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Michael Baran, Ph.D., M.B.A. (Observer)

Partner, Pfizer Ventures, Executive Director, External Science & Innovation, Worldwide R&D, Pfizer, Inc.

Experience

Michael Baran is partner on the Pfizer Ventures team and executive director in the emerging science and innovation group. In this role, Dr. Baran has responsibility for growing venture investment transactions and managing equity investments aligned with future directions of Pfizer. In addition to Autobahn, he currently has responsibility for Pfizer’s investments in Accelerator NYC, Magnolia Neurosciences, BlueLight Therapeutics, ImCheck Therapeutics, and ImmunOs Therapeutics. Prior to his current role, Dr. Baran served as senior director of portfolio strategy, where he and was responsible for critically assessing the R&D portfolio from a volume, value, quality, risk and productivity perspective with the ultimate objective of maximizing R&D productivity and value generation, and, prior to that, was senior director, scientific affairs for the R&D President’s Office, where he was responsible for enabling and communicating the R&D strategic agenda as well as leading colleague development capabilities. Dr. Baran joined Pfizer in 2008 in the market access space providing strategic and analytical support around marketing and managed care contracting with commercial and government payers. Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Baran worked within the NIH Protein Structure Initiative’s Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium coordinating protein structure production efforts, including bioinformatics, protein expression, purification and 3D structure determination.  He is also a co-founder of Nexomics Biosciences, a New Jersey based biotechnology company focused on providing gene-2-structure services as well as early stage drug target validation.  He is actively involved in the local biotechnology community participating in eLabNYC, Rutgers HealthAdvance, and the BioIdea NYC. Dr. Baran earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers University where his research focused on structural biology and scientific software development. He holds an M.B.A. from Rutgers Business School with a focus in pharmaceutical management and received his B.S. in biochemistry and information technology from Syracuse University.