Liz brings over 25 years industry experience and over the past 20 years has focused her work on business development at large pharmaceutical companies. She has been with Merck for over ten years and is currently the Head of the Merck Boston Innovation Hub, the European Innovation Hub, and the Discovery Transactions team which are Business Development & Licensing teams focused on early-stage therapeutics (prior to human proof-of-concept) as well as accessing innovative research and technologies through collaboration, licensing, or M&A in the academic, pharma, and biotech community. During her time at Merck, in addition to leading her team through multiple important deals, she has led transactions including the acquisition of Themis Bioscience and the collaboration with Astex and Taiho Pharmaceuticals, among others. Previous to Merck, she spent nine years at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) on the business development team. During her time at NIBR, her roles included search and evaluation activities as well as leading the negotiation of licensing, collaboration, and M&A transactions including Novartis’ acquisition of CoStim Pharmaceuticals and licensing deals with Servier, Peptidream, among others. Liz also has industry experience in scientific roles, given her time at companies such as AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Akceli, Millennium, and Genzyme. Liz has Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Business Administration from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.