Aaron Nelson

Aaron Nelson, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist turned venture investor with deep expertise in biomedical innovation spanning academia, pharmaceutical R&D, and venture capital. He earned his BA from Cornell University, a PhD in Cell and Microbiology from the University of Pennsylvania, conducted postdoctoral research at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and completed his MD at Tufts University. This rigorous scientific and medical training provides him with the foundation to evaluate complex therapeutic programs and emerging platform technologies at the earliest stages of development.

Nelson began his career in Novartis's R&D organization, where he worked across multiple business units. He served as Strategic Project Leader for the "Trials of the Future" program, an initiative focused on modernizing and digitizing clinical trial operations, and held the position of Group Head in the Investigative Toxicology organization. These operational roles gave him firsthand experience in drug development challenges and an understanding of what makes preclinical and clinical programs succeed or fail.

He transitioned into venture investing first through dRx Capital, a joint investment vehicle of Novartis and Qualcomm focused on digital medicine and health technology. He then moved to the Novartis Venture Fund (NVF) as Managing Director, where he led Seed and Series A investments in therapeutic drug discovery for several years, building a portfolio of companies in genomic medicines, oncology, cardiology, and cell therapy. In June 2025, Nelson joined Novo Holdings as a Partner in their Venture Investments (US) team, one of the world's largest life sciences investment firms with the Novo Nordisk Foundation as its ultimate owner.

Nelson's investment philosophy is rooted in his broad background across the bench, the clinic, and the boardroom. In his own words: "I have a broad background in biomedical innovation, developed through experiences in academia and pharma. I started my professional life in the lab, explored digital medicine, and am now focused on therapeutic chemical & biological technologies."

His core focus areas include:

He prefers to take an active role in portfolio companies, typically serving as a board director or board observer. At NVF, his approach was to invest in companies at the seed or Series A stage where deep science underpins a differentiated therapeutic approach, and to support them with strategic guidance drawn from his pharmaceutical industry experience.

• Therapeutic drug discovery -- particularly novel chemical and biological modalities
• Genomic medicines -- including gene integration, gene editing, and RNA-based therapeutics
• Oncology -- novel targets and next-generation cell therapies (e.g., CAR-T)
• Platform technologies -- approaches that enable new classes of drugs (e.g., exosite-targeting small molecules, non-viral delivery)
• Digital medicine -- from his earlier work at dRx Capital, encompassing AI/ML, clinical trial modernization, and data-driven healthcare