InterWest Press Releases
InterWest Partners announces promotion of
Executive in Residence Linda Grais to Partner
Friday, September 21, 2007 - InterWest Partners announced today that the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm has promoted Dr. Linda Grais to the position of Partner.
Grais, who has been with firm in the capacity of Executive in Residence since 2005, focuses on investments in biopharmaceutical and medical device companies. She is currently on the board of directors of Gynesonics and ARCA Discovery, investments that she made on behalf of InterWest earlier this year. Grais has also been active in several other of InterWest's investments, including NovaCardia, EnteroMedics, Transcept, Glaukos and Restoration Robotics.
"Linda has been a significant contributing member of our Life Sciences team since joining two years ago," said General Partner, Michael Sweeney. "Given her excellent credentials and her ultimate orientation towards making investments - versus starting an entrepreneurial venture or playing an operating role in one of our portfolio companies - it seemed appropriate and timely to make this promotion and to solidify her role at InterWest going forward."
"I am very pleased," said Grais, "and hope to continue to use my experiences in clinical medicine and different aspects of the life science industry to bring value to InterWest and the entrepreneurs and co-investors we work with." Previous to InterWest, Grais was a founder and executive vice president of SGX Pharmaceuticals (SGXP), a drug discovery company focusing on new treatments for cancer. Prior to that, she was a corporate attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she represented biotechnology and medical device companies in venture financings, public offerings and strategic partnerships. Before practicing law, she worked as physician and assistant clinical professor of Internal Medicine and Critical Care at the University of California, San Francisco. She has been a consultant to the National Institute of Health's Institute of Medicine and serves on the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School, where she is also an instructor.
About InterWest Partners
InterWest Partners (www.interwest.com), founded in 1979, is a leading diversified venture capital firm focused on building long-term relationships with entrepreneurs and portfolio companies. Currently investing its ninth fund, IW IX, a $600 million fund, InterWest has raised more than $2 billion of capital since inception. InterWest has 17 investing partners in Menlo Park, CA and Dallas, TX, who bring together deep domain knowledge in life sciences and information technology.
The firm's investments in information technology include: CIENA (CIEN), Copper Mountain Networks (CMTN), Crystal Semiconductor (acquired by Cirrus Logic, CRUS), Cyrix (CYRX; acquired by National Semiconductor (NSM), Lightera (acquired by CIENA), PlaceWare (acquired by Microsoft, MSFT), SiTera (acquired by Vitesse, VTSS), Silicon Graphics (SGI), Stratacom (STRM; acquired by Cisco, CSCO) and Xilinx (XLNX).
The firm's investments in life sciences include: ArthroCare (ARTC), Aspreva Pharmaceuticals Corporation (ASPV, acquired by Galenica group, SWX:GALN), Cor Therapeutics (CORR; acquired by Millennium Pharmaceuticals, MLNM), Corixa (CRXA; acquired by GlaxoSmithKlein, GSK), Coulter Pharmaceutical (CLTR; acquired by Corixa Pharmaceuticals, CRXA), Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST), Epicor Medical (acquired by St. Jude Medical, STJ), Inspire Pharmaceuticals (ISPH), IntraLase (ILSE), Myogen (MYOG), Spinal Dynamics (acquired by Medtronic, MDT), TheraSense (THER; acquired by Abbott Labs, ABT) and Ventritex (VNTX; acquired by St. Jude Medical, STJ).