Biotech CEO Sisterhood: Former BIO CEO Rachel King describes her career and shares advice on what makes a successful biotech CEO
Interviewed by Sisterhood Editorial Board Member Erika Smith, Rachel King reflects on her time at NEA and 18 years as the Co-Founder & CEO at GlycoMimetics, as well as stepping into the role of BIO's CEO on an interim basis. She offers leadership advice, and describes the ways she still says active in biotech today.
Biographies
Rachel King was CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and co-founder and CEO of GlycoMimetics, a publically traded biotechnology company. Before founding GlycoMimetics, she was an Entrepreneur in Residence at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the nation’s leading venture capital firms. Rachel went to NEA after serving as a senior vice president of Novartis Corporation. Before joining Novartis, she spent 10 years with the biotechnology company Genetic Therapy through the company’s early stage, initial public offering and eventual sale to Novartis. After the sale to Novartis, she was named CEO and ran the company as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Novartis. Rachel also worked previously at ALZA Corporation in Palo Alto, CA and at Bain & Company in Boston. She served as Chair of the Maryland Life Sciences Advisory Board under former Governor Martin O’Malley. Rachel now serves on the boards of Novavax, Fulcrum Therapeutics, the University of Maryland BioPark, Lingraphica, and BIO Ventures for Global Health. She received her B.A. degree from Dartmouth College and her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Rachel is married to John King, and they have two grown children.
Erika Smith is life sciences entrepreneur who has combined technical and business expertise with 30-years of industry experience building, investing in, and successfully exiting life-science and technology companies
Previously, she led EpiTET Therapeutics, developing novel oral therapeutics that selectively eliminates pathogenic macrophages, and ReNetX Bio, a venture funded neuro-science company
As an investor, she served as the inaugural director of the $65M Blavatnik Fund at Yale, launched the Johnson & Johnson investment fund in partnership with the Center for Innovative Technology and was a Venture Advisor to Epidarex Ventures, a transatlantic life-science venture firm. These early-stage investments enabled successful exits including medSage (acq: Philips Healthcare), Isoplexis (NASDAQ: ISO), and Biorez ($250M Acq NYSE: CNMD).
She is the Board Chair (ECS) and on the Executive Committee Board of Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and a recognized thought leader holding numerous awards including: “Industry Superstar”, “Entrepreneur of the Year,” and co-author of playbook “Empowering Women Entrepreneurs” sponsored by JPMorgan Chase; and TEDx speaker. Erika received a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration (MBA).
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