Our Team
Michael Tippie, General Partner
Michael founded Alignment Ventures. He has previously been a life science venture capitalist (Norwest Venture Partners, Medical Innovation Partners) as well as a senior executive in a number of life science companies. He was the CEO of TomegaVax, which demonstrated long-term effector memory T-cell responses in primates, until acquisition by Vir Biotechnology (NASDAQ: VIR) in 2016. Michael started his career as a research chemist in the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industry (Syntex and Syva Research). Michael has done strategic alliances with many pharma companies, as well as raising over $500 MM in equity capital, including two IPO’s to date. Michael holds an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, an MS in Chemistry from the University of Washington as well as a BA in Chemistry from Reed College. Continuing education has included graduate work in Proteomics, Genomics and Immunology.
Scurry Johnson, General Partner
Prior to joining Alignment Ventures in 2022, Scurry Johnson founded Capital Conceptions Inc., a Dallas based Venture Capital Firm in 1999. where he invested in healthcare-related and physical-science-based companies as well as leverage buyout /growth equity in the medical device, pain and inflammation control pharma sectors. Recently Scurry led our investment in PercAssist. He also led the Series-A and A1 rounds, at CerSci Therapeutics. CerSci Therapeutics was recently acquired by Acadia Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ACAD), a major middle-market pharmaceutical acquisition. Scurry co-founded Neuro Resource Group, Inc. ("NRG") - a Company now titled InterX Technologies - an innovative pain & inflammation control medical device company. Scurry previously held investment banking positions with NCNB and Goldman Sachs and was with McKinsey & Company in San Francisco. Scurry received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and as well as an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.
Rachel Dreilinger, Venture Partner
Rachel is currently the CEO of NeuraMedica, Inc., commercializing a system of bioresorbable polymer clips and applier to close the dura of the spine during Neurosurgery and Orthopedic Surgery in a fraction of the time it currently takes. The company's first product received FDA 510(k) clearance in July, 2022 and sales are ramping. Rachel is a career medical device specialist with more than 23 years of biomedical engineering experience and has held biomedical engineering positions at Illumina, Intuitive Surgical, Aurora Bioscience (acq, Vertex), Acumed and Quanum Medical Concepts before becoming the Founding CEO of NeuraMedica. Rachel has extensive experience in orthopedics, neurosurgery, dentistry, bioabsorbable polymers, mechanical design and all phases of product development. Rachel is a Phase II Reviewer for the National Science Foundation for SBIR and STTR grants as well as a grant reviewer for OHSU Biomedical Innovation Program (BIP). She is also an Advisory board member for Portland Women In Science (PDX WIS). Rachel is also a member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation and enjoys mentoring and supporting other female and Native engineers and entrepreneurs. Rachel holds a BS in biomedical engineering from the University of California, San Diego.
Dave Ryan, Venture Partner
Dave is the Founding CEO of Tachys Biosciences. Dave spent 23 years at Intel, culminating in his last 4 years as Global Head, Health and Life Sciences. Earlier roles at Intel included Director and Venture General Manager, Biochip operation, Health and Life Sciences Division. Dave also spent a decade in leadership roles creating new compute platform businesses at IBM and Intel. Dave has had multiple life science consulting assignments since leaving Intel in 2020 and he is a Senior Advisor to American Telehealth Association. Dave holds a BSEE from Arizona State and a MBA from Penn State.
Gerardo Noriega, Venture Partner
Gerardo is a C-Level executive, serial entrepreneur, inventor, and scholar in the medical device industry. Gerardo founded five medical device companies and is a consultant to over 50 medical device companies in the Silicon Valley area. Gerardo is an advisory board member of the Santa Clara University (SCU) Bioengineering, the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) Catalyst Program, the UCSF Surgical Consortium, and the Simon Fraser University Bioengineering Innovation Blvd. He is also an adjunct professor at the SCU Graduate School of Bioengineering. Currently, Gerardo is PercAssist, co-founder and CEO.
Prabha Ibrahim PhD, Venture Partner
Prabha is currently the CEO of ReRx Therapeutics, a startup company focused on developing novel therapies for obesity and metabolic diseases. She was the chief technology officer at Blade Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to advancing novel anti-fibrotic therapies and at Afferent Pharmaceuticals/Merck. She played critical roles in the discovery and development of multiple first-in-class medicines, including ZELBORAF® (vemurafenib), a BRAF inhibitor approved in 2011 for metastatic melanoma; TURALIO® (pexidartinib), a CSF-1R inhibitor approved in 2019 for symptomatic tenosynovial giant cell tumor; and LYFNUA (gefapixant), a P2X3 receptor antagonist approved in 2022 for refractory chronic cough (Japan & Switzerland).
Prabha serves as a board member at the University of Victoria Faculty of Sciences, and is a SPARK Advisor at Stanford University.
Prabha hold a PhD from Victoria University and did postdoctoral research at Rice University and the University of Colorado
Lisa Diamond, Venture Partner
Lisa Diamond has long record of tech innovation, pioneering molecular diagnostics, computational genomics, financial applications, AI, computer animation, digital video, with patents in molecular diagnostics and nanosensors for pathogen detection. Lisa Cofounded diagnostic startup Tachys Bioscience. She is the founder and former CEO of nanosensor startup Pinpoint Science. At Stanford, Lisa built software to generate molecular probes for cancer, pandemic flu, TB and HPV, and to analyze the vaginal microbiome. She also led development of AI business applications in SF, and real-time trading and financial data infrastructure in NYC and Tokyo.
Portfolio Companies And Affiliations
TomegaVax Michael, CEO. Merged with Vir Biotechnology (www.virbio.com), San Francisco, CA 9/16. NASDAQ: VIR now has 11 drugs in the clinic.
NeuraMedica www.neuramedica.us Oregon City, OR. Rachel, CEO. Bioresorbable polymer clips to close the dura of the spine during Neurosurgery and Orthopedic Surgery. FDA approved product, ramping sales.
PercAssist https://percassist-corp.com Santa Clara, CA. Gerardo, CEO. Nedical device to increase ejection fraction in heart failure patients. First in man human data
OmnEcoil Instruments www.omnecoil.com Portland, OR. Duffy, CEO. Devices to allow the imaging and biopsy of prostate under MRI guidance in one procedure.
ReRx Berkeley, CA. Prabha Ibramin, PhD. CEO. ReRx is developing oral therapeutics with novel mechanisms of action that improve clinical outcomes for ACC inhibition. Targeting severe metabolic diseases (Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Metabolic Syndrome, and NASH/NAFLD).
Tachys Biosciences, Alameda, CA. Dave, CEO. Tachys is developing platforms using nanopores and electrochemistry to detect a variety of protein and DNA analytes with extremely high sensitivity at low cost.