BME Seminar Series: Dr. John F. Lewis, BioOhio

John is the President and CEO of BioOhio, now in its 28th year of being the leading business development, trade association and membership organization accelerating bioscience economic growth and quality of healthcare in Ohio.  John leads BioOhio’s expansion, attraction, site selection, venture, international collaborations, educational event including the BioOhio Annual Conference, federal and state advocacy along with all operational activities.  Throughout more than a decade John has seen and often been part of documented industry growth in a variety of economic bioscience indicators including increasing the number of bioscience companies in the state, the number of Ohio bioscience employees growing throughout the past decade, an increasing number of emerging companies started each year, corporate expansions have risen, NIH/NSF and SBIR funding all up, venture capital raised and invested into Ohio increasing by  2x; and finally the number of venture and angel sources of equity capital for bioscience companies has grown to more than 100. 

During the last 14 years, John has helped raise more than $1.3 billion for Ohio emerging bio companies.  He has participated in Governor led Trade Missions in Germany, Japan, China, Taiwan, France and Israel and marketed Ohio companies at numerous exhibitions such as BIO (13 years in a row), AdvaMed, MEDICA, Biomed Israel, BioJapan, Biotechnica, Beijing International Healthcare Forum, MD&M West/West and more.  He is a founding partner of the Ohio TechAngel Fund, now the largest Angel fund in the USA with 330 members with four successful exits and many more in the pipeline.  John is the co-founder of 889 Global Solutions, a China sourcing and contract manufacturing company that has been profitable for 15 straight years.   

Before BioOhio and 889 Global Solutions, John started out his international work in Jamaica as a venture capitalist.  During the mid to late 90’s John moved to Korea and then China leading Perkin Elmer operations through a period of regional sales growth, acquisitions and divestitures.  Throughout his 20+ years of international experience John has now traveled to more than 42 countries.  A graduate of Miami University and Capital University Law School, John is married for 15 years to an entrepreneur Judy Huang and they have one 7 year old daughter Faith.