Clare Ozawa

Clare became a Versant managing director in January 2017 and leads investments in San Diego and the Bay Area. Clare currently is responsible for strategic business development, operations and finance for the Inception Sciences research sites in San Diego, Vancouver and Montreal. During her tenure at Inception, she assumed leadership roles in thecreation and management of six new companies launched in partnership with academic researchers and major biopharmaceutical companies. Clare joined as Inception’s founding chief business officer in 2011 and was promoted to COO in 2014. She previously was an investment professional at Versant, where she was involved in several successful investments including Flexion (NASDAQ:FLXN), Biotie (purchased by Acorda), and Quanticel (purchased by Celgene). She joined Versant from Novartis Pharma, where she worked in the Office of the CEO leading strategic initiatives for the Novartis Pharma Executive Committee.