Pioneering biotech VC Brenda Gavin dies at 67

Brenda Gavin, who cofounded biotech venture capital firm Quaker Partners, died unexpectedly last week. She was 67.

“She helped put Philadelphia’s life sciences community on the map,” biotech entrepreneur H. Donlon Skerrett said of Gavin to the Philadelphia Business Journal.
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Before founding Quaker Partners with Ira Lubert and Sherrill Neff in 2003, Gavin was the president of GlaxoSmithKline’s venture arm, S.R. One.
To the Business Journal, Neff, who we spoke with in 2009, described Gavin as a “pioneer in many ways — one of the first women in venture capital, one of the first corporate venture capitalists, one of the first venture capitalists in the Philadelphia region, a true champion of the possibilities of turning Philadelphia into a life sciences and venture capital hub.”