Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner

Having been an entrepreneur and practicing physician, Stephen Bloch knows firsthand how to navigate the opportunities and challenges of building successful healthcare companies. He draws on his experience in medicine, government and business to invest in areas of healthcare that promise to change how medicine is practiced. Stephen spearheads Canaan’s investment efforts to find companies that make healthcare more efficient, especially in healthcare IT and related services.

As executive chairman, Stephen led Canaan’s investment in Advanced BioHealing (ABH) in 2005. With its skilled management team, Canaan incubated and transformed ABH into a commercially vibrant leader in cell based, regenerative therapies. In 2011, ABH was acquired by Shire in an all-cash deal worth $750M, generating a 15X return for Canaan.

Stephen’s first investment at Canaan, Amicus Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FOLD), creates oral therapies to correct genetic diseases where misfolded proteins are culprit. Since Canaan invested, Amicus’s lead program in Fabry’s Disease has progressed into phase 3 clinical trials in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline.

Before joining Canaan in 2002, Stephen founded Radiology Management Sciences (RMS), a pioneer in managing radiology benefits for health plans where he was CEO for 6 years.

Stephen helped start OmniSonics Medical Technologies, which engineered novel ultrasonic catheters for treating vascular occlusive disease and co-founded TeleRad, an early teleradiology services company.

Prior to embarking on start-ups, Stephen was a strategic consultant for Arthur D. Little, a global consulting firm.

Currently, Stephen serves as chairman of Marinus Pharmaceuticals which develops ganaxalone for treatment of epilepsy, post traumatic stress disorder and Fragile X syndrome.

He is also a board director at Liquidia. Through exquisite control of nanoparticle design, Liquidia can potentially optimize safety, efficacy and cost for many vaccines and therapeutics, changing the way that medicines are delivered to the human body.

Additionally, Stephen is on the boards at Immunology Partners, which creates novel diagnostics for measuring immune function, at DICOM Grid, which distributes and stores diagnostic images for patients and physicians, at Axial Exchange, which develops low cost open messaging and reporting systems for healthcare networks, at Sample6, which develops rapid pathogen testing to ensure food safety, and at Envisia Therapeutics, which develops long acting ophthalmologic drugs.

Stephen received his medical training at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School (radiology) and Lenox Hill Hospital/Cornell Medical School (internal medicine). He earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester, a MA in the history of science and public policy from Harvard University and an AB degree from Dartmouth College. Stephen was honored as a Ewing Marion Kauffman Fellow in 2002, an educational program that develops future leaders of the global venture capital industry.