Leen Kawas on Female Founders in Biotech: How Personal Drive Translates to Industry Success

When seven-year-old Leen Kawas made a promise to cure cancer after her grandmother’s death, she couldn’t have anticipated the obstacles awaiting women in biotechnology leadership. Decades later, as Managing General Partner at Propel Bio Partners, she has become both a successful female founder and an investor actively changing the industry’s demographic landscape. Her journey from pharmacy degree in Jordan to leading biotechnology companies reveals how female founders navigate unique challenges while developing leadership approaches that drive superior outcomes.

The statistics frame the challenge starkly. Women comprise approximately half of biotech company workforces yet fill only 30 percent of executive roles and 18 percent of board positions. Nearly 90 percent of surveyed biotech CEOs are men, with almost all being white men. These numbers represent more than demographic imbalance—they suggest systematic underutilization of leadership talent.

“Although there’s a lot of research showing when you have a woman on the helm or part of the executive team, returns are higher, cultures are more inclusive, and innovation has a different, unique flavor,” Leen Kawas observes. Her investment philosophy at Propel Bio Partners puts this conviction into practice, with the majority of portfolio companies having women in leadership positions—not through quotas, but as natural outcomes of seeking mission-driven innovators.

Building Through Adversity

Leen Kawas’s path to biotech leadership illustrates how female founders often develop exceptional resilience by necessity. After earning her pharmacy degree in Jordan, she realized that traditional pharmaceutical work didn’t provide the impact she sought. Her decision to pursue doctoral studies in the United States required abandoning security for uncertain opportunities in a foreign country.

Her entrepreneurial breakthrough came unexpectedly. “I was sitting in my Ph.D. advisor’s office when he said ‘Do you want to cofound Athira with me and stay?’ I had a job lined up—a secure job. I said ‘Yeah, I guess I’ll try it,’” she recalls. This willingness to embrace uncertainty while maintaining practical grounding would characterize her leadership style.

During her seven-year tenure as a biotech CEO, Leen Kawas encountered direct gender discrimination that would have derailed less determined leaders. In one particularly egregious investor meeting, a potential backer compared her qualifications to a male CEO with similar achievements, then declared he would not invest in her company solely because she was a woman. Despite having advocates push back against this discrimination, the investor ultimately declined funding.

Rather than accepting this rejection as definitive, Leen Kawas persevered. She successfully led the company through multiple drug development cycles and directed its September 2020 initial public offering, raising over $400 million. She became the first woman in 20 years to take a company public in Washington state, transforming initial rejection into validation of female leadership capability.

Patient-First Innovation Strategy

Leen Kawas developed what she terms a “patient-centric” methodology that prioritizes patient needs over traditional biopharma metrics. This approach emerged from recognizing that successful drug development depends fundamentally on patient participation and outcomes, not just scientific elegance.

“We built a team that did not think about barriers. We only thought about solutions and how we can do things better, differently, with a mindset that we are serving the key stakeholders, which are the patients,” she explains.

This philosophy translated into practical innovations during clinical trials. She identified factors important to trial participants, understanding that without patient retention, trials would halt drug development. During Alzheimer’s studies, she arranged onsite meals for participating patients and their caregivers, recognizing that addressing basic needs would improve participation and outcomes.

More strategically, she recognized that clinical trial management demographics affected patient recruitment. Potential participants were often disappointed to learn that most trial managers were white men, discouraging participation from underrepresented groups. Her prediction that hiring diverse trial managers would increase enrollment from various demographics demonstrated understanding of both medical necessity and social dynamics.

“If you design clinical trials that have the patient’s voice in them, patient retention will increase, which is a problem in our industry,” she notes. This patient-centered approach required looking beyond traditional metrics to understand complete treatment ecosystems.

Investment Philosophy Reveals Leadership Patterns

At Propel Bio Partners, Leen Kawas’s investment decisions reveal consistent patterns in how she evaluates leadership and market opportunities. Her portfolio choices demonstrate focus on companies addressing overlooked populations and problems, often led by founders with similar patient-first orientations.

Inherent Biosciences tackles male reproductive health through epigenetic diagnostics, addressing the reality that up to 50 percent of infertility involves male factors despite women historically shouldering diagnostic burdens. Persephone Biosciences focuses on infant microbiome health, conducting the largest-ever study of infant gut bacteria to address widespread health issues affecting all demographic groups. OmniVis develops cholera detection technology for global health applications in underserved communities.

These investment choices reflect what she describes as comprehensive value assessment. “Track the success and satisfaction of your customers—in life sciences, the patients. That’s going to drive value. You are developing therapies. You are changing people’s lives. Once you achieve that, the financial value is going to follow,” she emphasizes.

Research validates this approach. The November 2022 Workplace Diversity and Financial Performance Report found positive associations between diverse management and superior financial outcomes, with women’s representation correlating with improved cash flow, higher net profit, and better stock performance. Leen Kawas cites studies showing women-led businesses display 60 percent better performance than comparable companies led by men.

Practical Leadership Insights

Leen Kawas’s documented leadership decisions reveal several patterns that contribute to superior outcomes. Female biotech leaders often demonstrate what she calls comprehensive problem-solving approaches that consider interconnected challenges rather than isolated technical issues.

Her observation about women-led companies requesting less capital than actually needed, while male leaders often ask for more than required, reflects deeper understanding of resource constraints and ability to achieve more with limited funding—crucial advantages in biotech’s extended development cycles.

She advocates for strategic relationship building as essential for female founders. “Find mentors, but most importantly, find advocates. Find those who will advocate for you to grow professionally and personally,” she advises aspiring leaders. Her own experience during the discriminatory investor meeting—where advocates highlighted her achievements—demonstrates how crucial such relationships become for overcoming systematic barriers.

Scaling Impact Through Investment

Today, as Managing General Partner at Propel Bio Partners, Leen Kawas transforms these leadership insights into investment strategy. “I’m not just investing in women or minorities—I’m investing in diversity because this will bring the best innovation and the best returns. There are studies that show that in women-led companies, or companies that have women executives, there are higher returns to the shareholders,” she states.

Her approach proves that supporting female leadership isn’t social responsibility—it’s competitive strategy in an industry requiring diverse perspectives to solve complex health challenges. By empowering women and scientists of color to lead companies, she creates a more inclusive biotech ecosystem where diverse leadership brings lived experience of various communities into innovation processes.

The biotechnology companies thriving in coming decades will likely be those recognizing that female founders bring essential capabilities for navigating biotech’s multifaceted challenges while serving broader patient populations effectively. Leen Kawas exemplifies this evolution, demonstrating how personal drive, patient-centered thinking, and strategic relationship building translate into both scientific advancement and market success.

Her remarkable journey from pharmacy student to biotech leader illustrates not predetermined strengths, but developed capabilities that emerge from navigating unique challenges while maintaining focus on fundamental goals: improving human health through accessible innovation. Through her work with Inherent Biosciences and other portfolio companies, she continues advancing this mission while building pathways for the next generation of diverse biotech leaders.

As featured in recent industry discussions, her insights on female entrepreneurship and inclusive innovation continue shaping conversations about the future of biotechnology leadership, proving that supporting diverse founders creates stronger companies and better patient outcomes.