Special Topic Sessions: Speakers

Dai Feng is the co-founder and managing director of CareCapital Advisors Limited, a healthcare focused VC and growth investor managing a multi-billion portfolio of more than 50 healthcare technology and service companies, with a strong focus on dentistry.

CareCapital invests hundreds of millions annually in professional, training-driven healthcare businesses. Dentistry is a core focus and includes preventive, restorative, orthodontics, and implant dentistry. Geographic scope is worldwide, encompassing orthodontics from China, Germany, and US; implant dentistry out Sweden; bone regeneration from South Korea; and imaging technology out of France, among others. Software is also a critical part of delivering great products and clinical services. Clinical formats are broad, from multi-specialty hospitals with hundreds of chairs serving urban communities, to digitally enabled clinics extending rural access.

CareCapital’s mission is to commercialize innovative technologies and expand healthcare access by strengthening the heritage and community of dentistry.

Prior to co-founding CareCapital, Dai Feng was a partner at Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm, and an associate at Goldman Sachs. Dai Feng graduated in engineering sciences from Harvard College in 1997.

Mr. Chopack has 20 years of experience in private equity investing and business development in medtech companies. He is currently the VP of Corporate Development at the Neoss Group, a leading private equity backed dental implant company based in Europe. At Neoss, Mr. Chopack focuses on various business development activities including mergers and acquisitions, equity investments, and licensing/distribution agreements. As part of the Executive Management team at Neoss, Mr. Chopack plays a key role in various organizational development activities.

Prior to Neoss, Mr. Chopack was a General Partner at HealthpointCapital, a $800 million AUM medtech focused private equity firm, Mr. Chopack played an integral role in some of the firm’s most successful investments – Nexa Orthopedics, BioHorizons and Blue Belt Technologies. These investments brought significant advances to the healthcare field and provided top quartile returns to investors.

Prior to his career in private equity, Mr. Chopack was an orthopedic sales representative for Wright Medical and Encore Orthopedics. Following his experience as an orthopedic sales representative, Mr. Chopack worked on Wall Street with Investec and Techvest as a medtech analyst.

Mr. Chopack has been recognized as a “40 under 40 Medtech Innovator” by Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry Magazine.

Mr. Chopack received a BA from Lafayette College and an MBA from Fordham University Gabelli School of Business.

Dr. Lieberthal serves as the Chief Innovation Officer for Henry Schein, Inc., reporting to Chris Pendergast, Henry Schein’s Global Chief Technology Officer. In this role, he is at the nexus of evaluating hundreds of cutting-edge solutions and technologies, advising the many medical and dental business units of Henry Schein on important emerging trends, and helping connect the company’s global sales, marketing and distribution capabilities with important new products that help its customers run better practices and deliver excellent patient care. Previously, from 2009 until 2015, he was the Vice President, Emerging Technologies for Henry Schein, Inc., reporting to the president of Henry Schein’s Global Practice Solutions Group.

Brian Hess is currently the CEO and Founder of RevBio, which is a clinical stage medical device company. RevBio was founded in 2014 to commercialize Tetranite®, a regenerative bone adhesive technology that is poised to transform bone repair. During this time, Mr. Hess has raised over $25 million in seed funding through a combination of equity and government funding. He has focused on advancing company operations, including the execution of several clinical studies, and building the product pipeline as they raise additional rounds of investment capital. Achievements include RevBio competing in the 2022 MedTech Innovator Program as well as winning the “Gold Prize” at MassChallenge in 2015. RevBio is a past winner of the Boeing/CASIS Award, which enabled the product to fly Tetranite to the International Space Station. Prior to this, Brian gained executive leadership experience serving as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for a start-up medical device company while graduating in June 2014 with an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. As CTO, Brian developed an R&D organization with science and engineering capabilities to develop a Neural-Scaffold device from concept through FDA regulatory approval to start a First-in-Human clinical trial to treat patients with a devastating spinal cord injury. Brian’s previous ten years of experience at Stryker led him to numerous corporate innovation awards as he developed novel medical technologies and products while leading global, cross-functional teams. Brian’s passion is to lead innovation at the cutting edge of the healthcare space and to create organizations as they develop products to treat patients with unmet needs. His leadership style is to promote collaboration and distribute responsibilities across multi-disciplinary teams. He does so by building environments where people are highly engaged, aligned, and motivated to come to work every day and to share in their discoveries. Outside of work, he enjoys outdoor activities such as running and playing sports while spending time traveling with his friends and family.

