Eli Lilly Strategic Investor Spotlight

Vanessa has spent her academic and business career exclusively in life sciences & healthcare, starting in molecular and cell biology. She has worked at large companies and start ups, spanning pharmaceuticals, biotechs, genomic, radiology, drug discovery, pathology, medical devices, diagnostics, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, SaMD, bioinformatics, and AI. Vanessa is currently at Eli Lilly, working to accelerate early stage drug discovery with AI. Previously, she was leading a team at Oracle Life Science AI division and led global product marketing at NVIDIA's life science and healthcare business unit. Vanessa has had various roles at Sanofi, Abbott, PerkinElmer (Revvity), Qiagen, Fabric Genomics and UCSF.

Vanessa began her career in academics and clinical research at UC Berkeley and UCSF and then transitioned to commercial roles. She has led successful teams in various roles in business development, product development and go to market commercialization. She has a degree in molecular and cell biology, worked in hospitals on clinical epidemiology projects, and completed executive MBA and leadership coursework as part of company executive training for directors.

Vanessa has managed many high performing teams in her career and has herself achieved the top 1% global attainment at various companies. She is motivated, educated, and passionate about healthcare advances that help conquer and treat diseases to live better.

Kristina Kitko is currently director of venture science at Eli Lilly. She focuses on the West Coast USA as part of the company’s larger Corporate Business Development efforts, primarily targeting early-stage innovation across Lilly’s five core therapeutic areas. Kristina’s role supports Lilly’s multiple external venture investments in both funds (over $2 billion) and companies globally, as well as due diligence and search and evaluation initiatives. She works on deals across multiple modalities and therapeutic areas for Lilly. Kristina comes from an operational background within biotech. Prior to Lilly, she worked in corporate strategy at Crinetics Pharmaceuticals and in venture creation at Flagship Pioneering and as an independent consultant. Kristina completed her Ph.D. in pharmacology and electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University as an NSF IGERT fellow, and her postdoctoral training in brain and cognitive sciences across MIT and Harvard.