Biosciences in 2014; and Neotract, acquired by Teleflex in 2017. Ongoing ExploraMed/NEA ventures include Moximed, Willow Innovations, Revelle Aesthetics, and ExploraMed V. Josh currently serves on the boards of Eargo, Allay Therapeutics, Lungpacer, Revelle Aesthetics, Vesper Medical, Magenta Medical, DOTS Technology Corp., ExploraMed, Intrinsic Therapeutics, Moximed, SetPoint Medical, Willow and Coravin. Josh holds over 300 patents and patent applications for various medical devices in the fields of cardiology, ENT, general surgery, drug delivery, obesity, orthopedics, women’s health, aesthetics and urology. He received an MBA from Columbia University, an M.D. from the NYU School of Medicine, a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a fellow of the American Institute of Biomedical Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Paul oversees Arboretum’s investment process and leads the firm’s operations. His portfolio investments focus on capital-efficient health IT and service companies applying technology to underserved markets. Paul currently serves as a board director for BioIQ,  VYDENCE Medical,  and Delphinus Medical and is the former Chief Operating Officer for CerviLenz (now Lucina), where he led the design of the company’s first commercial product from concept to launch. Prior to joining Arboretum, Paul worked at Ford Motor Company holding management positions within product development, manufacturing, and business strategy. He currently serves on the National Advisory Board for the Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation at the University of Michigan. Paul earned a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Leighton Reid, M.D. is a serial entrepreneur and investor who currently serves as a venture partner at Brandon Capital Partners, a global venture capital firm dedicated to biomedical research and capabilities. Leighton is the executive chairman of Global Kinetics Pty Ltd and also serves on the boards of EBR Systems, Glyscend Therapeutics and Okogen. Earlier in his career, Leighton founded and served as managing director and president of the pharma division of Affymax NV. He was also a founding investor, chairman and chief executive officer of Aviron and Avidia. Leighton completed internal medicine training at Duke and the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, where he held appointments at the Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Rice University and an M.D. from the University of Texas Health Science Center.

Nicole joined Arboretum Ventures in 2021 as a Managing Partner, where she focuses on early-to-growth stage healthcare investments. Current areas of interest include pharma-adjacent tools & analytics; devices; and tech-enabled solutions which transform healthcare delivery by improving the overall access, cost, and quality of care for unmet therapeutic needs. For more than 25 years, Nicole has successfully partnered with entrepreneurs to modernize and transform the healthcare industry. She strongly believes in the power of teams and in the importance of bringing diversity across all levels when building effective organizations. Her notable investments and board roles prior to joining Arboretum include category-defining companies such as Cala Health, Elucent Medical, MI Biosciences (acquired), NeoChord, NeuMoDx Molecular (acquired), and Strata Oncology.

Nicole joined Arboretum Ventures from Baird Capital, where she was a managing director and partner, having co-led the team’s healthcare investments since 2013. Prior to Baird, Nicole was an investment director at Abbott Ventures and Abbott Biotech Ventures, helping to stand up the original investment organization for the corporation. Nicole began her career as a process engineer with Advanced Cardiovascular Systems/Guidant, where she spent ten years advancing through increasing roles of responsibility in product development, marketing, and strategy. Nicole is proud to serve as an advisor to Springboard Enterprises, an accelerator program dedicated to building technology-oriented companies led by women and to the Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Council – MATTER Chicago.  Additionally, she serves as a board director with Venture Forward (the foundation arm of the National Venture Capital Association), the Alzheimer’s Association, and Minnesota’s Medical Alley. Nicole has been recognized as one of the industry’s most active and engaged investors by “The Tech Crunch List 2020” and by Crain’s Chicago Business “Tech 50” for 2018 and 2016. Nicole holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and completed dual degrees in management and operations from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Ron Burch, M.D., Ph.D., currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Sanguistat, a company developing products to treat bleeding disorders. He previously served as Chief Medical Officer at Naurex, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel NMDA receptor modulators, and Pacira, an industry leader in non-opioid solutions for pain. Dr. Burch has served as Chairman of Zeneca Pharmaceuticals’ Global CNS Therapeutics Area Team; co-founder and CEO of AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals, a company that successfully developed a number of therapeutic agents for pain management; CEO and Chairman of Biowave Corporation, a medical device company that successfully launched three neurostimulation products to treat chronic, intractable pain and postoperative pain; and Scientific Advisor of Collegium Pharmaceuticals. He also held various managerial positions with Purdue Pharma, including Vice President of Scientific Evaluations and Immunotherapeutics, Medical Director and Project Manager and Medical Safety Officer for several pain development programs. Dr. Burch was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, performing research involving neuroreceptor regulation with Nobel Laureate Dr. Julius Axelrod. Dr. Burch obtained a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina. He holds bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and marine biology from the College of Charleston.

David Dalury, M.D. is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in total knee replacement, partial knee replacement and hip replacement. He currently serves as clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Maryland Medicine and chief of orthopedics at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center. He is an active member of The Knee Society and the University of Maryland Joint Network, among other medical associations. His work has been published extensively in peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Dalury is a graduate of Dartmouth Medical School, where he completed his residency and fellowship at Harvard-affiliated hospitals network with training in total joint replacement surgery.

Joachim Kohn, Ph.D. is a distinguished professor emeritus at Rutgers University and the founder and principal investigator of the Kohn Lab, a laboratory dedicated to improving health care and quality of life by developing advanced biomedical products for tissue repair, replacement and the delivery of pharmaceutical agents. Dr. Kohn serves as the director of the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials and has been a principal investigator for numerous federally funded research and development programs. His research focuses on the development of new biomaterials, and he has won numerous awards and honors for his breakthrough studies. Dr. Kohn holds a bachelor’s degree from Hebrew University, a Ph.D. from Weizmann Institute, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in polymeric drug delivery systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Arthur Tipton, Ph.D., is an independent consultant that aids companies in developing the next generation of drug delivery products. He previously held leadership roles in three drug delivery start-ups and played a key role in each company’s path to a public offering. He was founder and chief executive officer of Brookwood Pharmaceuticals, now part of Evonik. Dr. Tipton holds 43 U.S. patents; his inventive efforts have led to several publications and multiple commercial products. He currently serves as a board member for five organizations and has previous experience on 12 additional boards. His resume also includes induction into the National Academy of Inventors, the College of Fellows for the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the Controlled Release Society, where he served as president in 2015. Most recently, Dr. Tipton was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021. He holds a Ph.D. in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts.