3rd Annual Obesity & Cardiometabolic Innovation Forum

Dr. Mehta is a Senior Advisor to the Lazard Global Biopharma practice based in San Francisco. He has been associated with the firm for 17 years and has worked on a number of buy-side and sell-side transactions, most recently the sale of CymaBay to Gilead Sciences. He’s a board certified endocrinologist, having practiced at Stanford and currently maintains a clinical faculty appointment at the UC San Francisco School of Medicine.

David M. Kendall, MD, is currently Chief Medical Officer at Zealand Pharma, a role he has held since June 2022. Prior to this appointment, he served as Zealand Pharma’s Senior Global Medical Advisor in Metabolism.

David has more than 35 years of experience across a range of senior leadership roles, including Chief Medical Officer at MannKind Corporation; Vice President of Medical Affairs and Distinguished Medical Fellow at Eli Lilly and Company; Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of the American Diabetes Association; and Executive Director of Medical Affairs at Amylin Pharmaceuticals.

He is a trusted and respected leader in diabetes, obesity, metabolism, and cardiovascular and renal medicine, with a distinguished clinical and research career. His experience includes serving as Chief of Clinical Services and Medical Director at the International Diabetes Center, as well as faculty appointments at the University of Minnesota.

David completed medical school and postgraduate training in internal medicine, with specialization in diabetes, endocrinology, and metabolism, at the University of Minnesota (MD). He also holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Biology from St. Olaf College.

His expertise spans clinical medicine and clinical research, along with extensive experience in drug development and medical affairs within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

David Risinger, CFA is a Senior Research Analyst at Leerink Partners covering Diversified Biopharmaceuticals. He has been a top-ranked Biopharmaceutical sellside analyst for over 20 years and is highly regarded for his strategic industry perspectives and deep analytical work.

Prior to joining Leerink Partners in 2022, Mr. Risinger served as Head of U.S. Major and Specialty Pharmaceuticals Equity Research at Morgan Stanley & Co from 2009-2021. Previously he was Head of Global Healthcare Research and Senior U.S. Pharmaceutical Analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. and also worked as a research associate and senior analyst covering Healthcare Distribution & Technology. He began his Wall Street career at Dillon, Read & Co.

Mr. Risinger earned a B.A. in Political Science from Bucknell University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Jay Olson is Managing Director and Senior Analyst covering Biotechnology. Prior to joining Oppenheimer, Jay covered SMID-cap names and worked on the Large Cap Pharmaceuticals team at Goldman Sachs for 4 years after 4 years on the #1 II-ranked Large Cap Pharmaceuticals team at Sanford Bernstein. Prior to Wall Street, Jay spent 18 years in the pharmaceutical industry, working mostly for Pfizer in finance, marketing and business development. Jay received an M.B.A. in Finance and an M.S. in Chemical Engineering both from MIT, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University. He also holds the CFA designation.

Joel is an Associate Partner and practice leader in the Ipsos Healthcare Advisory group, a leading strategic advisory firm for life sciences companies. With 15 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, he provides insights and guidance to clients on various aspects of drug development and partnering in oncology therapeutics. Prior to joining Ipsos, Joel spent over a decade in the life sciences industry, both on the consulting side and is BD&L/commercial strategy for oncology-focused Biopharma companies. His mission is to help clients make informed and strategic decisions that optimize their value proposition and maximize their potential in the dynamic and competitive life sciences landscape.

Joel holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from UCSD/Scripps and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at The Rockefeller University. He received his BA in Biology from Cornell with honors.

Dr. Jyothis George serves as the Chief Medical Officer of NodThera, driving the clinical acceleration of oral small molecules that quell chronic inflammation to reduce cardiovascular risk and to improve metabolic and brain health. A pioneer in NLRP3 inflammasome inhibition, NodThera is currently running the industry’s largest and longest clinical program in this class. With multiple clinical readouts for NodThera’s assets in 2026, Jyothis is laser-focused on accelerating the path to approval, leveraging decades of global leadership in cardiometabolic drug development and regulatory strategy.

