Umar is an associate within the business development team, helping to support and develop the human health vertical (therapeutics and health tech) at the BII. He is involved in the end-to-end processes of scouting, due diligence, and ‘anchoring’ of startups in both BII’s venture program and BioStudio projects. He is passionate about transformational endeavors with the potential to advance global health. Before joining the BII, Umar worked with early-stage innovation at Illumina Accelerator in Cambridge, UK, and gained venture capital experience at Trill Impact Ventures in Stockholm. He has also worked in health tech startups and practiced clinical medicine briefly in his home country of Nigeria.

Umar was trained as a medical doctor at the University of Lagos and holds a master’s degree in bioentrepreneurship from Karolinska Institute.