Wendy Naimark
Chief Technology Officer & Co Founder Ripple Therapeutics
Dr. Wendy Naimark is Co-Founder and CTO of Ripple Therapeutics, a Toronto-based clinical-stage ophthalmology company. She holds a PhD in Biomaterials from the University of Toronto and trained in local drug delivery during a postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech. Her industry career began at Boston Scientific, developing local delivery gene and protein therapies for refractory angina, followed by a Harvard/MIT-founded startup leading development of a biodegradable drug-eluting scaffold for peripheral artery disease. In 2016 she joined Interface Biologics to lead the Epidel® platform, later spun out as Ripple Therapeutics — which has advanced from discovery to Phase 2 proof of concept, raised $14M USD Series A plus $55M USD in partnership and non-dilutive capital and built partnerships with AbbVie, Bausch + Lomb, and Glaukos.
Seminars
This workshop aims to bring together venture investors and pharmaceutical partnering leaders to provide practical guidance on building compelling investment packages and partnership opportunities. Navigate today’s challenging funding landscape by understanding exactly what venture capitalists and pharmaceutical partners evaluate when considering ophthalmic drug delivery investments.
This workshop will gather experts to discuss:
- Learn what data packages, intellectual property positions, and team capabilities pharma partners require for early-stage deals, including insights from companies that have secured partnerships before entering the clinic
- Discover how to position your program to attract investment in an environment where mega-rounds dominate and capital for smaller raises is increasingly scarce
- Gain strategies for demonstrating your technology’s commercial viability, addressing reimbursement considerations, and articulating clear paths to market that resonate with both investors and strategic partners
- Discovery of the Epidel prodrug technology, and the systematic evaluation process that identified ophthalmology
- Building an ophthalmology-focused team from the ground up
- Generating preclinical and clinical proof-of-concept data sets robust enough to secure capital and anchor strategic partnerships
- Advancing proprietary pipeline programs in parallel with partnered development programs, sustaining internal innovation alongside strategic collaboration
