Michelle Hoffmann

Michelle Hoffmann, Ph.D. has been serving since August of 2021 as the Executive Director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC), a consortium of biomedical researchers across Northwestern, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago that is generously supported by the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust. The CBC’s mission is to stimulate collaboration among scientists to accelerate discovery that will transform biomedical research and improve the health of humankind. In her time as Executive Director, Dr. Hoffmann has reorganized the CBC to train local PhD talent in the business of early science commercialization while developing a process to find and fund the most promising biopharma applications of Chicago university science. Prior to this role, from 2019-2021, Dr. Hoffmann was the Senior Vice President of Deep Tech at P33, a privately funded nonprofit charged with elevating Chicagoland’s innovation economy and driving inclusive economic growth.

Hoffmann spent 15 years helping life sciences companies grow, most recently as a senior vice president at Boston-based Back Bay Life Science Advisors, an integrated strategy and investment firm to global life science companies and their investors. During her time at Back Bay, Hoffmann led projects for large, publicly traded companies, as well as small, private, venture-backed health care and life sciences companies. Hoffmann also worked closely with Back Bay’s investment team on two large transactions: an epigenetics platform that was sold to Gilead Pharmaceuticals for $65M and an agent to combat acute kidney injury that was acquired by AbbVie for $110M.

Hoffmann earned a PhD in molecular and cellular biology from the University of California Berkeley and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brandeis University.