Charles Lin

Principal
Illumina Ventures

​

Charles Lin is a biotech investor at Illumina Ventures, an independently managed biotech venture capital fund based in California. Currently, Charles is focused on early-stage investments that span sectors including Life Science Tools and Diagnostics, Agricultural Biotechnology (AgBio), and Therapeutics, and has served on the boards of Pluton Biosciences and NanoCellect Biomedical. Prior to venture investment, Charles was VP of Business Development and Marketing at Element Biosciences, a venture-backed, rapidly growing startup developing new sequencing technology and solutions. He helped Element raise US$80M in Series B financing and lay down significant groundwork for its critical supplier relationships, go-to-market and partnering strategy.

From 2007 to 2019, Charles served in a wide range of R&D and business roles at Illumina, Inc. He led teams to develop microarray and sequencing applications for research or clinical purposes including genetic testing, oncology, transplant medicine, pharmacogenomics, microbiology, single-cell analysis, etc. In 2017, Charles transitioned to Corporate Development to focus on M&A, emerging technologies (e.g. CRISPR, proteomics, spatial omics), and corporate investment opportunities. He led the US$100M acquisition of DRAGEN (Edico Genome), central in Illumina’s informatics strategy, and played a key role in the proposed US$1.2B takeover of Pacific Biosciences (later blocked by the US FTC).

Charles graduated from National Taiwan University with a B.Sc. in Chemistry. He moved to the United States to study gene regulation in antiviral innate immunity (Molecular Cell, 1998 & 2002) with Tom Maniatis, and received his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University. During his postdoctoral training with Scott Emr at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and UC San Diego School of Medicine, Charles discovered a new family of arrestin-related ubiquitylation-ligase adapters that regulate endocytosis and protein turnover at the cell surface (Cell, 2008). Charles is based in San Diego, California.

 

Speech title & Synopsis

Panel Discussion 1: Business Development & Licensing - Critical Exit Strategy for New Venture

Panelist