MM

Mara Macdonald

Investor, entrepreneur and scientist in the life sciences

Melbourne, Victoria

Invests in

Stages:

  • Min Investment:

    $1,500,000.00
  • Max Investment:

    $5,000,000.00
  • Target Investment:

    $1,500,000.00

Work Experience

  • Investment Manager

    2019

    Brandon Capital and Brandon BioCatalyst provide seed and venture capital investment to support the development and international growth of Australian life science companies with a focus on pharma/biotech, medical device, and life science tools applications. We work collaboratively with entrepreneurs and scientists to build companies providing differentiated patient benefit and excellent returns to our investors

2013

  • Co-Founder, Former COO and Advisor

    2013

2013 - 2015

  • Consultant

    2013 - 2015

    Assist TRV in projects including aspects in drug discovery, preclinical validation, biomedical engineering, medicine, and business strategy to perform technical and commercial due diligence on technologies and company building, including Series A funding for Nurix and Decibel

  • Consultant

    2010 - 2012

    ClearView Healthcare Partners is a boutique consulting firm offering premier strategy consulting exclusively focused on the life sciences (e.g., pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and diagnostics sectors of healthcare). Our focus is primarily in growth-oriented strategic decision-making support, including asset and franchise strategy, marketing strategy, market entry (e.g., into new disease or therapeutic areas) strategy, and overall business unit/corporate growth strategy. Examples of relevant experience: • Performed a strategic assessment in the cardiovascular space, working closely with the senior management team of a top 20 pharmaceutical company to develop a clinical and commercial strategy for a novel therapeutic agent • Created a revenue forecast model using Excel for a specialty pharmaceutical company to support a due diligence effort resulting in a $500M+ acquisition providing the foundation for a new franchise • Assisted a major specialty pharmaceutical company in identifying appropriate acquisition targets and evaluating targets based on both market-based and company-based criteria

2010 - 2010

  • Intern

    2010 - 2010

    • Executed due diligence on potential therapeutic device ventures to inform go/no-go decisions • Provided technology support to startup during commercialization phase • Facilitated a meeting series of thought leaders to identify white space areas for commercialization in the cardiovascular space, resulting in company formation

  • Fulbright Fellow, Singapore

    2008 - 2009

    Awarded a competitive fellowship to study cardiac regenerative medicine and observe the commercialization of biotechnology in a rapidly growing biotech hub