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About Investor

Michael Baran is Head of Private Investments at Affinity Asset Advisors, a healthcare-focused hedge fund, having joined in early 2026 after 17 years at Pfizer (seven as Partner at Pfizer Ventures). At Pfizer Ventures, he was Executive Director of Worldwide Business Development, responsible for identifying, evaluating, and managing equity investments aligned with Pfizer's future directions. His Pfizer Ventures portfolio included Autobahn Therapeutics, Capstan Therapeutics, Cartography Biosciences, Interius BioTherapeutics, Incendia Therapeutics, ImCheck Therapeutics, ImmunOs Therapeutics, Mediar Therapeutics, OTR Therapeutics, TRex Bio, VitaDAO, and Jeito Capital (France). He also served as Strategic Advisor to Sapien Capital's Open Science Fund I ($65M DeSci fund, Aug 2025). He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University, Mentor in Residence at Rutgers University, and Venture Advisor at eLabNYC. Prior to Pfizer, he was a research scientist and protein structure production manager at Rutgers University's Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium. He holds a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MBA in Healthcare Management from Wharton.