Rowan Chapman (pictured), ranked fifth in the 2016 Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars awards, has joined US-based healthcare provider Johnson & Johnson’s corporate venturing and innovation unit from peer GE Ventures to run its California team.
Chapman’s LinkedIn profile said she would “lead the J&J California team responsible for entrepreneurial ecosystem collaborations, deals and investments across pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer sectors”.
Chapman had previously been managing director of new business creation and healthcare investing at GE Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-listed General Electric. She was on the board of Evidation Health, the first healthcare offshoot firm incubated and launched from GE Ventures, in partnership with US university Stanford Medicine’s Health Care academic health system.
Her background means Chapman can cross the divide between venture investor, academia and startups. As a scientist, she secured a first in biochemistry from Cambridge University before undertaking her PhD at the Munro Lab there.
Chapman then moved from the UK to US for post-doctoral research at the Walter Lab of the University of California, San Francisco, after which she made the leap into industry.
That experience began with roles in the US as a business development and marketing executive in two companies, Nasdaq-listed Incyte Genomics (then called Incyte Pharmaceuticals) and Rosetta Inpharmatics, which was acquired by Merck for $620m in 2001, 10 months after its flotation.
This year’s list of 100 GCV Rising Stars will be announced at an invite-only dinner in California on Tuesday, sponsored by GE Ventures, and Chapman is a guest at the following, sold-out, Global Corporate Venturing and Innovation Summit in Sonoma.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation separately said it would partner with the US government to launch an innovation centre, called JLabs, in New York City next year.
Officially known as JLABS @ NYC, the 30,000-square foot facility will be located at the New York Genome Center (NYGC) in SoHo and is receiving $17m in New York State funding.
Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, said: “Expanding the JLabs model to New York City, home to world-class academic and medical institutions, furthers Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s commitment to providing resources that catalyse and foster the growth of life science ecosystems around the world.”