Mina Patel Sooch, MBA
Founder and General Partner

Mina Sooch brings with her over a decade of pharmaceutical and healthcare experiences as an entrepreneur, strategy & finance advisor, and venture capitalist. As a founder and general partner at Apjohn, she had been active in sourcing, screening, due diligence, and closing of all the fund investments. Mina currently serves on the board of Asterand and ProNai and board observer at Zystor and Kereos. She also serves as board member of the Midwest Healthcare Investment Network and Michigan Venture Capital Association as well as gives her time to speak at many entrepreneurial and life sciences community activities.

Since 2001, Mina has been fully engaged in the early stage life sciences space through synergistic roles as founding principal of Apjohn Group (life sciences business accelerator) and entrepreneur in residence at North Coast Technology Investors ($100 million early stage venture capital firm in Ann Arbor). Through those roles, she has served as founding CFO of Afmedica and founding CEO of SenseGene Therapeutics (now ProNAi) and led the investments in Nephros Therapeutics by NorthCoast and Apjohn affiliates.

Prior to 2001, Mina spent eight years as a global account manager at Monitor Group, a top tier global strategy consulting firm based in Boston, with her client base consisting of mid-cap and large-cap healthcare companies and multi-billion dollar private equity companies. With a focus on M&A, she has worked on over 30 deals including $7B Pharmacia & Upjohn merger in 1995 and $1B merger of PharMerica in 1997. Mina was also a founding leader of Monitor's Corporate Finance practice in 1998 with Tom Copeland. Mina began her career spending several years in research and product development at Ford Motor Company, Dow Chemical Company, and Proctor and Gamble.

Mina received a MBA from Harvard Business School in 1993. She graduated summa cum laude and commencement speaker from Wayne State University in 1989 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.

Donald Parfet, MBA
Founder and General Partner

Don Parfet brings with him over twenty-five years of experience in all aspects of life sciences business launch, management, and exit. It was his vision to launch the Apjohn Group in 2001 to bring talent and seed capital together to exploit the biotech opportunities in the Midwest region. Don is active in sourcing, accessing, and operational and strategic advising. He served as founding CEO of Afmedica and continues as Chairman of the Board at Afmedica and ProNai.

Don's responsibilities over his career at Pharmacia included running all of the Associated Businesses (Animal Health, Diagnostics, Pharmaceutical Commercial Services and Plasma Products). Don also had overall Site Management responsibilities for the company's operations in Kalamazoo and spent many years in the Corporate finance group of Upjohn Company. He has successfully created a new company through the formation of a joint venture between Amersham and Pharmacia Biotech. He also led a successful $150 million IPO by "spinning out" 60% ownership to the public of Biacore International of Sweden (NASDAQ: BCOR) and continues to serve on the Board.

In addition, Don is a trustee of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Bronson Healthcare Group as well as Chair of the Kalamazoo College Board of Trustees. He also serves as a Board Member of Southwest Michigan First, a Kalamazoo based non-profit economic development center and of MPI Research, a preclinical animal research facility in Mattawan Michigan as well as board member at Kelly Services, Inc (KELYA).

Don received his BA degree in economics from the University of Arizona in 1975 and his M.B.A. degree in finance from the University of Michigan in 1977.

Deb Cronkite
Controller

As the Fund's Controller, Deb handles monthly reporting and the day-to-day financial activities. She previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry at The Upjohn Company/Pharmacia for 22 years, the last 10 of which were in finance and accounting positions.

Deb earned her BBA degree from Western Michigan University in 1978.