Capital Markets

Jack Bannister is a Senior Managing Director on the Equity Capital Markets team at Leerink Partners. He partners with healthcare and life sciences companies to raise capital and position them for success in the public markets.

Jack joined the Firm in 2021 from Goldman Sachs where he served as Vice President of the Healthcare Equity Capital Markets team. He began his career as an Equity Analyst with T. Rowe Price in Baltimore.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Prasanth “Burri” Rao-Kathi is a Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners and leads the Firm’s Convertibles business.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2016, he was the Head of Equity-Linked (Convertibles) Origination in the Equity Capital Markets group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Burri joined the ECM group at Merrill Lynch in 1999 and worked on a number of Merrill Lynch’s landmark convertible innovations over the last 15 years including: Contingent Conversion, Contingent Payment, Bond Hedges, HiPrs, Collateralization, Simultaneous Bond and Stock Repurchases, and Prepaid Forwards in conjunction with new issues. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, he worked in Fixed Income Swaps Marketing and Trading and Corporate Finance/ Mergers and Acquisitions at J.P. Morgan.

He is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Georgetown University with double majors in Finance and International Business and a minor in English. He received his M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rahul Chaudhary is senior managing director, head of healthcare equity capital markets (ECM) at Leerink Partners, where he has successfully led his team for more than a decade. In addition to overseeing the group, he is responsible for the origination and execution of all varieties of public and private equity offerings, including IPOs, follow-ons and private investments in public equity. Since joining the company in 2009, Rahul has led more than 500 book run offerings, including more than 150 IPOs.

Formerly, he served as an integral part of Merrill Lynch’s ECM group, where he focused on origination and execution of healthcare equity and equity-linked transactions. Rahul began his career at Merrill Lynch in 2004 in the investment banking group, centered on the consumer sector, where he worked on a variety of equity, debt and M&A assignments.

Rahul earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois.

Seth M. Christian is a Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners, leading trading for our Alternative Equities business. He has over 20 years of buy-side experience and has leveraged his healthcare fund expertise to maximize trading opportunities for one of the top franchises in At-The-Market (ATM) offerings.

Prior to joining the Firm, Seth was a Managing Director and Head of Trading and Capital Markets at Broadfin Capital. He had a similar role and was on the launch team at the healthcare-focused fund, March Altus Capital. Earlier in his career, Seth held trading roles at Angel Lane Principal Strategy, Catapult/Millenium Partners and Sapphire Capital.

He earned a B.A. in Economics from Tufts University.

Peter M. Fry is a Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners leading our Alternative Equities business. He has over 25 years of experience on both sell-side & buy-side and has built one of the market-leading franchises in At-The-Market (ATM) offerings.

Prior to joining the Firm, Peter was a Managing Director and Head of Alternative Equities at H.C. Wainwright & Co. He held similar leadership roles at Guggenheim Securities and Burrill & Company. Earlier in his career, he spent eight years as Senior Investment Officer at Kingsbridge Capital and was a Senior Healthcare Banker and Head of Public/Private Placements at Investec Inc. and RBC Capital Markets.

He earned a B.A. in Economics and Finance from Bucknell University.

Richard Mei is a Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners focused on Equity-Linked Capital Markets.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2018, Richard was a member of the corporate finance team at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. He has over 16 years of experience advising companies on convertible financing, equity derivatives, and liability management. Prior to Regeneron, he spent over a decade at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in various investment banking and capital markets roles.

He earned an M.B.A. from New York University and a B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Robert Minear is a Senior Managing Director of Investment Banking focused on leading the Firm’s financial sponsor origination efforts to further enhance the Firm’s growing private equity and leveraged finance businesses. With over 20 years of investment banking experience, Robert has advised a wide variety of domestic and international financial sponsor and strategic clients in connection with, inter alia, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs/split-offs, restructurings, recapitalizations, buyouts, takeover defense, proxy contests and capital raisings.

Robert joined the Firm in 2021 from Guggenheim Securities where he was a Senior Managing Director in the Healthcare Services Investment Banking Group focusing on advising companies and financial sponsors in the healthcare services sector. Prior to that, he was a Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Services Mergers and Acquisitions in Jefferies Group’s Healthcare Investment Banking practice and a member of the M&A groups at UBS, both in New York and London, and Deutsche Bank.

He received his Master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College, University of London.

Patrick Morley is a Senior Managing Director in Leerink Partners’ Equity Capital Markets group, advising private and public healthcare companies on the optimal strategy and tactics to achieve their financing goals. He joined the Firm in 2011 as a member of the Healthcare Investment Banking group before transitioning to his current role.

He earned bachelor’s degrees in Industrial Engineering and Finance from Lehigh University, and is a CFA charterholder.