Darren Carroll, former senior vice-president of corporate business development at US-based pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly for 22 years, has resurfaced after a sabbatical as a partner at venture capital firm Polaris Partners.
Founded in 1996 by Steve Arnold, Polaris Partners has been a top tier VC investor in the healthcare space under managing partners Bryce Youngren, Dave Barrett and Brian Chee.
Carroll, a serial member of the GCV Powerlist, founded Eli Lilly’s global corporate venturing program in 2005 and left in September 2019.
Lilly Ventures and Asia-focused peer Lilly Asian Ventures developed out of Carroll’s earlier work on the open innovation market in physical sciences through spinning open innovation and crowdsourcing specialist InnoCentive out from the company.
Carroll was promoted to senior vice-president in 2015, having been made vice-president of corporate business development in 2010, after originally joining Eli Lilly as an attorney in 1996.
In addition to corporate venturing, Carroll had covered mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, business collaborations, private equity investments and out-partnering at the corporation.
Photo of Darren Carroll courtesy of LinkedIn.
