The MB Venture Partners Team

MB Venture Partners

Private Equity for the Life Sciences

The MB Venture Partners team combines decades of experience in healthcare banking, life sciences investing, and academic life sciences research.  These skill sets coalesce into an investment team that creates value for the MB Venture Partners' investors, as well as the portfolio companies that the team serves.  The Investment Team also relies on input from its Venture Partners and Advisors.

Gary D. Stevenson

Managing Partner

Gary Stevenson is Managing Partner. Gary has a unique combination of financial and strategic experience in the health care industry including four years in public accounting, seven years with one of the largest and most diversified health care manufacturers, and six years in investment banking and equity research.

 

Gary was Director of Health Care Investment Banking for Morgan Keegan & Company and worked on a variety of transactions in private equity, public offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was also an equity research analyst on medical device and health care services companies at Morgan Keegan and at A. G. Edwards & Sons. Gary held several management positions in finance, sales, marketing and strategic planning with Abbott Laboratories. He began his career in public accounting, where several of his clients were health care companies.

 

Gary received a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Missouri in 1984 and an MBA from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University in 1992. He is a certified public accountant and a chartered financial analyst. Gary currently serves on the Board of Directors for Annulex, Inc., Protein Discovery, Inc., BioSET, Inc., TriVirix International, and is a Board Observer at Axiomed Spine Corporation.

Stephen Snowdy, PhD

Partner

Dr. Stephen Snowdy joined the Firm in early 2003.  Stephen brings to the MB team extensive academic training in life sciences and finance, having been the first person to earn simultaneous PhD and MBA degrees at the University of North Carolina– Chapel Hill.  Stephen’s PhD, which is in Neurobiology, was focused on studying the mechanisms by which viruses make their way through the cells that they infect, while his MBA was heavily focused in Finance.

  

Stephen obtained a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Florida, where he also completed two years of post-baccalaureate study in cardiopharmacology.  His PhD, undergraduate, and post-baccalaureate studies culminated in several academic publications.  Stephen's academic training followed service in the United States Navy where he was a Navy Diver assigned to nuclear submarines.

 

Stephen serves on the Board of Directors of Protein Discovery, Inc., Alveolus, Inc., and is an observer on the boards of Kereos, Inc. and KFx, Inc.  He also is a board member of Southeast  BIO, a regional non-profit organization that fosters life sciences entrepreneurship in the Southeast.

Michael Sherman

Partner

Venture Partners and Advisors

MBVP's Venture Partners and Advisors provide strategic, medical, and scientific guidance to our Investment Team and our portfolio companies.  This group is comprised of leaders in the medical industry, with over a century of combined experience

Larry Papasan-Larry is past president of Smith & Nephew Orthopedics, one of the world’s largest orthopedic instrumentation companies, and is current Chairman of BioMimetic Therapeutics, Inc.

Jack Blair-Jack Blair was president of Smith & Nephew Orthopedics, and was also an executive at Nuvasive.

Charlie Federico-Charlie was most recently the Group President and CEO of OrthoFix.  Previously he led Smith &Nephew Endoscopy

Dick Tarr-Dick is the President & Executive Director of the InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute).

Bob Compton-Bob was a venture capitalist before joining Sofomor Danek as COO.  Sofomor Danek was then purchased by Medtronic, freeing Bob to pursue a career in serial entrepreneurship.

Kevin Foley, MD-Dr. Foley is a very accomplished spine surgeon.  He is Director of Complex Spine Surgery at the Semmes-Murphey Clinic, Director of the Spine Fellowship Program for the University of Tennessee Department of Neurosurgery, and Medical Director for both the Medical Education & Research Institute and the Image-Guided Surgery Research Center.

Dr. Foley is also the inventor of several high-revenue spine surgery devices.

Chet Sutterlin, MD-Dr. Sutterlin is a well-known spine surgeon and long-time inventor of orthopedic medical devices

Mike joined the Firm after a successful 15-year career at Memphis-based Medtronic Sofamor Danek (MSD), a subsidiary of Medtronic (NYSE: MDT). MSD is the global leader in today's spine market.

 

Mike joined Danek as the Director of Product Development in early 1991, just before its initial public offering. He spent his first nine years building the product portfolio, developing and commercializing several key product lines including the company's flagship TSRH Spinal Implant System. The TSRH System remains in use today with over 2.5 million TSRH Spinal System implants used worldwide.  In 1999, Mike assumed the position of Vice President of Technology Development where he was responsible for technical and business due diligence on acquisitions, in-licensing activities, and strategic investments. During Mike's tenure he directly managed or served as an official Board observer on several MSD portfolio companies.  In this role, Mike was also responsible for directing a dedicated team of engineers tasked with driving new technology into the organization and providing 'out-of-the-box' solutions to challenging problems. His efforts resulted in numerous product innovations in the fields of spinal implants and instrumentation, minimally invasive spine surgery, and flexible stabilization. Most notably, Mike is an inventor of MSD’s SEXTANT System. Since the launch of CD HORIZON SEXTANT Spinal System in 2002, more than 20,000 successful procedures have been performed.

 

Shortly after the acquisition of Sofamor Danek by Medtronic, Mike was honored as the first Sofamor Danek employee to be inducted into Medtronic’s Bakken Society. Named for Medtronic's founder, Earl Bakken, this is the highest level of recognition for a Medtronic engineer.

 

Mike received his Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1983 and a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas, Southwestern Graduate School in 1985.  He has 70 issued US patents with over 30 pending applications.