OUR TEAM
The Owena Hedge Fund team combines medical training, biotech operating experience, and capital markets expertise to translate complex science into compelling investment opportunities.
Dr. John Mabayoje MD
CHAIRMAN
Dr. John Mabayoje is a physician, entrepreneur, and impact investor who turns complex, real-world systems into durable cash flows. Described as a Renaissance man, he was born into medicine. His father was a brilliant Biochemist, Physiologist, and the 1st Board Certified African Physician from Subsaharan. He helped in developing drugs for Organon Laboratories creating world recognized Davitamon Tropicale and Testaform in the mid 1950’s and early 1960’s generating royalty as revenues for the family. He pioneered Post Graduate Medical Residency Training in West Africa and Nigeria.
Dr Mabayoje started his journey in 1980 when he graduated from the University of Ife /OAU Medical School. He worked with his father before coming to the USA and embarking on multiple U.S. residency training and fellowship programs. He has spent four decades as an Emergency Room specialist and Medical Director, allocating scarce resources under pressure and reading risk in real time —skills he now applies to capital allocation.
He is still an actively practicing Emergency Room doctor in a number of states with almost 46 years of experience and an author who has published research work on histochemistry as well as a case study of Galectin 3 agonists used to block pain and reversal of Varicella Zoster lesions.
He took the initiative to build a converged agro medical ecosystem in Nigeria, integrating a rural medical center, machine tool shop, mixed farming, cattle rearing and high volume processing for soy and plantain into a self-sustaining platform. Influenced by a family legacy of successful drug development and royalty streams, as well as his own work identifying commercial opportunities in therapeutics, Dr. John focuses on businesses where the medicinal benefits direct the commercialization of compounds into repeatable, royalty like earnings. At Owena, he serves as a real-world gut check, ensuring that every investment thesis is grounded in tangible productivity, robust unit economics, and resilient cash generation potential.
Michael Sheikh
Chief Investment Officer
Mike is a biotech-focused investor and portfolio manager with a background in equity research, investor communications, and capital markets strategy. He began his career as a stockbroker before moving into research and small‑cap advisory work, where he specialized in micro‑cap and emerging growth companies. Over the past decade, he has worked closely with public biotech companies in roles spanning investor relations, corporate messaging, and institutional outreach, giving him a deep understanding of how scientific milestones translate into valuation inflection points.
At Owena Hedge Fund, Michael leads idea generation, due diligence, and portfolio construction, with a particular focus on platform technologies and asymmetric special situations in small and mid‑cap life sciences. He leverages experience as an analyst, consultant, and executive in the sector to evaluate management teams, interrogate clinical and regulatory paths, and structure concentrated positions designed to unlock shareholder value.
Karl Egland
Head of Research
Karl is a published biotech newsletter writer with expertise in thesis-driven coverage across a number of sectors in biotech and healthcare. He is skilled at modeling multiple iterations of outcomes and assigning the proper risk weightings to drugs, management teams, and regulatory strategy. He has the ability to identify mispriced securities whereby his careful analysis help distinguish between the upside potential and downside risk.
Daby Carreras
Special Situations Advisor
Daby Benjamine Carreras is a private wealth manager and political entrepreneur who brings more than a decade of front-line capital markets experience and the ability to dissect the political climate and understand its impact on investments. For over ten years he has managed capital for high net worth clients, navigating both bull and bear markets and gaining what he describes as an insider’s view of the “two types of Wall Street” — the mass‑market institutional side accessible to everyday investors and the bespoke deal flow reserved for the ultra‑wealthy. That dual perspective informs his work at Owena, where he focuses on complex, event‑driven opportunities at the intersection of public policy, distressed balance sheets, and mispriced optionality.
Alongside his investment work, Carreras has been an active participant in New York City politics, running for offices including New York City Comptroller and State Assembly and serving in leadership roles within the Manhattan Republican Party. This experience gives him a practitioner’s understanding of municipal budgets, debt issuance, and the incentives that drive policymakers — insight he uses to stress‑test Owena’s theses in situations where regulatory change, fiscal stress, or political transition can rapidly alter the value of securities. He has also founded and led civic and nonprofit initiatives, including BRANDO, which focuses on chronic health issues such as kidney disease, diabetes, and obesity, and the Oscar Garcia Rivera Republican Club, reflecting a long‑standing interest in how capital allocation can be harnessed to address real‑world social and health challenges.
At Owena, Carreras applies this blend of wealth management, campaign‑trail scrutiny, and policy fluency to identify and structure special situations in which markets underappreciate political risk or, conversely, the upside from reforms and turnarounds. His role is to translate noisy political and regulatory narratives into clear probability‑weighted outcomes, help the firm avoid headline‑driven value traps, and originate ideas where shifts in governance, budgets, or public sentiment can unlock asymmetric returns for the fund and its investors.