Heath Lukatch, Ph.D.
Dr. Lukatch co-founded Red Tree Venture Capital and serves as the firm’s managing partner. A highly regarded and accomplished life science industry investor, his 36 career investments have resulted in 20 value-creating exits including 11 companies entering the public market and nine others being acquired.
From 2015 -2020, Dr. Lukatch worked at TPG where he was partner, managing director and life sciences investment team leader in TPG’s Biotech, Growth and RISE platforms. In 2006, Dr. Lukatch co-founded Novo Ventures’ San Francisco office, where he was a partner through 2015. Prior to joining Novo Ventures, Dr. Lukatch was a managing director responsible for biotechnology venture investments at Piper Jaffray Ventures and SightLine Partners.
Dr. Lukatch currently serves as chairman of Acrigen Biosciences and Satsuma Pharmaceuticals (STSA) and is a board member at Excellergy, Magnus Medical, Syncopation, Vaxcyte (PCVX) and Virsti Therapeutics, and a board observer at Alladapt and Ceribell. Previously Dr. Lukatch was chairman of Cianna Medical (acquired by Merit Medical), Engage Therapeutics (acquired by UCB), Inogen (INGN) and Spinifex (acquired by Novartis), and served on multiple life sciences company boards, including Amira (acquired by BMS), AnaptysBio (ANAB), Ceribell, Elevation Pharma (acquired by Sunovion), Flexion (FLXN, then acquired by Pacira), FoldRx (acquired by Pfizer), InSound Medical (acquired by Sonova), Synosia Therapeutics (acquired by BioTie) and ViaCyte (acquired by Vertex). Dr. Lukatch was also a board observer at Alios BioPharma (acquired by J&J), Dynavax (DVAX), Fluidigm (FLDM) and SI-Bone (SIBN).
Prior to becoming an investor, Dr. Lukatch worked as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company and was co‐founder and CEO of AutoMate Scientific, a biotechnology instrumentation company. In addition, he was a bench scientist at Chiron, Roche Bioscience and Cetus, doing molecular biology, electrophysiology and protein chemistry, respectively. Dr. Lukatch received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University where he was a DOD USAF Fellow, and his B.A. with high honors in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley.
