About Leerink Partners

Jeffrey A. Leerink is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Leerink Partners. Mr. Leerink is charged with defining, leading and executing the Firm’s overarching business strategy and driving clarity, alignment and profitability across the entire business. Under Mr. Leerink’s leadership, the Firm has grown to become a leading healthcare investment bank and company building partner.

Mr. Leerink founded Leerink Partners in 1995 to provide differentiated healthcare knowledge across mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets, and equity research to help its clients define and achieve their strategic and capital markets objectives.

In 2008, Mr. Leerink co-founded and was a member of the Board of Directors of Humedica, Inc., a clinical intelligence company that was incubated at Leerink Partners. In 2013 the company was acquired by Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.

Mr. Leerink currently serves on the Boards of Fog Pharmaceuticals and PatientsLikeMe. Additionally, he is a Board Director and the former Chairman of the Board at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts. Mr. Leerink is a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows.

Mr. Leerink holds a B.A. in Economics from Union College.

Barry Blake is the Global Co-Head of Investment Banking, and Global Co-Head of Healthcare Investment Banking at Leerink Partners. In this role, he co-leads the Firm’s healthcare investment banking strategy and initiatives, with a focus on Healthcare Services & Technology. With 25 years of experience, he has built extensive relationships and has proven expertise in healthcare services, medical devices and tools/diagnostics, leveraged finance, and with financial sponsors. Leading the Healthcare Services team at Leerink Partners, he has advised on numerous transactions, including the sale of LHC Group to Optum Health, a UnitedHealth Group Company, for $6B.

Barry joined the Firm in 2021 from Guggenheim Securities where he was a Senior Managing Director focused on advising healthcare services companies. While at Guggenheim he advised on many transactions including, but not limited to, the $10B sale of Envision to KKR; the $4B sale of Kindred Healthcare to a consortium comprised of TPG, Welsh Carson and Humana; the $2.4B sale of American Medical Response to KKR and the $1B sale of Almost Family to LHC Group. Prior to this, he was the Head of Global Healthcare Mergers and Acquisitions for Citigroup. While at Citigroup he worked on many transactions including, but not limited to, the $34B acquisition of Medco by Express Scripts. He also worked in the M&A and Healthcare groups at Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers. While at JP Morgan he advised on many transactions including, but not limited to, the $4.8B acquisition of NextRx from Wellpoint by Express Scripts.

Barry earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Hendrix College, and his Masters of Business Administration with high distinction from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College.

He has served as a member of the Board of Trustees for each of The Hopkins School in New Haven, CT and Hendrix College in Conway, AR.

Dan Dubin, M.D., is the Vice Chairman, Global Co-Head of Investment Banking and Global Co-Head of Healthcare Investment Banking at Leerink Partners and sits on the Firm’s executive committee.

For over 25 years, Dr. Dubin has advised life sciences companies and investors and has executed numerous public offering, private placement, partnership, and M&A transactions for clients.  In 1996, he co-founded MEDACorp, a provider of insights on the commercial potential of biotherapeutics and medical devices to healthcare companies and investors. In 2001, Dr. Dubin merged MEDACorp into Leerink Partners and joined its Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He has served as a science and strategy board member for Stiefel/GSK, director of Living Proof, director of Olivo Lab, and Chairman of MetaWorks which was sold to UBC in 2005.

Dr. Dubin is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Medical School and completed both an internship in Medicine and a residency in Dermatology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He was an Instructor in Dermatology at Harvard Medical School and held a staff appointment at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he was the Ambulatory Medical Director of Clinical Dermatology and a member of the Clinical Executive Committee. He has published over 30 manuscripts in peer reviewed publications and performed a NIH training fellowship at the Harvard Skin Disease Research Center.

Joseph Gentile is the Chief Administrative Officer at Leerink Partners.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2007, Mr. Gentile served as the CFO for Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank where he directed the accounting and financial needs within the Fixed Income division.  Prior to that, he served as CFO of the Global Corporate and Investment Bank at Bank of America, where he led the Capital Markets Division.  In addition he was the CFO for the Private Bank. Previously, Mr. Gentile spent more than 10 years with J.P. Morgan in various financial management positions, including Global Head of Financial Risk Management. He started his career at Arthur Andersen.

Mr. Gentile earned his B.S. in Accounting and his M.B.A. in Finance from St. John’s University.

Steven Heineman is the General Counsel and Senior Managing Director of the Compliance and Legal Department at Leerink Partners.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2018, Mr. Heineman was the General Counsel at Convergex Group, LLC, a global brokerage and trading-related services provider. Before that, he was the General Counsel-Americas at Société Générale. Prior to being named General Counsel at SocGen, Mr. Heineman was the Director of Litigation & Regulatory Affairs.  Previously, Mr. Heineman practiced law at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he specialized in complex commercial litigation, white collar criminal defense and regulatory enforcement matters.  He also served as a federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Heineman earned his B.A. degree in Political Science from Hobart College and his J.D. from New York University School of Law.

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.

Jim Kelly is a Senior Managing Director, Director of Research at Leerink Partners. Mr. Kelly is responsible for product management, analyst development and equity strategy.

Prior to joining Leerink Partners in 2015, Mr. Kelly worked at Credit Suisse, where he served in research management as an Associate Director of Equity Research in New York and was responsible for leading key, strategic initiatives in research product and process development. Prior to his ADOR role at Credit Suisse, Mr. Kelly spent 13 years in Equity Research covering the US Pharmaceuticals industry for Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston.

Mr. Kelly received his M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University.  Mr. Kelly also serves on the board of the Lehigh Business School Dean’s Advisory Council.

Robert Leerink is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Institutional Equities at Leerink Partners.

Rob has been with the Firm since its inception in 1995. Prior to joining Institutional Sales team in 2000, Rob led the Private Client Services group at the Firm. Prior to Leerink Partners, he worked in the Private Client Services division of Fechtor Detwiler. Rob holds a B.A. from Babson College.

Maura Polak is the Head of Human Resources at Leerink Partners. Ms. Polak has over 15 years of experience in Human Resources and leads all of Leerink Partners’s recruiting, employee relations, compensation and benefits initiatives.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2004, Ms. Polak worked at Peer Review Analysis, a Division of Fortis, Inc., as a Human Resources Representative where she managed through a series of mergers, acquisitions and a divestiture.

Ms. Polak earned her B.A. in both Psychology and Spanish from Providence College.

Diane Vieira is the Head of Marketing & Communications at Leerink Partners and is responsible for developing and implementing integrated strategic communications plans to advance the Firm’s brand identity, broaden awareness of its expertise, and increase the visibility of its overall capabilities. Ms. Vieira has over 17 years of experience in financial services, specializing in product management, strategic marketing campaigns, and communications programs.

Prior to joining Leerink Partners, she worked at Standish Mellon Asset Management Company (2004-2017), an investment subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon, where she served most recently as the Chief Communications & Marketing Director.

Ms. Vieira is a Founding Member of Chief Boston, a private network built to drive more women into senior leadership roles. Additionally, she was named Top 10 Most Influential Women in Business by CIO Look (2020), Most Influential Communication Executive in Investment Banking by AI Magazine (2018), and Financial Services Marketing Director of the Year by Wealth & Finance (2017).

Ms. Vieira earned her Executive Certification in Marketing Strategy from Cornell University, a Master’s in Business Management from Cambridge College, and a B.S. in Accounting and Political Science from Merrimack College.