Our Team

Jane H. Hollingsworth is Managing Partner of Militia Hill Ventures, a business focused on building and growing high quality life sciences companies, and Executive Chair of Talee Bio, a gene therapy company with a focus on cystic fibrosis and diseases of the lung. Jane is also former Executive Chair of Immunome Inc., a cancer immunotherapy company, and co-founder and former CEO of NuPathe Inc., a publicly-traded biopharmaceutical company focused on diseases of the central nervous system and sold to Teva in 2014. Jane also co-founded and served as EVP of Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company focused on urology and sold to Endo in 2015. Prior to launching and leading multiple successful biopharmaceutical companies, Ms. Hollingsworth was VP, Secretary & General Counsel of IBAH, Inc., a publicly-traded, multinational clinical research organization. Before joining IBAH, she practiced law at the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads and served as law clerk to the Honorable Jane R. Roth of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.

Ms. Hollingsworth is one of the leaders of the entrepreneurial and life sciences communities and serves on various industry and community boards, including DS Biopharma, Talee Bio, the University City Science Center, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and Breastcancer.Org.

Joan Lau is Managing Partner of Militia Hill Ventures, a business focused on building and growing high quality life sciences companies, and Chief Executive Officer of Talee Bio, a gene therapy company with a focus on cystic fibrosis. Prior to founding Militia Hill Ventures, Joan was an Executive in Residence at BioAdvance and President and CEO of Azelon Pharmaceuticals, a venture-backed clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of endocrine-based diseases. Prior to leading Azelon, Joan was President and CEO of Locus Pharmaceuticals, a computational chemistry discovery company. Earlier in her career, Joan served in various leadership roles at Merck & Co, focused primarily in R&D drug development and business development. Dr. Lau also serves on various community and industry boards, including Talee Bio, BioMotiv, the Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) and the Human Rights Campaign.

Dr. Lau earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and a BS in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Eric Yuen, MD assists in clinical development and regulatory affairs for MHV Labs and also serves as Chief Medical Officer of Talee Bio. Eric is a clinical development physician with over 20 years of experience in academia and industry. During his career Dr. Yuen has developed numerous biologics and small molecule therapeutics for a variety of diseases, including rare genetic diseases and neurology, psychiatry, pain and oncology disorders. Dr. Yuen has led departments responsible for Phase I-IV development and submissions of numerous INDs, CTAs, NDAs and MAAs.

Eric was the Director of Clinical Research at Merck & Co., working on CNS and pain indications and later Vice President of Clinical Development at Johnson & Johnson. While at Johnson & Johnson D. Yuen served as the therapeutic area head for CNS and the head of clinical development at a monoclonal antibodies and vaccines joint venture between Johnson & Johnson and Elan. Eric later served as Chief Medical Officer for Ultragenyx, a start-up company focused on rare genetic diseases, and as VP Clinical Development at BioClin Therapeutics, a start-up focused on the rare genetic disorder achondroplasia (dwarfism) and bladder cancer. Eric continues to serve as a consultant to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Yuen was an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Washington where he conducted clinical research in rare disorders such as ALS and muscular dystrophies. Eric completed his undergraduate education at Stanford University, M.D. from the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine, neurology residency at UCSF, and a post-doc in the lab studying neurotrophic factor signaling at UCSF.

Hope D’Oyley-Gay, JD assists in new company formation, technology transfer and regulatory affairs for MHV Labs. Hope is a life sciences corporate attorney with extensive law firm and in-house experience, including at a one of the largest global pharmaceutical companies. Ms. D’Oyley-Gay concentrates her practice in the areas of general corporate matters, mergers and acquisitions, product acquisitions and divestments, strategic licenses and joint ventures, private equity investments, clinical trial agreements and a variety of other research, commercial and operational business agreements. Ms. D’Oyley-Gay also provides corporate strategy, business development and operational counsel to emerging life sciences companies.

Prior to joining Militia Hill Ventures, Ms. D’Oyley-Gay was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at GlaxoSmithKline for 14 years, supporting GlaxoSmithKline’s global corporate strategy and business development groups. In 2009, Ms. D’Oyley-Gay received the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Rising Star Award for GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to joining GlaxoSmithKline, Ms. D’Oyley-Gay was in private practice, including at Reed Smith LLP, representing pharmaceutical companies and healthcare systems in transactional and healthcare regulatory matters, and at a boutique health law firm, representing physician practice groups and affiliated ventures.

