Financing Innovation in Science and Technology

Andrew Gitkin is a Senior Managing Director in Investment Banking at Leerink Partners.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2024, Mr. Gitkin served as a Senior Managing Director and Vice Chairman in the healthcare investment banking group at Raymond James & Associates. He brings over 25 years of healthcare-focused experience specializing in the biopharma and medical device sectors, including more than 100 transactions across M&A advisory, equity and equity linked financings. Prior to Raymond James, he served as a Managing Director and Head of West Coast Biotechnology at PiperJaffray & Company, and Senior Vice President at Moelis & Company. Mr. Gitkin’s previous experience also includes roles as a Vice President of Tavistock Life Sciences and leading a biotechnology start-up. He started his career in the Equity Research Departments of SalomonSmithBarney and UBS.

Mr. Gitkin hearned his B.B.A. from Emory University and he is a member of the UCLA Health System Board.

Tim Hotchandani is a Senior Managing Director of Healthcare Services & Technology Investment Banking.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2024, Mr. Hotchandani served as a Managing Director at Rothschild & Co, specializing in the coverage of Life Science Technology companies globally. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank and began his career as an investment banking analyst at Lehman Brothers and Thomas Weisel Partners LLC.

Mr. Hotchandani earned a Bachelor of Business and Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a CFA® charterholder.

Bernhard Sakmann, M.D., is a Senior Managing Director in Investment Banking at Leerink Partners covering the Medical Technology and Life Science Tools and Diagnostics sectors.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2024, Dr. Sakmann was a Senior Managing Director at Evercore, where he provided strategic and financial advice to life science companies with a focus on medical technology and life science tools and diagnostics. Prior to that, Dr. Sakmann spent over a decade in healthcare investment banking and in management consulting with Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and Oliver Wyman in New York and in London. Notable transactions for which Bernhard has been an adviser include Philips on its acquisitions of Biotelemetry and Capsule, GE on its acquisition of BK Medical and spin of GE Healthcare, Abbott on its acquisitions of St Jude Medical and Alere, Terumo on its acquisitions of Sequent Medical and Bolton Medical, Immucor on its sale to Werfen, Decipher on its sale to Veracyte, ArcherDx on its sale to Invitae, Brooks Automation on its acquisitions of Genewiz and BioStorage Technologies, among many others.

Dr. Sakmann earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, UK. a B.M. BCh. from Oxford University, UK, and a Doctorate in Medicine from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.

Justin Reed is a Managing Director in Investing Banking at Leerink Partners where he is focused on advising companies in the medical device sector on M&A and public and private equity offerings.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2024, Mr. Reed was a Managing Director in the strategic advisory business at Evercore where he advised on many transactions across the medical device sector including GE Healthcare’s spin from GE, GE’s acquisition of BK Medical, Lunit’s acquisition of Volpara, Philips’ acquisition of Biotelemetry and Capsule, SHINE Technologies acquisition of Phoenix, Abbott on the sale of Angio-Seal to Terumo and the sale of Epocal to Siemens Healthineers, and Terumo’s acquisition of Sequent medical. Mr. Reed was previously the founder of several medical device companies and holds multiple patents and academic publications for medical device technologies.

Mr. Reed earned his B.S. in Pysics from the University of Washington, and his MBA from Berkeley Haas School of Business, Master of Science in Physics from the University of Washington.