Dr Paul Kelly
Founding Partner & Director
| MBBS(Hons), MD, FRACP | Location: Sydney, AU
Dr Paul Kelly is Founding Partner & Director at OneVentures. Starting with his background as an Australian Physician, Paul has a long history of biotechnology entrepreneurship and healthcare investing, from developing innovation to commercialising at scale and realising substantial returns for investors.
Having returned to Australia in 2010 (after 15 years in the UK and US), he is dedicated to improving healthcare and treatment options for populations across the world. He lives and invests guided by his vision for a better future: through innovation, collaboration, and patient determination.
Paul is an avid reader and can regularly be found immersed in medical journals as well as fiction and non-fiction literature, which he believes “provides perspectives and insights that you would never get from management or business books”.
When he’s not mentoring and encouraging medical professionals to be entrepreneurial, he also looks after the health of our native environment: being highly active in bush regeneration and preservation.
Paul serves on the investment committees of OneVentures’ four main Funds, chairing the Fund III Investment Committee, and leading the healthcare and biotechnology practice across the firm.
Paul is a highly experienced executive and has multiple board responsibilities as either Chair or as a Non-Executive Director within numerous OneVentures portfolio companies. Independently of OneVentures, he is also a Non-Executive Director Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Paul has over 30 years’ experience in developing and commercialising biomedical innovations in the United States, Europe, United Kingdom and Australia. While in the UK and US he led early-stage and mid-stage companies, public and private, delivering strong returns for shareholders and investors as a founder and CEO.
Notably, Paul served as Co-Founder and CEO of Gemini Genomics (Nasdaq:GMNI), one of the world’s first clinical genomics companies, commercialising novel gene-based diagnostic and therapeutic targets. At Gemini, Paul led the company in one of the UK’s largest biotechnology IPOs of the time, completed strategic corporate acquisitions in Sweden and Canada, and negotiated collaborations with some of the world’s leading research institutions and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. In 2001, Paul led the company’s successful merger with Sequenom (Nasdaq:SQNM), valuing Gemini at over US$250M.
Paul’s other notable achievements include co-founding Agamatrix, now a leading bio-sensing medical device company with operations across the US and South East Asia, and Atomera (Nasdaq ATMR). He then served as President and CEO of Orchid Cellmark (Nasdaq:ORCH) – during his tenure revenues grew by over 50% in 2 years to $60M per annum, and increased the company valuation 10 fold.
While in the US Paul also served as President and CEO of Medcenter Solutions, a US based online medical education and pharmaceutical marketing company.
Before becoming a biotechnology executive, Paul had a distinguished career as a researcher and physician specialising in endocrinology at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia. While serving as a researcher at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, and in his postdoctoral work, Paul authored over 100 scientific publications, largely in genetic epidemiology of common metabolic disorders, which have been published in leading journals such as Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, British Medical Journal and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Paul has also served on a number of national governmental advisory bodies, as well as on the boards of public and private companies. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Medicine, Law and Ethics from 2005 to 2008. He also serves on the UNSW Medicine Dean’s Advisory Group and serves on the Board of Directors of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.