Blockbuster CardioMetabolic Development

Prior to NodThera, Jyothis held pivotal executive roles at some of the world's leading pharmaceutical organizations:

Amgen: As Global Medical Vice President, he led the General Medicine Therapeutic Area, overseeing research, development and delivery across CardioMetabolism, Bone, Neurology, and Nephrology with multiple blockbusters including Evolocumab (Repatha®).

Novo Nordisk: As Corporate Vice President, he successfully delivered major regulatory studies for assets including semaglutide (Wegovy®) and launched global educational platforms like ObesityME.

Boehringer Ingelheim: As Global Head of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs (Cardiometabolism), he directed the teams for empagliflozin (Jardiance®)—the first diabetes treatment to earn an FDA cardiovascular mortality indication—and linagliptin (Trajenta®).

Clinical & Academic Excellence

Jyothis has served on the steering committees of six major cardiovascular outcomes trials and has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications. He is the founder of the CardioMetabolic Health Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to personalizing care at scale. He serves as Visiting Professor of Cardiometabolic Medicine at the University of Oxford.

Leland Gershell is a Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst at Oppenheimer. Before joining the firm in 2018, Leland was Chief Financial Officer of Capricor Therapeutics and Tonix Pharmaceuticals. Leland has former sell-side and buy-side experience and began his career on Cowen's biotechnology research team, where he provided sole coverage focused on the small and mid-cap segment. Leland has also authored numerous editorial and review articles and is an inventor on patents for Merck's Zolinza®. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Columbia University and his B.A. magna cum laude in Chemistry and Asian Studies from Dartmouth College.

Mike heads Lumanity’s Advanced Therapies and Rare Diseases practices specializing in strategic development of platform technologies and applications for genetically defined patient populations and broad polygenic diseases. He also co-heads the hematologic oncology and cardiometabolics practices.

He has 25+ years of experience in biotech ventures supporting new company creation and defining strategic development and early commercial strategy for academic and biotech inventions pertaining to nucleic acids, gene therapy and cellular platforms applied across monogenetic diseases and oncology. Mike studied the molecular basis of cancer at the Kimmel Cancer Institute and is recognized for his extensive intellectual property and publication portfolio pertaining to recombinational DNA repair and molecular diagnostics. Mike is a co-inventor of non-nuclease gene editing methodology currently used commercially in agricultural trait improvement and in development for therapeutic applications.

Mike holds an MBA, with a concentration in Biotechnology from the Alfred Lerner School of Business and Economics, at the University of Delaware, an MS in Molecular Pharmacology from Thomas Jefferson University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Delaware. Industry positions involved translational research, strategic planning, technology transfer, finance and business development.

Mike is a Member of the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center Advisory Council, enjoys mentoring early-stage life science entrepreneurs and is a member of ASGCT, ARM, SITC, ASCO and AHA professional societies.

Profile coming soon...

CBT Advisors CEO Steve Dickman has worked in consulting and venture capital for more than twenty-five years. He founded CBT Advisors in 2003 and has worked on storytelling and strategy with nearly five hundred private biotechnology and life sciences clients. Much of the firm’s work focuses on drafting business sections for NASDAQ IPOs. More than one hundred clients have gone public, raising more than $13 billion. Previously, Steve was a venture capitalist with TVM Capital.

Tim Opler is a Managing Director in Stifel’s Global Healthcare Group leading strategic and financing transactions across multiple healthcare sectors. Tim co-founded Torreya and became part of Stifel through the 2023 acquisition.

For nearly 20 years, Tim has focused exclusively on life sciences advisory; he has completed more than 150 financing, licensing, and M&A transactions across the industry with a total value of over $100 billion. Highlights include running the largest share buyback in history for Pfizer, leading a $3.9 billion convertible bond exchange for Amgen, working on Chiron’s $5.1 billion sale to Novartis, and managing Genentech’s inaugural $2 billion bond issue.

Before co-founding Torreya, Tim was Vice President of Strategy at FibroGen, where he helped raise $117 million for the company and negotiated licensing deals. Previously, Tim was a Managing Director in Healthcare Investment Banking at Credit Suisse First Boston and held senior roles at W.R. Hambrecht, Deutsche Bank, and Merrill Lynch.

Prior to his career in investment banking, Tim was a professor in the finance department at Ohio State University. He earned a B.S. in Economics and Philosophy from Florida State University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.