Mikhail, Eisenberg Among "Fiercest Women in Life Sciences 2022"
Two North Carolina women who are global life sciences leaders were honored today by being named two of 20 “Fiercest Women in Life Sciences 2022” by industry publication Fierce Pharma.
The two are Sheila Mikhail, CEO and co-founder of the gene therapy pioneering company AskBio, and Marcia Eisenberg, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief scientific officer at the Labcorp Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology. Both work in Research Triangle Park, though Labcorp’s global headquarters is in Burlington.
Mikhail, who originally trained as an attorney, was named the Overall US Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young (2021), received the Distinguished Alumni Award – Entrepreneurial from the Booth School at the University of Chicago (2022), was recognized as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs (2020), was listed on the Inc. Female Founders 100 (2020) and earned Springboard Enterprise’s Northstar Award (2019).
One of Eisenberg’s recent awards included recognition last year by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association as a 2021 Luminary. A molecular biologist by training, Eisenberg was a member of the team responsible for commercializing PCR testing in the 1990s, making large-scale testing possible. PCR testing became a household word around the world in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic upended ... well, just about everything.
The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has provided nearly $1 million in grants and loans to support academic research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and to support commercialization activities associated with AskBio’s phenomenal growth trajectory.
Read more about Mikhail and AskBio in this article posted earlier this year on the NCBiotech website.