Hi, I'm Joshua Henderson and I'm on a mission to accelerate treatments for rare diseases.

Father, husband, connector, advocate, investor

After 12 years at Springboard Enterprises supporting early-stage life science companies and witnessing the explosion of new technologies that are enabling more precise and personalized targeting of diseases, I've embarked on a personal mission to accelerate the development of new treatments for rare and underserved diseases through a variety of projects, initiatives, and partners.

Throughout my career I've supported companies addressing underserved patient populations and underrepresented founders. If you share my interests and feel I can in any way support your work, please don't hesitate to reach out to me on LinkedIn to share more.

By partnering with advocacy groups and biopharma companies...

I currently serve as the Head of Rare Diseases at Pulse Infoframe, partnering with patient advocacy groups and biopharma companies globally to generate high quality, regulatory-grade real-world data. Pulse is a full-service, global leader in real-world evidence generation leveraging our technology platform and site/advocacy/patient networks to support 20+ disease areas, including rare renal, neurological, oncology, and multi-systemic disorders like CDKl5, Friedreich's Ataxia, Alport Syndrome, and more.

By building a coalition of rare disease patients, researchers, legislators, and industry across the Pacific Northwest...

I'm the co-founder of the NW Rare Disease Coalition (nwrare.org, a group that supports the Pacific Northwest’s rare disease community through programming, education, and by articulating a bipartisan policy platform to inform and engage legislators.

By investing in early-stage companies...

I am a co-founder and Managing Partner of StageNext (stagenext.vc) an active angel investor, an On Deck Angels fellow, and a NextGen Venture Partner. While I invest broadly with a specific focus on companies led by seasoned women entrepreneurs, I am also passaionate about investing my human and personal capital in biotech, techbio, and virtual care platforms developing life-altering drugs or digital therapeutics for underserved diseases.

Investing in women-led companies is smart business, not charity, and I actively maintain a list of organizations who share this belief in a Global Ecosystem Supporting Women Innovators and Investors. Over the last decade I worked with the pioneering organization in this space, Springboard Enterprises, where I built our life science network and led programs that supported 36 cohorts of nearly 400 companies. This passion and mission is now channeled through my fund, StageNext.

About Me (Professional)

Joshua Henderson is a mission-driven operator/investor focused on companies developing solutions addressing rare diseases, underserved patient populations, and underrepresented founders. He is currently the Head of Rare Diseases at Pulse Infoframe, responsible for partnering with patient advocacy groups and biopharma companies globally to generate high quality, regulatory-grade real-world data. He is the former Vice President of Springboard Enterprises, the premier global network of women innovators transforming industries where over 12 years he established its annual life science and health technology programs, founded a 100-member Life Science Council of Advisors, and led the efforts to recruit, select, and advise nearly 400 high-growth companies in the Springboard portfolio. Joshua is the founder of StageNext Fund, a Fellow at On Deck Angels (ODA4), and a Venture Partner & Healthcare Due Diligence Committee at NextGen Venture Partners. He is also the co-founder of the NW Rare Disease Coalition, a group that supports the Pacific Northwest’s rare disease community through programming, education, and by articulating a bipartisan policy platform to inform and engage legislators. Prior to Springboard, Joshua founded and chaired Georgetown's Business Plan Competition (now Hoya Challenge) and helped spark an entrepreneurial movement across the University, where he graduated with a B.A. in Psychology and English.

About Me (Personal)

Everything I do is driven by a desire to have a positive impact in this world, and to leave it having lived a life of meaning.I believe life is too short and precious not to approach every moment with 1000% of our attention and effort. The deep pain of loss taught me this - my father passed away in 2008 from Multiple Myeloma and my brother Brenton Henderson died by suicide in 2014. I miss both dearly.Through it all, I have had my soulmate and travel buddy Meghan Henderson with me through good and bad. Her job took us overseas in Fall 2014, when I began working remotely from Italy, Germany, Seattle and other places as we travel around the world collecting new experiences and happy memories.