Larry Lasky Joins USVP

Larry Lasky has joined U.S. Venture Partners as a venture partner, focused on biopharma and biotech opportunities. Lasky was a founding scientist of Genetics Institute, now part of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and later joined Genentech. He has spent the past five years as a co-founding general partner of Latterell Venture Partners.

PRESS RELEASE

U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is pleased to announce that Laurence Lasky, Ph.D., has joined the firm as a Venture Partner. Dr. Lasky will be responsible for investing in healthcare technologies specifically focusing on financing and creating world class biopharmaceutical companies pursuing the discovery, development and commercialization of new therapies to treat major unmet medical needs and biotechnology companies providing goods and services to this industry.

Dr. Lasky is a distinguished molecular biologist who is recognized internationally for his pioneering scientific work since the 1970s that helped to establish the biotechnology industry. Dr. Lasky was a founding scientist of Genetics Institute, now part Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which was one of the earliest biotechnology companies. In 1982, Dr. Lasky joined Genentech where he rose to become a Genentech Fellow, the highest scientific position at this leading biotherapeutics company, and a standing member of the Research Review Committee. While at Genentech, Dr. Lasky worked in various fields including vaccines, inflammation, cellular signaling and anti-tumor monoclonal antibodies, culminating in two of his research projects entering Phase 3 clinical studies.

Dr. Lasky was a founder of Latterell Venture Partners where he served as a general partner from 2002 to 2007 and was instrumental in helping to found and finance several private biotechnology companies including Proteolix, OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, Cellective Therapeutics and Bioverdant.

“My partners and I are delighted to have Larry join the USVP team,” said Dr. Jonathan Root, a General Partner at USVP. “Larry's scientific expertise and successful track record of venture capital investing and helping entrepreneurs and scientists realize their vision of bringing biopharmaceutical products to the market is a unique combination of skills. We are very enthusiastic to have Larry apply these skills at USVP as we expand our investment activity in healthcare technologies in order to provide important new therapies for critical unmet medical needs.”

Dr. Lasky received his B.A. and Ph.D. in molecular biology from University of California, Los Angeles, and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at The California Institute of Technology. He has published over 135 peer reviewed papers and chapters and is co-inventor on over 35 issued and pending patents, many of which generate significant licensing revenues. Dr. Lasky has served on many scientific review panels for the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health and as a reviewer for such prestigious journals as Science, Nature and Cell. Dr. Lasky is Adjunct Professor of the John A. Burns School of Medicine of the University of Hawaii and Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley.

About U.S. Venture Partners www.usvp.com

U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is a leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build world-class companies that are leaders in their industry. Since 1981, when it was founded, USVP has raised a total of more than $2.9 billion in nine venture capital funds and invested in more than 390 early stage companies, 74 of which to date have become public companies by IPO with an aggregate current market value in excess of $90 billion. USVP focuses on early stage opportunities in sectors where the Partners have the domain expertise, operating experience and network of relationships to provide meaningful contribution to the success of the enterprise. These sectors include digital communications and networking systems, Internet and eCommerce infrastructure, semiconductors and optical components, enterprise and technical software, and medical devices and biopharmaceuticals.