Debra Robertson

Debbie is an experienced business analyst serving SI's strategic consulting practices by focusing on key issues that small start up companies face in their growth cycle, ranging from product development issues, to proper positioning of emerging technologies in the market place, to development of a strong defensive and offensive intellectual property portfolio. Debbie has significant expertise in technical, clinical and market risk analysis of medical device opportunities, specialty pharmaceuticals, life science products and new chemical entities, and she serves as a specialist in global market evaluation including competitive assessment of technologies and products for startup, high growth and established corporate environments. Debbie has served as Executive Director of Intellectual Property at Epicyte Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Director of Intellectual Property at Sequenom, a scientific advisor for Lyon & Lyon, LLP, and as a freelance biotechnology writer for Nature Biotechnology. With over 15 years of experience in strategic corporate and business development in the biotechnology industry, Debbie was recognized as an "outstanding woman in business" by San Diego Business Journal.

Debbie holds a doctoral degree in microbiology from University of California at Los Angeles, a BA in Biology from University of California at San Diego, and she completed her postdoctoral training in the Departments of Molecular Biology and Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute.