Our Team

Ms. Hollingsworth is the founding Managing Partner of Militia Hill Ventures, an organization that creates, builds and invests in life sciences companies. While at MHV, Jane co-founded and currently serves as Executive Chair of Eliksa Therapeutics, a regenerative medicine company, co-founded and served as Executive Chair of Spirovant Sciences, a gene therapy company sold to Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, and served as Executive Chair and CEO of Immunome Inc. (NASDAQ: IMNM), a cancer immunotherapy company. Prior to MHV, Jane was co-founder and CEO of NuPathe Inc. (NASDAQ: PATH), a neuroscience focused biopharmaceutical company (sold to Teva). She also co-founded and served as EVP of Auxilium Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AUXL), a urology and rare disease focused biopharmaceutical company (sold to Endo Pharmaceuticals). Prior to founding and leading multiple biopharmaceutical companies, Ms. Hollingsworth was VP, Secretary & General Counsel of IBAH, Inc. (NASDAQ: IBAH), a 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.

As a leader in the entrepreneurial and life sciences communities, Ms. Hollingsworth serves on various industry and community boards, including Diffusion Pharmaceuticals , Afimmune Ltd., DS BioPharma, Ribonova, the University City Science Center, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and Breastcancer.Org.

Joan Lau is founding partner of Militia Hill Ventures and Chief Executive Officer of Spirovant Sciences, a Philadelphia biotechnology company focused on treatments and cures for inherited respiratory diseases. She co-founded Spirovant (then called Talee Bio), envisioning the potential for advanced gene therapy to treat cystic fibrosis and other patients in need. Under her leadership, Spirovant gained the prestigious scientific support of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, was the winner of as the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies’ Healthcare startup of the year and was acquired twice in one year, most recently as part of a $3 billion transaction with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma. She has been recognized as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Greater Philadelphia and a Woman of Distinction by the Philadelphia Business Journal.

She previously held roles as President and CEO of Azelon Pharmaceuticals a clinical stage biotech; President and CEO of Locus Pharmaceuticals, a computational chemistry discovery company; COO of Immunome, an antibody discovery company; and various leadership roles at Merck. Tirabrutinib (VELEXBRU®) was discovered, developed and licensed by Locus under her leadership. Currently she serves on the board of directors for Renovacor (NYSE: RCOR).

Dr. Lau is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania and has non-profit board experience in entrepreneurship, STEM/biotech, and social justice organizations. These include board appointments with the Kimmel Center, Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice; the Roy & Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences Management; the Temple University Masters in Biotechnology Program; president of The Alliance for Women Entrepreneurs; and the national board chair of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

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.

Dr. Martin 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.

Dr. Saporito 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.

Dr. Yuen assists in clinical development and regulatory affairs for MHV Labs and also serves as Chief Medical Officer of Talee Bio. Dr. Yuen 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.

Dr. Yuen 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 Dr. 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. Dr. Yuen 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. Dr. Yuen 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.