Licensing & Business Development

Emma Nealon is Director of Business Development & Investments at TrialSpark. Prior to joining TrialSpark, she was an equity research analyst covering small and mid-cap biotechnology at Cantor Fitzgerald. Previously, Emma also held associate positions in equity research in the biotechnology sector at both Cantor and Oppenheimer, and started her career at ICR working in capital markets advisory and investor relations for both public and private biopharma companies. Emma graduated from Georgetown University with a BS in Biology.

Roman is a Director of Business Development & Investments at TrialSpark. Previously, Roman worked in Business Development & Investments at Roivant, Venture Capital & Growth Equity at H.I.G. Capital, and as an investment banker serving pharma and biotech clients at Deutsche Bank. He began his career in the Life Sciences Strategy Group at Navigant Consulting (since renamed Guidehouse) serving biopharma clients across commercial, R&D, and business development functions. Roman earned his BA from Cornell University and MBA from Columbia Business School.

Xiaoqi Liu is Director of Business Development & Investments at TrialSpark. Prior to joining TrialSpark, he led business development at Halozyme Therapeutics and corporate development & strategy at Gelesis. Previously, Xiaoqi also worked at Silicon Valley Bank and Solium Capital (now Shareworks by Morgan Stanley), where he led valuation and buy-side strategic advisory projects for life sciences companies. Xiaoqi started his career at Canton Venture Capital investing in early-stage life science companies. He has a MS in Biotechnology from Northwestern University and a BS in Biotechnology from Beijing Normal University.

Chris Walters is Associate Director, Business Development & Investments at TrialSpark. Prior to joining TrialSpark, Chris worked as a life science strategy consultant at Blue Matter Consulting, focusing on therapeutic/diagnostic product launch and corporate strategy. Previously, Chris worked as a business development professional at the University of Pennsylvania’s technology transfer office (PCI), where he managed a portion of Penn’s patent portfolio and secured licensing agreements for university inventions. Chris has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan.

Jack Rosenberg is a Senior Associate of Business Development & Investments at TrialSpark where he focuses on asset acquisitions and drug development partnerships. Jack has held multiple roles at TrialSpark, supporting the company’s growth initiatives and mission to bring new treatments to patients faster and more efficiently. Previously, he worked in investment banking for Canaccord Genuity advising tech-enabled healthcare services and digital media companies on M&A transactions. Jack earned his undergraduate degree in Science, Technology, and International Affairs from Georgetown University.

Ben Liu is the co-founder and CEO of TrialSpark. He received his DPhil at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, leveraging machine-learning, AI, and big-data to develop diagnostics and therapeutics for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. During his graduate work, he observed the way clinical trials bottlenecked the development of new treatments for patients, compelling him to start TrialSpark. Before TrialSpark, Ben graduated from Yale where he was awarded the college’s highest honor at graduation and received his MPhil with distinction in Computational Biology from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge as a Paul Mellon Fellow.

Gavin Corcoran is the Chief Development Officer at TrialSpark. He oversees the scientific and medical input to the drug development process from the business development efforts to identify new products through the medical oversight of clinical trials to the regulatory filings and approval of the products. Prior to joining TrialSpark, he held several senior leadership roles including the CMO at Allergan and Stiefel where he provided oversight of the regulatory approval of many products across a number of therapeutic areas. His academic training is in infection diseases and he was on the faculty of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, TX prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry over 20 years ago.