John Gillespie

John is a businessperson and entrepreneur who has held a variety of leadership positions in the biotechnology space.

John has extensive startup experience including heading operations for medical device company Origami Surgical; and leading R&D for Solace Therapeutics. Through Clover Medical, the consulting company he founded and led for 11 years, his startup clients included Podimetrics, Thinx, Lantos Technologies, Sensor Medical Technologies, Amylyx, SerumDPT, Viela Bio, Clozex, FastDetect, Verastem, Eyegate Pharma, Glissade Dental, and Numia Medical. Clover also has served larger companies including Biogen, Sarepta Therapetics, Honeywell, Iridex, and Alcor Scientific.

Prior to his startup and consulting career John was an executive at Johnson & Johnson, where he was head of worldwide Research and Development, and served on the management boards for three businesses: Ethicon Products, the multi-billion dollar world leader in sutures and surgical wound closure; Ethicon Women’s Health and Urology (formerly Gynecare); and Cardiovations, a business focused on minimally invasive heart surgery.

Earlier, he was General Manager, North America for a subsidiary of Valeo, SA. He held product development leadership positions at Baxter Healthcare where he also served on the management board of Baxter’s Anesthesia Business. He also had product development leadership roles at CR Bard (now part of Becton Dickinson).

John holds an MBA in General Management from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, as well as a BS in Biomedical Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Boston University. He served on the Industrial Advisory Board for the Boston University Department of Biomedical Engineering, and his products have won the Canon Publications Medical Design Excellence Award (MDEA) three times. John is co-inventor on 24 US patents.