Mich Hein

Mich Hein is a founding member and managing partner of Nidus Investment Partners bringing more than 28 years of executive management experience in the plant and life science arena.  He brings his extensive technical, corporate and capital network to bear in sourcing technologies, company formation, recruiting entrepreneurs, attracting capital and delivering results to our corporate partners.  Mich is also CEO of Electrochaea, a Nidus Partners’ company.  Electrochaea

Operating Experience
As an inventor, entrepreneur and executive, Mich brings broad experience to the Partnership in technology development, financing and market alignment.  Mich founded two companies, Epicyte Pharmaceutical (La Jolla, 1996-2002) and Heliose (Chicago 2007-present), and served as CEO of Chromatin, Inc (Chicago 2002-2005).  Starting his professional career as a research chemist with Monsanto and then PPG Industries in the early 80’s,  he accepted an academic faculty appointment at The Scripps Research Institute(1989-1996). Mich’s academic research, funded by industry, NIH and DARPA, focused on mucosal immunology and plant based proteins for immune protection. At Scripps, Mich sponsored the first field trial of transgenic alfalfa in the US, and with 17 patents and 25 publications under his belt, he made the leap from academia to entrepreneur as the founder of Epicyte Pharmaceutical, Inc.  He has raised more than $30 million in seed and venture funding, $12MM in nondilutive grant support and $8MM in sponsored R&D for his companies.  Mich’s business development experience includes negotiated partnerships and licensing agreements with channel to market partners in the pharmaceutical, animal health and agriculture markets, as well as numerous academic institutions and the NIH.  Mich has assisted entrepreneurs in intellectual property development, regulatory strategy, business development and fund raising at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Technology Incubator, where he managed the incubator and the Chicago Technology Park (2005-2007), and as Executive in Residence at the University of Chicago’s Office of Technology and Intellectual Property(2008 to 2010).  Mich currently serves on the Board and as an advisor of several early stage biotechnology companies and is a member of the Board of Visitors for the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University.

Hein holds a B.S. degree from the Honors Tutorial College of Ohio University, and both M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Plant Physiology from the University of Minnesota.

Email Contact Information:  mich@niduspartners.com