Ms. D'Oyley-Gay obtained a Juris Doctorate Degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics from the University of Delaware.

William J. Martin, PhD is a founding executive team member of BlackThorn Therapeutics where he currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Research and Development. BlackThorn is focused on creating new medicines for neurobehavioral disorders based on novel, integrative approaches to patient phenotyping. A systems neuroscientist by training, Bill began his industrial career at Merck where he had research, development and strategic responsibilities in Neuroscience. Bill served as a member on the committee that oversaw the strategic direction of the Merck’s Neuroscience franchise as well as a co-chair for Early Development and Product Development teams for CNS drug candidates. Bill continued his career at Theravance Biopharma where, in addition to discovery and clinical development responsibilities, he led the company’s research portfolio planning initiative, was a member of the licensing and strategic partnership team and served as a Project Team Leader for an advanced clinical stage molecule for CNS disorders. Bill has helped advance more than 10 novel chemical entities into preclinical development, with at least half of these reaching Phase 2.

Bill remains an active member of the scientific community at-large. A co-author on more than 70 primary research and review articles, he is a former Councilor of the Society for Neuroscience and is active in science policy, diversity and professional development. He serves on the Advisory Council for Brown University’s Carney Institute for Brain Science and is an At-Large Member of the Coalition for the Life Sciences Board of Directors. Bill graduated from Swarthmore College, earned his PhD from Brown University and carried out his postdoctoral research at the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of California at San Francisco.

Michael Saporito, PhD assists MHV in evaluating new technologies and provides preclinical translatable perspective on potential new therapies.

Dr. Saporito has over 25 years experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. During his career, Dr. Saporito has enabled the translation of discovery stage assets to drug development and clinical candidates.

Dr. Saporito started his career at Cephalon Inc. where he established a research lab studying mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease, identified novel kinases involved in the neurodegenerative process in this disease and transitioned experimental drugs into development and clinical trials. Dr. Saporito also headed the biology research group at Locus Pharmaceuticals and cofounded Melior Discovery where he was Chief Scientific Officer and a member of the board of directors.

Dr. Saporito is a member of several non-profit boards and consults for and advises biopharmaceutical companies, venture capital groups and investment banks. Dr. Saporito is a graduate of Juniata College, obtained his Ph.D in Pharmacology at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in the Department of Neurology.

B.A. Sillah, MD, MBA focuses on biotech investment and portfolio company R&D management. Prior to joining MHV, B.A. earned an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MBA in Healthcare Management from the Wharton School. In addition to his clinical training, B.A. did internships at Excelsior Group in Nairobi and at the King’s Sierra Leone Partnership. He also consulted on several strategy and business development initiatives with the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Einstein Healthcare Network, and Mount Sinai Health System.

B.A. received his AB in Human Development and Regenerative Biology and a secondary degree in Global Health and Health Policy from Harvard University. While at Harvard, B.A. conducted research in cardiac optogenetics and in post-traumatic cognitive development.

Matt Luminais coordinates deal flow and assists with due diligence of potential portfolio companies. Before joining MHV, Matt completed his MSc in Biotechnology at Brown University. His researched focused on the development of extracellular matrix-derived biomaterials for use in the central nervous system. He also did an internship at Penumbra Inc, a neurovascular medical device company, and was awarded the Conte Center Summer Scholarship to perform basic neuroscience research at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his role as an analyst, Matt completed an internship at Militia Hill Ventures.

Matt received his BS in Neuroscience from Brown University. While at Brown, Matt conducted neurobiology research focused on plasticity in the spinal cord and was a varsity swimmer.

Mike Barsotti is the Director of PhillyBio and an Associate at Militia Hill Ventures. PhillyBio is an effort to strengthen the local life science network in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Mike leads the structuring, outreach, and implementation of the effort and manages all digital content. For MHV, Mike manages operations, scheduling, and event planning for the firm and its affiliates.

Mike began his career in Independent Minor League Baseball, pitching for the Joliet Slammers of the Frontier League. After retiring from baseball, Mike spent several years in Pennsylvania government and politics, reporting directly to the Chief of Staff in Governor Tom Wolf’s administration and transition, and holding senior staff roles on Katie McGinty’s campaigns for US Senate and PA Governor. Mike join MHV in the spring of 2017 and took the lead role in PhillyBio at the start of 2018.

Mike was born and raised in Philadelphia. He received his B.A. in Government with a concentration in American Politics from Wesleyan University. While at Wesleyan, Mike was captain of the varsity baseball team and a social chair for his fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon.