Dan Curran is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Mountainfield Venture Partners. Trained as a physician-scientist, he has more than 25 years of broad biopharmaceutical experience ranging from drug development to business development to venture investing.

Prior to Mountainfield, Dan was Senior Vice President and Head of Rare Disease Therapeutic Area for Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. During his tenure, his organization achieved global regulatory approvals for four new medicines, TAKHZYRO, VONVENDI, LIVTENCITY, and ADZYNMA, which have transformed the treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE), von Willebrand’s disease, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP).

Previously, Dan was Senior Vice President and Head of the Center for External Innovation (CEI) at Takeda responsible for all R&D business development, venture investments, and academic alliances. Over four years, his team concluded more than 150 transactions, enhancing the pipeline with collaborations across numerous therapeutic areas and modalities. In this capacity, Dan also directed Takeda’s venture investments and managed a portfolio of more than 40 companies and greater than $900M of invested capital generating a return of >3x. Under his leadership, Takeda also worked closely with the investment community to form numerous innovative spin-out companies, including Myovant (NASDAQ: MYOV), Phathom Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: PHAT), and Day One Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: DAWN).

Prior to his leadership of Takeda’s CEI, Dan led the corporate development group at Millenium Pharmaceuticals and was a member of the executive management team. Previous experiences include a business development role at DuPont Merck.

Dan received an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’ Wharton School. He graduated Summa cum laude from King’s College with a degree in Chemistry.

David Socks is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Mountainfield Venture Partners. He has been a serial biopharma entrepreneur for nearly 25 years during which time he has co-founded more than 15 venture-backed companies, leading to eight FDA approved drug products and six NASDAQ IPOs. Many of these companies were formed by in-licensing development-stage drug candidates from pharma companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Takeda, and others.

Prior to Mountainfield, David was a Venture Partner with Frazier Life Sciences. In that capacity, he co-founded Arcutis (NASDAQ: ARQT), HilleVax (NASDAQ: HLVX), Passage Bio (NASDAQ: PASG), Phathom Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: PHAT), and others. David served as CEO of Phathom through its 2019 IPO and was CFO and CBO of HilleVax through its 2022 IPO. He continues to serve on the board of Phathom.  

Prior to Frazier, David co-founded Incline Therapeutics (sold to The Medicines Company) and served as its President and COO. He also co-founded Cadence Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CADX; sold to Mallinckrodt) and served as its Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy. Previously, he was a Venture Partner with Windamere Venture Partners, where he co-founded multiple additional life sciences companies.

David also served as Chairman of Eleusis (sold to Beckley Psytech) and was an early advisor to Prometheus Biosciences (sold to Merck), PvP Biologics (sold to Takeda), and Mineralys (NASDAQ: MLYS). He holds a B.S. from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Dr. Shi has worked in biotech investing and advised biotech companies in various capacities, and was most recently an investor at F-Prime Capital prior to joining Mountainfield.

At F-Prime, Dr. Shi contributed to investments in healthcare companies across US, Europe and China, incubated new biotech companies, and managed portfolio companies. Her work involved multiple therapeutic areas including neuropsychiatry, oncology and immunology, and a variety of modalities including small molecules, ADCs, and cell and gene therapy. She was a board observer for several companies.

Before joining F-Prime, Dr. Shi worked in biomedical research at institutions including Stanford, Harvard and MIT. Dr. Shi has co-authored over thirty publications and received several fellowships and awards.

Dr. Shi holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Rice University, completed her MD, MBA and MS in epidemiology training at Stanford University.

Christian joined Mountainfield from McKinsey & Company where he was an Engagement Manager. He served as a core member of the Life Sciences practice and led the service line for Platform and Portfolio Strategy in Research & Early Development. In that capacity, Christian developed R&D strategies for companies ranging from big pharma to early stage start-ups. He also advised on potential investments and acquisition targets in a variety of areas, including innovative and generic medicines, digital health solutions, and real world evidence.

Previously, Christian was a doctoral researcher in the Department of Cancer Genetics and a physician in the Department of Breast Oncology, both at the University of Oslo. He also served as a medic in the Swiss Armed Forces.

Christian earned his MD and PhD (in Cancer Genetics & Computational Biology) from the University of Oslo.