Biographies

Stuart Chaffee, PhD brings a wealth of experience including contributing to starting four publicly traded biotechnology companies, raising over $900M in private and public capital, and $4.9B in transactions.

Chaffee was most recently Chief Business Officer at Affinivax, Inc., until its sale to GlaxoSmithKline in May of 2022. Prior to his time at Affinivax, Chaffee was Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Praxis Precision Medicines, a clinical-stage genetic neuroscience company, where he raised over $100 million in private equity to fund an innovative pipeline identifying candidates for the development of novel therapies for patients affected by central nervous system disorders. He also served as Entrepreneur in Residence with Atlas Venture, where he co-founded and served as Head of Business Operations at Kymera Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company, started from the concept of using the body’s innate protein degradation machinery to target previously untreatable diseases. In addition to early-stage company building, Stuart has spent time at Amgen in drug discovery and at Biogen in several corporate functions. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William and Mary, a Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from Yale University, and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Michelle Marseglia is an audit partner at Deloitte and focuses her time in the Life Science and Biotech industry. She brings over 24 years of experience to the New England practice. During her tenure, Michelle has led audit engagements of large multi-national companies as well as early-stage biotech companies. Michelle has advised her clients as they navigate through significant events and major milestones in their lifecycles, such as initial public offerings, product launches, new collaboration arrangements, and other major transactions. Michelle is passionate about serving as a mentor to younger professionals at Deloitte and is active in recruiting new professionals to the audit practice.

Thomas Neuffer has 20+ years of experience in pharma, and is currently Sr. Director Early Valuations, New Business Development & Radiology at Bayer. Previously, Thomas was Director of Portfolio Analysis & Planning, Global Oncology, and part of the Customer and Business Insights (CBI) organization where he supported a global brand team for a key launch brand.

Prior to joining Bayer, Thomas was Director of Financial Planning and Analysis for Helius Medical Technologies, a medical device start-up. Before that, he was with Merck for 12 years in various roles within Finance, supporting multiple functions including Business Development, manufacturing strategy, and commercial operations. During this time, he gained extensive forecasting experience within the Oncology area, supporting the early commercialization of Keytruda in the U.S. market. Thomas holds a Bachelor of Science (Mechanical Engineering) and an MBA (Finance) from The Pennsylvania State University.

Margaret J. Sampson, Ph.D., focuses her practice on global, strategic intellectual property transactions and patent counseling surrounding the areas of life sciences, pharmaceuticals, research tools and medical devices. Life sciences and technology clients turn to her for evaluating, structuring, negotiating and documenting major transactions.

Margaret’s extensive experience includes advising clients in evaluating patent portfolio positions; analyzing freedom-to-operate issues; identifying and evaluating targets for potential investment, mergers or acquisitions; Hatch-Waxman patent litigation; patent term extensions and adjustments; and patent office proceedings.

She is highly skilled in a variety of transactions such as inbound and outbound licensing and option agreements, development and collaboration agreements, clinical research agreement, clinical and commercial supply agreements, manufacturing agreements, sponsored research agreements, technology transfers, and royalty monetization transactions.

Margaret also has a significant research background, focused on molecular genetics, recombinant DNA and stem cell research, including making mouse knock-out models to better understand the function of genes in an organism.

During law school, Margaret was editor-in-chief of the Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal.

Maude Tessier, PhD is a deal maker and company builder with over 17 years of business development corporate strategy, and cross functional business experience in public and private biotechnology, pharmaceutical and academic organizations.

Prior to Seismic, she served as Chief Business Officer of Ikena Oncology (Nasdaq: IKNA), a clinical-stage biotech company, where she built and managed the business development, legal and corporate strategy functions. She led key initiatives, including the negotiation of a $1B+ strategic partnership with BMS, the strategy and execution of the company rebranding and pipeline expansion into targeted oncology, the acquisition of Amplify Medicines, and drove core financing activities resulting in over $260M in private and public capital.

Previously, Maude was Executive Director, Business Development and Licensing at Merck & Co, leading oncology and immunology partnering in the Boston innovation hub. She served as Assistant Director, Business Development and Strategic Initiatives at Boston Children’s Hospital. She began her career at Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, where she had key roles in business development and program management of a Phase 3 drug candidate leading to its eventual FDA approval.

Maude is a co-chair of the Boston Biobreak CBO forum. She is an investment advisory board member for the Brown University Biomedical Innovations to Impact Fund, and a mentor for Endless Frontier Labs.

She holds an Honors Great Distinction BSc in Biochemistry from McGill University and a PhD from the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto.

Managing to a Successful Conclusion: Hidden Risks Negotiating Transactions