As the industry loses one of its key female leaders in GSK CEO Emma Walmsley, BioSpace profiles the women leading the industry’s smaller biopharmas.
With the departure of GSK CEO Emma Walmsley, the industry loses one of only two female leaders in charge of a top 20 pharma company—the other being Vertex’s Reshma Kewalramani. But as you move down the list into the world of smaller biopharmas, you see many more female faces.
Ranking companies by market cap, BioSpace took a look at the top women in charge. Vertex topped the list with an estimated worth of $94.3 billion. Following Kewalramani is Alnylam’s Yvonne Greenstreet, who leads the RNAi specialist that’s valued at $60.3 billion. Below Greenstreet is Akeso’s Michelle Xia, who BioSpace profiled last month as part of a special focus on Chinese biotech.
We would also be remiss if we didn’t mention incoming Takeda CEO Julie Kim, who will take the reins next summer. While she isn’t included this time around, her succession to the top of the C-suite will mark a pivotal moment for the industry.
Read on for profiles of the top five women in charge of the world’s most valuable biopharmas. Maybe one day we’ll see them climb even higher.
Reshma Kewalramani
Company: Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Value: $94.3 billion
A physician by trade, Reshma Kewalramani was trained in internal medicine and nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She jumped to pharma in 2004, spending 12 years at Amgen until she rose to vice president and head of the U.S. Medical Organization.
Kewalramani’s trip to the CEO chair was fairly quick once she arrived at Vertex in February 2017 as a senior vice president. A little over a year later, she became chief medical officer—a role that sees a woman in charge almost as infrequently as CEO. Another two years later, she was named the chief executive.
In her time as Vertex’s top dog, the company’s market cap has risen nearly 80%. She has overseen the broadening of the company’s cystic fibrosis portfolio, including approvals for Trykafta and Alyftrek, both CFTR modulators—a modality that has been credited as the “biggest advance in the past decade” for cystic fibrosis.
Vertex has also faced criticism, however, for a lack of access to the lifesaving treatments, which can cost upwards of $300,000 per year.
Kewalramani has also overseen a diversification of Vertex’s portfolio to better balance the CF work with other indications. The company has worked with CRISPR Therapeutics since 2017 on a gene therapy for blood disorders. That was approved as Casgevy in December 2023, along with bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia, as the first gene therapies for sickle cell disease. Casgevy is the first CRISPR-based gene editing therapy ever to receive an FDA authorization.
And then there is Journavx, which became the first new non-opioid pain medicine in its class to receive an FDA nod in January.
Yvonne Greenstreet
Company: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
Value: $60.3 billion
Yvonne Greenstreet is only the second CEO in Alnylam’s history. After joining in 2016 as chief operating officer, she succeeded founding CEO John Maraganore in January 2022.
Prior to Alnylam, Greenstreet spent three years at Pfizer leading a division worth $16 billion, followed by 18 years at GSK, where she served as chief of strategy for research and development and chief medical officer for Europe, among other roles.
She received a medical degree from the University of Leeds and was a practicing OB/GYN prior to her pharma days.
Alnylam is noted in the industry as a leader in RNAi interference, a gene silencing technology based on Nobel Prize–winning science. Since Greenstreet took the helm, the company has received approvals for cholesterol drug Leqvio, ATTR amyloidosis therapy Amvuttra and Qfitlia for hemophilia. Amvuttra has since been expanded into additional indications.
Greenstreet has emerged as a leader on issues facing pharma, such as the drug pricing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. She’s also a vocal supporter of biotech achievements—recently celebrating uniQure’s positive data in Huntington’s disease in a LinkedIn post despite the company being Alnylam’s rival in the space.
In 2023, Alnylam achieved $1 billion in net product revenue for the first time. The company’s market cap has risen 190% during Greenstreet’s time at the top.
Michelle Xia
Company: Akeso
Value: $16.2 billion
Michella Xia is overseeing one of China’s most exciting biotechs, which has produced one of the most talked-about cancer drugs. Already approved in China, ivonescimab is now moving through clinical development in the U.S. with partner Summit Therapeutics.
Xia never intended to become a CEO. A biochemistry graduate of Sun Yat-sen University, she also picked up postgraduate degrees from Newcastle University and Glasgow University in the U.K., then headed to the U.S. to focus on cancer immunotherapy at the University of Louisville.
She joined industry in 2006 as a senior scientist at Bayer, before jumping to a contract research organization focused on oncology and immuno-oncology called Crown Bioscience. When Crown opened a subsidiary in China, Xia returned home and found a whole new world of innovation.
Seeing the potential in the homegrown talent, she struck out on her own in 2012, launching Akeso. Despite tough beginnings, Xia has helped grow the biotech into a world-renowned company with much more to offer than just ivonescimab.
Akeso’s market cap has climbed 594% since it debuted on the Chinese stock market in 2020.
Martine Rothblatt, United Therapeutics CEO
Wikimedia Commons, Joe Andrucyk
Martine Rothblatt
Company: United Therapeutics
Value: $15.1 billion
Perhaps the CEO with the most diverse background on this list, Martine Rothblatt didn’t start her journey to biotech in the halls of a hospital. She was instead educated in communications satellite law and went on to found what is now known as SiriusXM Satellite Radio. Just two years after the company formed in 1990, she resigned as CEO to create what would become United Therapeutics.
The company, which officially emerged in 1996, was started to find a cure for Rothblatt’s daughter, who suffered from what is now known as pulmonary arterial hypertension. United succeeded in its mission to bring a therapy through the FDA, achieving approval for Remodulin in 2002. The drug was followed in 2009 by Tyvaso and Adcirca, the same year United achieved $1 billion in assets.
United now has five approved medicines and has expanded its portfolio to include therapies for xenotransplantation via the acquisition of Revivicor’s platform in 2011.
Professional achievements aside, Rothblatt has been a champion of LGBTQ rights. She came out as transgender in 1994 and transitioned at age 40, using her platform since then to establish health laws standards for transgender people and fight discriminatory legislation.
With the longest tenure on this list, Rothblatt has seen United rise from humble beginnings. The company’s market cap is 15,240% higher than it was in 2000, which is the earliest data available in S&P Capital IQ’s database.
Sarah Boyce
Company: Avidity Biosciences
Value: $5.2 billion
Sarah Boyce has been a biotech leader through-and-through since 2010, when she joined Alexion as vice president of nephrology. Since then, she has climbed the C-suite ladder, ultmately becoming CEO at RNA therapeutics specialist Avidity Biosciences.
Boyce took that role in October 2019, working immediately to help secure a $100 million series C that was announced just months later. But she didn’t rest on the fundraising front. Boyce moved quickly to turn that crossover round into a market debut. Avidity moved to go public in June 2020, seeking $259.2 million. The IPO overshot that, closing at $298.1 million.
Avidity now has three therapies in registration-enabling clinical trials for rare muscular disorders. Since debuting, the company’s market cap has risen 530%.
Prior to Avidity, Boyce held roles at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Forest Laboratories, Novartis Oncology and Roche, in addition to Alexion. She has a degree in microbiology from the University of Manchester in England.
She’s a member of the Biotech Sisterhood and has signed on to letter writing campaigns to support reproductive rights and the FDA’s regulatory authority.
Editor’s Note: This list was developed using S&P Capital IQ’s industry classification for biotechnology but excluding biotechnology companies without a healthcare focus.
