Christy Shaffer

A seasoned entrepreneur and biotech executive, Christy Shaffer, Ph.D. have over 25 years of experience in the life science industry. She is currently a General Partner at Hatteras Venture Partners. Following a career as a clinical scientist, international project leader, and Associate Director of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Burroughs Wellcome Co., she joined Inspire Pharmaceuticals in 1995 as the first, full-time employee. She was responsible for raising over $300 million for the company, including taking the company public in 2000. As President and CEO, Christy grew the company from 20 scientists to nearly 250 employees, with revenues of over $100 million. Under her leadership, Inspire was named “Best Place to Work for Scientists” by the Scientist magazine, and “Best Place to Work in North Carolina.” Christy retired from Inspire in 2010 and the company was acquired by Merck in 2011. She joined Hatteras in 2011 as the Managing Director of Hatteras Discovery and became a general partner in 2016. Christy serves as a board member of seven Hatteras portfolio companies and chairs four of them, Artizan Biosciences (Chair), Clearside Biomedical (Chair), GrayBug Vision (Chair), Kinodyn (Chair), G1 Therapeutics, and Spyryx. Christy is a receptor pharmacologist by training, earning her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis TN in 1985. She received her post-doctoral training at The Chicago Medical School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.