BioSpace did a deep dive into biopharma female executives who navigated difficult markets to lead their companies to high-value exits.
Editor’s Note: This deep dive was originally published July 23, 2025, as a special edition of Biopharm Executive. Subscribe to Biopharm Executive to receive market insights, deals, business stories and deep dives into key policy issues impacting biopharma.
There’s been a theme among the most high-profile deals over the past few months: women. Intra-Cellular (Sharon Mates). Blueprint Medicines (Kate Haviland). Carmot Therapeutics (Heather Turner). Capstan Therapeutics (Laura Shawver). Vigil Neuroscience (Ivana Magovcevic-Liebisch). And so on and so on.
Still largely underrepresented in biopharma’s C suites, these female executives had to navigate some really difficult markets to lead their companies to high-value exits. In this special edition of BioPharm Executive, BioSpace highlights their stories and those of other trailblazing women, from dealmakers to scientists and regulators.
In July, we began running a series of profiles on women dealmakers in biopharma. Up first, we spoke with Audrey Greenberg, venture partner with Mayo Ventures. She told us about her start on Wall Street and her rise as a champion of cell therapy.
Next, we chatted with Sophie Kornowski, whose humble beginnings as a medicine taste tester led her to a career in pharma before she became a biotech-fixer-upper. She’s at the end of one biotech journey now, awaiting the next opportunity.
And finally, we met with ADARx’s Zhen Li, whose career in biotech began with an act of rebellion.
These women couldn’t help but provide their advice for the women coming behind them. I recapped the best of the best in a story here.
If you don’t fall on your face, you probably didn’t run fast enough.
There are plenty more women out there at the helm of companies—although not nearly enough, in my humble opinion—moving important science from the lab to patients to the market. Acadia Pharmaceuticals is another good example—the company is lead by women in both the CEO and CMO roles, a rarity in the industry.
There are likely more exciting deals being negotiated behind the scenes right now by women. We can’t wait to tell those stories, too.