Kerry Hegarty, PhD, based in Melbourne Australia, has worked over the last 30 years creating businesses based on early-stage research technologies, translating benchtop science to global sales. Her business success is based on building small diverse teams in the early formative stages of a company where the risk is high. In the life sciences, she served as Managing Director/CEO of Sienna Cancer Diagnostics where she built the technical and business development teams whilst creating strategic global partnerships. She led the development of the first IVD test for cancer, using telomerase, and its sale into the US market.  Previously, she introduced a unique exploration tool into the oil and gas markets which allowed quantitative assessments of the temperature history of a basin, thus de-risking target opportunities.  Today, in her role as CEO of Incisive Technologies, Kerry has brought together the resources and vision to launch a novel tool to oral healthcare markets around the world.  BlueCheck is a “paint” that is applied to the teeth by a professional allowing for the early detection of caries.  It is fast, simple and objective.  It is expected to be launched in late 2022.  Kerry gained her university education at UC Davis and then later at Columbia University in NY.

Dr. Mozes is the CEO and Co-founder of Neocis, developer of the first and only robotic surgery system in the dental industry. He has led the company from inception through commercialization, including more than 15,000 implants placed with their Yomi system. He has been working in computer graphics and image-guided applications in start-up companies for more than 20 years. As one of the first 20 employees at MAKO Surgical Corp., he helped develop the software for their ground-breaking Rio system for orthopedic robotic surgery. Prior to MAKO Surgical Corp., he developed Emmy award-winning technology with Sportvision, Inc. in the area of real-time sports broadcast graphics. Dr. Mozes received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Miami and his B.S. and M.Eng. degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Adam Christie – CALCIVIS Chief Executive Officer
 
Adam has a broad background in the pharma, biotech and dental industries with over 30 years of experience of working at the interface between commercialisation, R&D and finance. He is a business developer and marketer with direct experience of drug and device development and the capital markets. He started Calcivis in 2012.

Previously as Chief Business Officer at PowderMed (DNA vaccines), Adam led the commercial strategy that culminated in a landmark deal with Pfizer in 2006, two years after the company’s first venture funding round. His earlier career included senior roles at PPL Therapeutics, GSK, Abbott Laboratories, Schering AG, and as a sell-side analyst at investment bank ABN Amro in London. His education includes a BSc in Pharmacology from Southampton University and an MBA from Warwick Business School. Adam is also a Non-Executive Director at MGB Biopharma, a Scottish pharma company developing a new class of antibacterials.

Florian Hillen is the founder and CEO of VideaHealth, an MIT spinout and leading dental-AI company working with leading DSOs, insurers, and other companies in the dental industry. Previously, he conducted research at the intersection of engineering and social science at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society and at Harvard Business School. He also worked for McKinsey & Company and founded Ninu, a digital healthtech startup. He holds two master’s degrees from MIT in computer science and technology policy and a bachelor’s in management and technology. He completed the first German State exam in medicine, as well. 

Dr. Ben Wu is Professor and Chair of the UCLA Division of Regenerative and Reconstructive Sciences which integrates Advanced Prosthodontics, Endodontics, Orthodontics, Periodontics, Maxillofacial Prosthetics, and Special Patient Care.  He is Director of the Weintraub Center for Reconstructive Biotechnology at the UCLA School of Dentistry, and his research focuses on biomaterials and advanced biomanufacturing.  He is former chairman of the Department of Bioengineering at the School of Engineering, and holds formal academic appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Department of Orthopedic Surgery in School of Medicine.  Dr. Wu provides multidisciplinary patient care in the UCLA Faculty Group Dental Practice, where he focuses on complex oral rehabilitation using implant, fixed, and removable prosthodontics. He is a fellow of the Academy of Prosthodontics. 

Dan Burke joined Pacific Dental Services in 2011. His current responsibilities include leading the enterprise strategy and strategic payor relationships at Pacific Dental Services. Mr. Burke also serves as General Counsel, overseeing the legal, legislative affairs, and compliance functions for the company. Mr. Burke currently serves on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (CDC-NACDD) Medical-Dental Integration Steering Committee, and is a member of the Dentognostics GmbH Board of Directors. In partnership with Colgate-Palmolive, he moderates a multi-part webinar series designed to educate clinicians on the importance of understanding the Mouth-Body Connection®. He is a past Chairman of the Board of the Epilepsy Foundation of Orange County and past member of the National Opioid Task Force. Mr. Burke received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College and his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. He has been recognized as one of the “Top 10 Innovative In-House Lawyers” in the State of California by The Daily Journal, and “General Counsel of the Year” by the Orange County Business Journal. He has also received the Seven Seals Award from the U.S. Department of Defense for his leadership and support of those serving in America’s National Guard and Reserve.

