EFL

Role: Mentor

Tracks: Life Sciences

Claire Leurent

Strategic Investor in Biotech & Healthcare

Claire Leurent PhD MBA is a venture capital investor with operational experience in leading drug development from scientific discovery to registration studies enabling regulatory approval applications. She is passionate about science and people and highly motivated by the opportunity to deploy transformative technologies and business models to generate progress in the community. Claire earned her PhD in molecular and cellular biology at the Institute of Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) in Strasbourg Illkirch-Graffenstaden, France in 2002. She then worked in drug development in several capacities for 14 years. She started as a Project Manager in a First in Human clinical center at Forenap Pharma in Rouffach. She was then hired by Wyeth Pharmaceutical in Paris as a Senior Clinical Scientist to support global phase 3 registration trials, NDA dossier submission and new product launch for a variety of programs in Women's health and Neuroscience. In 2010, she relocated to the United States to join Pfizer Research an Development in Groton CT then in Cambridge MA, where she led teams in designing and conducting clinical plans from First in Human to Proof of Concept studies for small molecules, biologics, and biomarker technologies. Over the years, she developed a passion for the business aspects of innovation. She became a standing member of the Portfolio Enhancement team responsible for screening external opportunities for business development and did an internship with Pfizer's Strategic Investment in 2015. Claire obtained her MBA from MIT Sloan in June 2016 and then pivoted to corporate venture investment as a way to scale up and diversify the breadth of her technological reach and gain prime experience in virtually all stages of investments (Seed to PIPE/SPAC) in established corporate venture funds. She joined Samsung Venture America, the investment entity serving Samsung conglomerate, in 2017 with a focus on deploying capital in Life Science, Health Economics, and Connected Health sectors. In 2019, she joined JJDC, the investment team serving Johnson & Johnson, with a focus on pharmaceutical areas across neurosciences, oncology, infectious diseases and vaccines, cardiovascular, renal diseases, ophthalmology, immunology, inflammation, and modalities encompassing small/large molecules, cell/gene therapy, RNA and RNA-targeting, AI/ML, and quantum computing. Claire is an active contributor to the innovation ecosystem and has been mentoring entrepreneurs and students in various capacities. In June 2023, she joined the National Institutes of Health as an Entrepreneur in Residence.