ROBERT WILKINS, VENTURE PARTNER

Dr. Wilkins (Bob) is a former anesthesiologist and critical-care physician, with 10 years of clinical practice and some two decades of international healthcare industry experience in product development, marketing and business development. In addition to positions at Abbott Laboratories and Baxter Healthcare, and in small start-up environments, he ran a successful practice as a marketing and business development consultant to Fortune 500 and start-up healthcare companies.

Bob received his medical training in Manchester, England, subsequently becoming an attending staff anesthesiologist and critical care specialist at the University Hospital of South Manchester. After leaving medical practice in 1987, he was medical director of Hausmann/Vifor, a Swiss pharmaceutical company in Geneva.  Four years later he joined Abbott Laboratories as medical director in the Hospital Products Division, with key roles in the development of new medical devices. Later, as marketing director for Abbott’s HealthSystems Division, he was responsible for marketing medical devices, clinical diagnostics and pharmaceuticals. 

Bob left Abbott in 1999 to join Baxter Healthcare’s anesthesia group as director of business development, and, in late 2000, became chief scientific officer and vice president of marketing of Physiometrix, a start-up medical device company. Since 2001, he has been a consultant to Battelle Ventures and other venture capital organizations, as well as to such medical device companies as the Cardiac Assist Division of Datascope and GlucoLight Corp.

In addition to being a fund venture partner, Bob is the president and chief executive officer of Endovalve and sits on the Board of NellOne Therapeutics, both Battelle Ventures portfolio companies in the life-sciences sector. 

Widely published on the topics of critical care and anesthesiology, Dr. Wilkins earned his MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees awarded in the U.K., equivalent to M.D. qualification in the United States) from the University of Manchester in 1977. In 1982 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, receiving the designation FRCA, which is equivalent to board certification stateside. He is a member of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Society of Critical Care Medicine.