Mike Powell, Ph.D.
General Partner, Sofinnova Ventures

Mike Powell is General Partner at Sofinnova Ventures, with a focus on clinical-stage product companies. Powell joined Sofinnova in 1997 as a member of the life science investment team. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Powell worked on 20 clinical products and authored almost 100 papers and books, including a 1,100-page treatise on vaccine design. He is board president of AVAC (the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition) and is a past adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a strategic adviser to OneWorld Health and a founding venture advisory board member of the IAVI Innovation Fund. Previously, Powell worked at Genentech, Cytel Inc. and Syntex Research. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Kansas, an editorial board member of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and a scientific adviser to the Controlled Release Society. Powell received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Toronto.