Our Team

Global Industry Experience

With a highly experienced team of multidisciplinary specialists, we have a proven track record with $16.5B+ in a wide range of transactions from M&As, divestitures, asset purchases, licensing, commercial strategies, business modelling and valuations. 

Life Science Professionals

Meet Our Team of Experts

An experienced team of life science professionals with the ability and proven track record of handling very complex transactions.

Catherine Miner

Managing Partner

John Proffett

Managing Partner

Rochelle Seide, PhD, JD

Managing Director

Elizabeth Haybron

Business Development Director

Peter Loparco

Business Development Director
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Catherine Miner

Managing Partner

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Biography

Catherine has the unique combination of over 25 years of Fortune 500 and entrepreneurial business experience. Her career started at Procter and Gamble and then Schering-Plough, where at both companies she won awards for her outstanding leadership and business performance.

In 1999 Catherine founded and built Vital Science Corp. which became a leading, profitable dermatology company that was eventually sold to Valeant Pharmaceuticals in 2010. In 2013, she then launched her own Life Science advisory firm contributing to start-ups growing to multi-billion dollar market caps and as of 2023 has led and closed over $2.5 Billion in transactions.

Achievements

Ms. Miner has received many awards over the years for her outstanding business performance both as a corporate employee and an entrepreneur.

Ms. Miner is an Honors graduate of Queen’s University.

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John Proffett

Managing Partner

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Biography

John has over 25 years of life sciences business development experience. He has driven dozens of transactions ranging from discovery stage licensing through to multi-billion dollar mergers & acquisitions.

John is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Shadow Lake Group Inc., a global boutique transaction advisory firm.

John has also been Acting Chief Business Officer for Isofol Medical, an oncology company in Sweden.

Prior to co-founding SLG, John was Director of Business Development & Licensing at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, where he completed a series of transactions through the company’s spin out from Covidien. 

John was also Senior Director of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Neuromed Pharmaceuticals. He started his career at the University Industry Liaison Office at the University of British Columbia, where he was responsible for life sciences technology licensing and start-up company formation. 

Achievements

John holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of British Columbia. 

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Peter Loparco

Business Development Director

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Biography

Peter has extensive experience in life sciences business development, R&D, clinical development and market access and pricing. 

Prior to returning to SLG in 2023, Peter was Business Development Manager at 35Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company developing best-in-class ligand traps for respiratory and cardiometabolic diseases. Peter also has acted as Interim Business Development Manager for Isofol Medical. Peter also worked at SLG from 2017 to 2021where he made key contributions to numerous transactions. 

Before joining SLG Peter worked in clinical development at Apobiologix developing biosimilars, as well as consulting in market access and pricing. 

Achievements

Peter has a Master’s degree in Biotechnology from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Guelph.

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Elizabeth Haybron

Business Development Director

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Biography

Elizabeth has 25+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in marketing, portfolio strategy and business development.

Prior to joining SLG, Elizabeth was Business Development Director at Rarestone Group, a company focused on acquiring and developing rare disease therapeutics for the Chinese market. She was also a member of the Strategy and Portfolio Management team at Mallinckrodt and Covidien. 

Elizabeth also has extensive marketing and commercial experience as Product Manager for MAKENA at AMAG Pharmaceuticals and as Product Manager for LIPITOR at Pfizer. 

Achievements

Elizabeth has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a B.A. in Biology from Wesleyan University. 

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Rochelle Seide, PhD, JD

Managing Director

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Biography

Dr. Seide has spent 30+ years as a life sciences lawyer & business executive specializing in intellectual property matters, experienced in all aspects of business development. She has worked as senior management and in-house counsel at pharmaceutical companies as well as a partner at top national law firms.

Prior to joining SLG, Dr. Seide was VP Legal and Intellectual Property at HLS Therapeutics and VP Intellectual Property at BioVail, where she was involved in the merger between the company and Valeant Pharmaceuticals. 

She has also been a partner responsible for life sciences intellectual property at Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner, Arent Fox and Baker Botts. 

Achievements

Dr. Seide has a J.D. from the University of Akron School of Law and a Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She additionally completed her M.S. in Immunology at Long Island University and B.S. in Microbiology at Syracuse University.