Introduction
Michelle Dipp, M.D., Ph.D., (b ca. 1976) is a life sciences investor.She was a Managing Director at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm based in New York and was the founder and partner of Longwood Fund, a healthcare venture capital firm. Michelle currently serves on the Trustee Advisory Board forBeth Israel Deaconess Medical Center., Advisory Board for the Women’s Foundation of Boston, and the Board of Directors for Life Science Cares. In addition, she is a member of the Rockefeller University Council; a member of the Advisory Council for the American Museum of Natural History; a Co-Founding Member of the Bowman Fund, Brasenose College Boat Club, Oxford University; and a member of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders.
Background
Michelle Dipp was raised in El Paso, Texas and earned her MD and PhD from the University of Oxford; her dissertation was on pulmonary hypertension.
Career
After graduating from Oxford, Dipp went to work for Wellcome Trust in its private equity division. Wellcome was an early investor in Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which was founded in 2004 by scientist David Sinclair, venture capitalist Christoph Westphal, serial entrepreneur Andrew Perlman, Richard Aldrich, Richard Pops, and Paul Schimmel.The company focused on resveratrol formulations and derivatives as activators of the SIRT1 enzyme.The company's initial product was called SRT501, and was a formulation of resveratrol.Westphal and Sinclair aggressively marketed investment in the company as an anti-aging opportunity, which was controversial but effective; the company raised $100 million in 2006.
Westphal recruited Dipp to join Sirtris in 2005 and she became the Vice President of Corporate Development. Sirtris went public in 2007 and was subsequently purchased and made a subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline in 2008 for $720 million; Westphal remained CEO of the subsidiary and was also appointedsenior vice president of GSK's Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD).
In 2008, Dipp worked with Westphal, Aldrich, and Alexey Margolin to found Alnara Pharmaceuticals, which was created to develop ways to formulate biopharmaceuticals so they could be taken by mouth, instead of by injection.
In February 2010, Dipp, Westphal, and Aldrich formed a new venture fund called Longwood Founders Fund.Prior to launching Longwood Founders Fund, Dipp was the senior vice president and head of the Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD) at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
In April 2010, Westphal stepped down as CEO of Sirtris. Dipp took over as senior vice president of CEEDD; this made her the youngest senior VP in all of the world's top ten pharmaceutical companies.
In August 2010, the Longwood team co-founded VeraStem by providing seed funding and office space its offices, with Westphal serving as CEO and chairman of the board; Verastem aimed to isolate cancer stem cells and then discover drugs that would selectively kill them. The company held its IPO in 2012.
GSK/Sirtris terminated development of SRT501 in late 2010.In 2013 GSK shut down Sirtris and its development candidates were absorbed into GSK, where research and development continued.
In 2011 Dipp co-founded OvaScience, an in vitro fertilization services and company, with Aldrich, Westphal, and Sinclair, along with scientist Jonathan Tilly, based on scientific work done by Tilly concerning mammalian oogonial stem cells and work on mitochondria by Sinclair. The company's A financing round was $6 million and it raised a $37 million B round in early 2012; Longwood participated in both rounds. Dipp served as CEO from 2011-2016.
In January 2015 Longwood and Dipp helped found Flex Pharma Later that year she was named as one of Fortune Magazine's "40 under 40" and was also named one of 187 "Young Global Leaders" by the World Economic Forum,
In November 2016 Dipp and Longwood helped launch Axial Biotherapeutics, which aimed to modulate the gut-brain axis to treat neurological diseases; its strategy at launch was open with company considering developing drugs to influence the gut microbiota as well as probiotics; Dipp took a board seat.
Dipp was appointed to the governing board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s Emerging Companies section in December 2013.By the end of 2013 she and Westphal had joined the approximately 100 overseers of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; BSO overseers advise the Board of Trustees on various matters including fundraising.In October 2014 she joined the board of directors of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.By 2015 she had joined the board of directors of the New England Venture Capital Association.
In October 2017 Dipp became the Managing Director at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm based in New York. While at General Atlantic Michelle launched their first life sciences investment platform and served as a member of the life sciences investment committee. Michelle served as a Board Observer for Ginkgo BioWorks and as a board member for PathAI and Immunocore.