Daniel R. Marshak, Ph.D., is an executive in the biotechnology industry and a former academic research scientist. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Tecan Group (Swiss SIX:TECN) and for InVivo Therapeutics (NASDAQ:NVIV). He also serves as a Director for private companies, LifeVault Bio Inc.(dba GoodCell), Elevian Inc., RareCyte, Inc. and Otoro Energy, Inc. Dr. Marshak is a consultant to 5AM Ventures and Prime Movers Lab, and he is an advisor to Catalent (NYSE:CTLT) and to Phase Scientific International, Ltd. in Hong Kong as Chief Technology Officer. He has recently worked with RADx, a program to develop diagnostics rapidly for COVID-19 sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Marshak previously served as Senior Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer for PerkinElmer Inc. (NYSE:PKI) and spent several years in Shanghai as PerkinElmer’s President, Greater China and then President, Emerging Diagnostics. Previously, he was Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Biotechnology, for Cambrex Corporation (NYSE:CBM) and Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Osiris Therapeutics, Inc.

In academics, Dr. Marshak held an appointment as adjunct Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and earlier as Senior Staff Investigator at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and concurrently Assistant Professor at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Dr. Marshak received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, and he holds a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry and cell biology from The Rockefeller University in New York. He did postdoctoral work in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and as a Pharmacology Research Associate Training Fellow at the National Institutes of Health. He is the co-author of more than 100 research papers, editor of several monographs, and co-inventor on 12 issued U.S. patents.

Dr. Kami Hoss is an orthodontist, dentofacial orthopedist, author and entrepreneur who is on a mission to reinvent America’s oral healthcare paradigm. He has advanced the business of dentistry as cofounder and CEO of The Super Dentists in California, which over the last twenty-five years has become one of the leading multispecialty dental practices in the country.

Dr. Hoss’s passion for education led him to found Howard Healthcare Academy, where he is CEO of the nationally accredited dental assisting school that trains students using an unprecedented hands-on method.

He is also the bestselling author of If Your Mouth Could Talk, an enlightening guide to oral health and its impact on pregnancy, sleep, systemic disease and even emotional well-being, that gives people the knowledge and tools to dramatically improve their lives.

Dr. Hoss is a member of the American Association of Orthodontists, American Dental Association, Forbes Business Council and Newsweek Expert Forum. He sits on the Board of Counselors at UCLA School of Dentistry and is a highly sought-after expert who has been featured on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and NPR affiliates as well as in hundreds of newspapers, magazines and other publications nationally.

Kirill Zaydenman is vice president of innovation at CareQuest Innovation Partners. Mr. Zaydenman’s work focuses on strategic partnerships with startups and tech innovators, research and development, and impact investing to redefine care and prevention, make care more connected and equitable, and reimagine the consumer experience.

Mr. Zaydenman held several leadership roles across DentaQuest and Delta Dental of Massachusetts, and he previously worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, where he directed market research, market strategy, and product development. He is deeply passionate about making our health care system better; collaborating with diverse stakeholders and partners to find new ways to improve health equity, experiences, and outcomes; and coaching individuals and teams to achieve business results by being open to change and building meaningful stories and ideas with the help of powerful data.

Mr. Zaydenman received a master’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston University.

Dr. Catherine Hayes is the Dental Director of MassHealth the Massachusetts Medicaid program. She received a B.S. in biology from Boston College and a D.M.D. from Tufts University, magna cum laude. She completed a General Practice Residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and received both Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Epidemiology from Harvard University where she also completed a dental public health residency. She received her Doctor of Medical Science from Harvard School of Dental Medicine and has dedicated her career to public health research, policy, and teaching. Dr. Hayes is a diplomate of the American Board of Dental Public Health and is a past president on the same board and the American Association of Public Health Dentistry. She has held leadership positions in universities and government agencies as well as national and international organizations. Dr Hayes has published numerous articles and book chapters in the field of dental public health and epidemiology. She has been actively involved in research and policy initiatives related to oral health disparities and inequities throughout her career

Todd Cruse, Executive Vice President and President Care Group for DentaQuest, oversees strategy and operations for the DentaQuest Care Group and its affiliated dental care centers, which provide access to vital dental services for children and adults in underserved areas. Prior to joining DentaQuest in 2013, Todd led a health care consulting firm with an emphasis on dental and government-sponsored health care programs. He also spent eight years as Senior Vice President of Development and Government Affairs at CSHM, a Medicaid-focused dental practice management firm. Todd was also a member of former Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist’s Cabinet, serving as Chief Administrative Officer and Assistant to the Governor for legislation. Todd earned his Bachelor of Science in communication and political science from Middle Tennessee State University