Matthew Hepburn | Senior Partner
Avinora

Dr. Hepburn is currently co-lead of Avinora Health, an independent consulting service covering the landscape of breakthrough health technology in the interface with infectious diseases. He recently served as the Executive Vice President of R&D at Panther Life Science, which focused on dissolvable microneedle patches for drug and vaccine delivery. Dr. Matthew Hepburn served as Senior Advisor for the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response, following prior service as Chief Medical Officer for the Joint Program Executive Office for CBRN Defense and as Senior Advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on pandemic preparedness. During the COVID pandemic, Dr. Hepburn was the Vaccine Development Lead for Operation Warp Speed (later known as the Countermeasures Acceleration Group).

Earlier in his career, Dr. Hepburn led enabling biotechnology programs within the DoD, establishing end-to-end capabilities for vaccine and therapeutic development and advancing manufacturing and clinical trial acceleration initiatives. He served 23 years in the U.S. Army as an infectious disease physician, retiring as a Colonel, with assignments including six years as a Program Manager at DARPA where he focused on developing vaccine, therapeutic and diagnostic solutions which translate into critical aspects of the response during the COVID pandemic.  Other assignments included Director of Medical Preparedness at the White House, and Chief Medical Officer in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star. He also led biodefense clinical research at USAMRIID and served as an exchange officer to the United Kingdom.

Dr. Hepburn completed his residency and fellowship at Brooke Army Medical Center and holds an MD and a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University.