Jeff Chapman joined specialty finance firm Wellington Financial as partner and head of Healthcare & Life Sciences.

Chapman most recently served as senior vice president and head of Life Sciences at Comerica Bank, where he was responsible for life science debt financings within its multi-billion dollar technology and life science loan portfolio.

“Life sciences has always presented exciting investment opportunities with so many innovative companies bringing transformative technologies, services and products to market in the U.S., Canada and UK. We’re delighted to welcome Jeff to our team in Menlo Park to enable us to best capitalize on this opportunity and help leading entrepreneurs continue to excel with our growth capital,” said Mark McQueen, Wellington Financial’s president and CEO.

Prior to Comerica Bank, Chapman served as director at a private venture debt firm, where he financed companies in the biopharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic and tools industries. Previously he worked in Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical business development group where he focused on the metabolic and immune-mediated inflammatory disorders therapeutic areas. Chapman began his career working at LabVelocity, a venture-backed life sciences technology start-up.

Wellington Financial is a privately-held specialty finance firm providing term, venture and amortizing loans up to $40 million.