Laura Lane

VP Lilly Ventures, European Head at Eli Lilly and Company

Speaker

Laura Lane, PhD, is currently VP Lilly Ventures and the European Head of Lilly Ventures for Eli Lilly & Company. Her focus is on Lilly’s venture capital strategy for Europe covering both equity investments into biotech and life science companies, and fund-of-fund relationships and investments, as well as supporting wider external innovation efforts across Lilly.

Laura is a PhD-trained scientist with diverse scientific, business, transaction and operational experience. Her experience spans: venture capital; technology transfer; the charity sector; founding and leading biotech and life science start-ups; life science consulting as well as now pharma and CVC. Prior to Lilly, Laura was part of the investment team at Advent Life Sciences; selected new investments there included Highlight Therapeutics (Madrid, Spain), MiroBio (Oxford, UK) (acquired by Gilead Sciences August 2022), PIC Therapeutics (Boston, USA). In her time at Lilly, Laura has led investments including in NanoSyrinx, Augustine Therapeutics, Trimtech Therapeutics and Maxion Therapeutics. Earlier in her career Laura held CEO and COO positions at several UK life science/biotech companies in Birmingham, Oxford & London.

Laura gained her master's and doctorate from the University of Cambridge and currently serves on the boards of the non-profit Collaborative Community against Coronavirus (3CCorona) CIC and the UK’s BioIndustry Association (BIA).