About Us

About us

Our Story

AIM-HI was born when Dr. Sujuan Ba, Franklin Salisbury, and Charlie Weatherspoon – realized a major obstacle to their vision for the National Foundation for Cancer Research:

some of the most promising oncology therapeutic discoveries and early-stage companies were failing due to lack of seed funding before they can get to the clinic.

Our Mission

Therapeutic development in pre-clinical stage is both an expensive and risky investment, which is enough to scare away most traditional VCs. Dr. Ba, Mr. Salisbury and Mr. Weatherspoon co-founded AIM-HI in 2019 with the commitment to bridging this “Valley of Death” and providing the support that these entrepreneurs and researchers need.

With the initial grants from NFCR, AIM-HI has since invested in nineteen promising start-ups, fourteen of these companies have since received additional investments from other investors and one company secured a commercial licensing from a large medical device company.

We have also identified another barrier in therapeutic development: women scientist-entrepreneurs were grossly underfunded comparing to their male counterparts. From this realization, the Women’s Venture Competition was born, the first of its kind to specifically support female entrepreneurs in the oncology arena because we believe it is important to have women’s perspective in developing cancer therapeutics when women are equally affected by cancer as men.

Now, AIM-HI is looking to break barriers yet again in the non-profit impact investment landscape. Our non-profit aims to achieve the “Evergreen Model” of charitable giving and impact investing. Returns on successful portfolio investments will be re-invested back into promising oncology discoveries and startups in a self-perpetuating cycle. AIM-HI plans to to create a sustainable model for cancer research funding and STEM entrepreneurship.

Our Team

Sujuan Ba, Ph.D

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Kwok Leung, Ph.D.

Chief Financial Officer

Jonathan Larsen

Director of Global Communications

Ella Ye

Scientific Programs & Communications Manager

Board of Directors

Matt Tremblay, Ph.D.

Chairman

Charlie Weatherspoon

Co-founder

Silas Deane

Director

Rose Wang, MBA

Director

Mark Baran

Director

Alfred Slanetz, Ph.D.

Director

Strategic Advisors

Webster K. Cavenee, Ph.D.

Director of Strategic Alliances, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

Pamela Garzone, Ph.D.

Chief Development Officer, Anixa Biosciences

Chih-Kao Hu, Ph.D., MBA

Management Consultant, Qral Group

Raju Kucherlapati, Ph.D.

Paul C. Cabot Professor of Genetics, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Lou Lieto, Ph.D., J.D.

Partner, Wilson Sonsini

Scott Lippman, M.D.

Distinguished Professor of Medicine & Associate Vice Chancellor for Cancer Research, UC San Diego Health

Jimmy Lu, J.D., MBA

Co-Founder & Managing Director, Eos BioInnovation

Patty Obermaier

Vice President, US Health and Life Sciences, Microsoft

Program Advisors

Tonino Belmonte

Founder & Venture Partner, Carthona Capital

Carlo M. Croce, M.D.

Professor of Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University

Aleksandra Filipovic, M.D., Ph.D.

Head of Oncology, PureTech Health

Dimitra Georganopoulou, Ph.D.

General Partner, Qral Ventures

Jennifer Grandis, M.D.

American Cancer Society Professor, University of California San Francisco

Beverly Lu, Ph.D.

Investment Manager, Health, Emerson Collective

Amy Millman

President & Co-Founder, Springboard Enterprises

Gregory W. Mitchell, Ph.D., J.D.

Senior Counsel, Wilson Sonsini

Eifion Phillips, Ph.D., J.D.

Patent Attorney

Kanaga Sabapathy, Ph.D.

Head, Division of Cellular and Molecular Research, National Cancer Center Singapore

Michael Salgaller, Ph.D.

Supervisory Invention Development & Marketing Specialist, National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute

Paul Schimmel, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute

Fei Shen, Ph.D.

Managing Director, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund USA

Thea Tlsty, Ph.D.

Professor of Pathology, University of California San Francisco

Daniel D. Von Hoff M.D., F.A.C.P.

Physician-in-Chief & Distinguished Professor, Translational Genomics Research Institute

Barbara Weber, M.D.

President & CEO, Tango Therapeutics

Partners and Sponsors