Essex Woodlands Health Ventures Further Expands Global Investment Team

Sep 20 2007

NEW YORK, NY—- Essex Woodlands Health Ventures (www.ewhv.com), a leading venture capital firm solely dedicated to health care investing, announces two new executives are joining the firm, further expanding the firm’s investment capabilities.
Having raised $600million in Fund VII in mid 2006, the firm continues to build out its team.  Steve Wiggins Joins As Operating Partner. Steve Wiggins is best known as the founder and CEO of Oxford Health Plan but has built numerous other companies, including HealthMarket, Health Partners, and IntelliClaim. While at Oxford, Mr. Wiggins built the company up to
$5Billion in revenue which was established as one of the 300 largest corporations in America. Mr. Wiggins has also been an active private equity investor on his own and in partnership with private equity funds, typically originating transactions or organizing new businesses. Affiliating with Essex as an Operating Partner, Mr. Wiggins will serve as a senior advisor to the firm and also will lead new investments.

“Essex has a strong and growing team of health care experts and their impressive returns over six funds has positioned the firm to become a much bigger player in all health care sectors. They haven’t lost their willingness to invest in new ideas, while also capturing opportunities to make larger growth equity investments”, says Wiggins. “I appreciate the opportunity to affiliate and hopefully I can contribute to the firm’s continued success. So far it’s been a lot of fun”. Mr. Wiggins will base out of Essex Woodlands’ New York City office. Mr. Wiggins holds a B.A. from Macalester College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Tamara Elias joins Essex Woodlands as Principal. Dr. Elias, who was formerly with McKinsey & Company, a global management consult ing firm, advised primarily pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies in strategic, operational and business development areas. Prior to joining McKinsey, Dr. Elias was a general surgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and received a na tional grant during a research fellowship in plastic and reconstructivesurgery at New York University. Dr. Elias received her undergraduate degree from Yale and her medical degree from Johns Hopkins.

With $1.6 billion under management, Essex Woodlands is one of the nation’s largest and oldest venture capital firms pursuing investments in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, health services, managed care and health information. Sine its founding in 1985, Essex Woodlands has maintained its singular commitment to the healthcare industry and has been involved in the founding, investing, and/or management of over 100 healthcare companiesranging across all sectors, stages and geography, and brings over 240 years of collective healthcare experie nce. The team is comprised of twenty professionals with principal offices in Palo Alto, California, Houston, Texas, New York City and London. For more information, please see www.ewhv.com.