Biotech CEO Sisterhood: Serial entrepreneur Sheila Mikhail on overcoming obstacles and getting the job done, including multiple major acquisitions in her own career

Interviewed by ReCode Therapeutics' CEO Shehnaaz Suliman, she describes the journey of co-founding companies including AskBio, Bamboo Therapeutics, Chatham Therapeutics, and Viralgen VectorCore. Plus, advocacy for better breast cancer screening for all women after her own personal experience of finding a tumor that screening had missed.

Biographies

Sheila Mikhail has almost 25 years of biopharmaceutical leadership experience. She is a serial entrepreneur, an advocate for equitable access to healthcare, and a philanthropist.

Sheila co-founded and ran several companies, including AskBio (sold to Bayer in 2020 in a $4B transaction) and Bamboo Therapeutics, Inc. (sold to Pfizer in 2016 in a deal valued at $827M). She was also a founder and part of the management team of Chatham Therapeutics, LLC (sold to Baxter in 2014) and Viralgen VectorCore S.A., a gene therapy CDMO business (sold to Bayer in 2021). In further pursuit of expanded global access to healthcare, Ms. Mikhail recently co-founded Jurata Thin Film, Inc., to eliminate the need for cold chain storage requirements.

Committed to ensuring that gene therapy treatments are developed for patients suffering from ultra-rare diseases, in 2017, Ms. Mikhail co-founded Columbus Children’s Foundation (CCF). To date, CCF has supported the treatment of over 50 children suffering from amino acid decarboxylase deficiency (AADC), a devastating neurological disease with no viable treatment options.

Following her breast cancer diagnosis in 2022, Ms. Mikhail formed BC-Ruckus to advocate for expanded access to supplemental screening for women with dense breasts so everyone’s breast cancer can be found early.

Ms. Mikhail was recognized as the Ernst & Young 2021 Overall National US Entrepreneur of the Year.

Shehnaaz Suliman (M.D., M.Phil. MBA) is CEO of ReCode Therapeutics, a clinical stage genomic medicines company utilizing lipid nanoparticle delivery to develop precision genetic medicines. As a physician, drug-developer and company builder Shehnaaz has played a leading role over 25 years transforming high growth companies through strategic acquisitions, deal-making and advancing development portfolios at Gilead, Genentech, Roche, Theravance and Alector. Shehnaaz has been honored by Forbes, Fierce Biotech, Power 50, and Pharmavoice among others as a nationally acclaimed business leader and an advocate for healthcare equity and access. She received her M.D. at the University of Cape Town Medical School, South Africa, and has an M.B.A, and M.Phil. degrees from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Shehnaaz serves on Boards of Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical (RARE) and 10x Genomics (TXG).