Highland Capital Partners Expands Healthcare Team

Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm celebrating its 20th year of helping great people build great companies, today announced the expansion of its healthcare team. In recognition of his significant contributions to Highland and its portfolio companies, Dr. Bijan Salehizadeh has been promoted to the role of General Partner. In addition, joining the firm is Dr. Elazer Edelman, one of the foremost experts in vascular biology.

Based in the firm's Menlo Park office, Dr. Salehizadeh joined Highland in 2004 as a Senior Associate. He has specialized in early stage medical devices and biotechnology healthcare companies, and currently represents Highland on the boards of Hyperion Therapeutics and OpGen. In addition, he is or has been actively involved in Highland's investments in BAROnova, Conor Medsystems, Magen BioSciences and Predictive Biosciences.

Dr. Edelman will serve as an Advisor with the firm and focus his investment efforts on the medical technology sector. In this capacity, he'll apply his academic insight and industry vision to work with the Highland team in identifying new opportunities at the cutting edge of science and medicine. Dr. Edelman has a long history of working with the firm, including serving on the Advisory Board of Conor Medsystems (IPO; acquired by Johnson & Johnson). He is also the co-founder of Pervasis Therapeutics, a Highland-backed company pioneering regenerative cell-based therapies and devices.

"We are very excited to announce Bijan's promotion as we expand our commitment to working with best-in-class entrepreneurs and management teams," said Bob Higgins, General Partner with Highland. "Elazer is a world-class physician/researcher, and we are thrilled to have him helping us build next generation medical technology companies."