Venture Capitalists Honored for Exceptional Service

Market Wire, April, 2009

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) today honored five pioneering life sciences investors with Lifetime Achievement Awards and the venture capital firm Warburg Pincus with its Outstanding Service Award at the NVCA 2009 annual meeting in Boston. The Lifetime Achievement recipients were James Blair, Domain Associates; Brook Byers, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Jean Deleage, Alta Partners; Anthony Evnin, Venrock; and Grant Heidrich, Mayfield Fund. Accepting the Outstanding Service Award on behalf of Warburg Pincus was the firm's co-president Joseph Landy.

Lifetime Achievement in Venture Capital Award

The Lifetime Achievement in Venture Capital Award recognizes NVCA members who have dedicated their professional lives to creating and building successful and highly competitive venture firms as well as portfolio companies that have made a significant contribution to economic growth and innovation in the United States. This year the NVCA is pleased to honor five venture capitalists who, through their vision and tenacity, helped to create the life sciences industry. Life sciences companies today represent more than one third of all venture capital investment and have improved and saved the lives of millions of Americans.

James Blair, Domain Associates - James Blair has been a Partner of Domain since its founding in 1985. Present board memberships include Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Cell Biosciences, CoDa Therapeutics, Five Prime Therapeutics, GenVault, Helixis, Meritage Pharma, Microchip Biotechnologies, NeuroPace, and Zogenix. Mr. Blair has more than 35 years' experience with venture and emerging growth companies. In the course of this experience, he has been involved in the creation and successful development at the Board level of more than 40 life sciences ventures, including Amgen, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Applied Biosystems, Aurora Biosciences, Dura Pharmaceuticals, GeneOhm Sciences, Molecular Dynamics, Nuvasive, Pharmion and Volcano.

Dr. Blair currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and he is on the Advisory Boards of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Board of Counsilors of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation.

Brook Byers, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers - Brook Byers has been a venture capital investor since 1972. He has been closely involved with more than 50 new technology based ventures, over half of which have already become public companies. He formed the first Life Sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led KPCB to become a premier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors. KPCB has invested in and helped build over 110 Life Sciences companies which have already developed hundreds of products to treat major underserved medical needs for millions of patients.

Mr. Byers was the founding President, and then Chairman, of four biotechnology companies which were incubated in KPCB's offices and went on to become public companies with an aggregate market value over $8 billion. He is currently on the Board of Directors of ten companies, most recently joining CardioDX, Genomic Health Incorporated, Five Prime Therapeutics, OptiMedica, Pacific Biosciences, Inc., Tethys and XDx, Inc. He was formerly a Director of Idec Pharmaceuticals (Chairman), Athena Neurosciences (Chairman), Signal Pharmaceuticals, Arris Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacopeia, Hybritech (Chairman), Genprobe and others. He is a currently a Board member of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Foundation, the New Schools Foundation, Stanford's Bio-X Advisory Council and the Stanford Eye Council.

Jean Deleage, Alta Partners - Jean Deleage began his venture capital career in 1971 in Paris, France with Sofinnova and started its very successful American subsidiary, Sofinnova, Inc. in 1976 in San Francisco. In 1979, he formed Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co., with Craig Burr and William Egan. During the 1980s and 1990s, BEDCO was a prominent, diversified venture firm. He co-founded Alta in 1996.

Dr. Deleage is an industry leader in biotechnology; he had the vision to start the Alta BioPharma family of funds, one of the very first venture capital initiatives to fund later stage life sciences companies. He was an early investor in many of the leading companies in the field today, including Cephalon, Chiron and Genentech. In 1993, he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government in recognition of his career accomplishments.

Anthony Evnin, Venrock - Anthony Evnin joined Venrock in 1974 and built the firm's healthcare franchise, helping to shape the modern biotechnology industry. He started his career as a Research Scientist and Group Leader in Organic Chemistry at Union Carbide and as Director of Product Development at Story Chemical. Six of Dr. Evnin portfolio companies have entered the public market in the last three years and over 29 of his investments have been through an IPO during his Venrock tenure.