Author Profile: Lisa Drakeman
Lisa Drakeman, PhD, was the founding CEO of one of Europe’s most successful biotechnology companies. Under her leadership, the company set numerous financing records, including a record setting IPO, and inaugurated research programs leading to the new FDA-approved medicines DARZALEX (multiple myeloma) and KESIMPTA (multiple sclerosis). She is a Fellow of the Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and Vice Chair of the board of the Zucker Institute for Innovation Commercialization at the Medical University of South Carolina. She has received numerous industry honors, including the Sol J. Barer Award for Vision, Innovation, and Leadership. She has been a faculty member at Princeton University and regularly lectures on entrepreneurship at universities in the US and Europe. She received a PhD from Princeton University.
Why I Wanted to Write this Book
I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur. Working in biotech was a happy accident! I hope this book helps others find out if entrepreneurship is the right career path for them.
Media Coverage and Awards
Entrepreneurs Must Accept Rejection but Keep Going
2013
Rejection has to be accepted by entrepreneurs and although it is hard to handle, keep going. That's the advice from Dr Lisa Drakeman whose high-flying bio-tech career led to four new treatments for unmet medical needs.
January 22, 2009
Named for Sol J. Barer, Ph.D., the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Celgene Corporation of Summit, NJ, the award recognizes outstanding research and business leaders who have made and who continue to make significant contributions to the growth and prosperity of the biosciences industry in New Jersey and throughout the world.
June 12, 2008
IS EUROPE'S biotechnology industry finally ready for the big time? For decades the continent's scientific elite watched as boffins in America fled academia to start biotech firms. European governments poured billions of euros into “technology corridors”, “pôles de compétitivité”, and other top-down schemes to create biotech clusters. But most of the venture capital still went to American firms, and Europe failed to produce a rival to America's Amgen or Genentech. Defenders of Europe's efforts to promote innovation in biotechnology noisily object to this view. To show that Europe's efforts may at last be paying off, they point to a recent uptick in investment—and to Genmab, a Danish firm led by Lisa Drakeman. And what does she think? Hers is an unusual perspective, for as well as being boss of one of Europe's biggest biotech firms, Ms Drakeman is American.
Genmab wins Scrip’s Biotech Company of The Year Award
December 5, 2007
Since they began, the Scrip Awards has sought to applaud the essential role that the pharmaceutical, biotech and other allied industries play in improving healthcare. Its trophies span the entire range of industry activities, from new drug launches and clinical trials, to innovative deals, outsourcing and fundraising.
The award recognizes Genmab’s accomplishments during 2006 and 2007 including its work to bring new products closer to their first markets, raise capital, enter significant licensing agreements, maintain strong management, address unmet medical needs through development of the new technology UniBody® and to transform Genmab from an early stage to a more mature world leading biotechnology company.
Glaxo Signs Record $2.1bn Deal for Genmab Drug
December 19, 2006
GlaxoSmithKline has bought global rights to Danish biotech company Genmab’s most promising new drug, a treatment for leukemia, in a record deal worth up to $2.1 billion, the two firms said on Tuesday
Chance Turns a Teacher into a CEO
October 17, 2005
Lisa Drakeman was teaching religion at Princeton University in 1990 when her husband asked her to pitch in at a biotechnology company he had recently founded. Fifteen years later, she's running a company of her own, Genmab AS of Denmark, a spinoff of her husband's company.
Ms. Drakeman's transition from academic to executive forced her to learn new skills, such as quick decision-making, inspiring colleagues and delegating responsibility, all while immersed in a foreign culture. Along the way, the 51-year-old mother of two also learned something about herself. "I was as surprised as anyone that I liked being CEO," she says.
September 1, 2005
Seizing upon a favorable business climate in Europe, US businesswoman Lisa Drakeman has blended goal-oriented American culture with a European focus on team effort to move her firm's antibodies closer to the market.
A husband and wife running separate antibody companies located on two continents? Sounds like a recipe for marital strife. But for Lisa Drakeman, CEO of Copenhagen’s GenMab and Don Drakeman, of Princeton, New Jersey-based Medarex, it’s working. After only 6 years in business, Lisa has taken her company public, ushered five products into the clinic, made more partnerships than she can name and raised half a billion dollars for the company’s coffers. As she emerges from the shadow of her better known husband, Drakeman is establishing herself as a business person in her own right, and antibodies as therapeutics, making believers out of once skeptical pharma companies.
James D. Watson Helix Awards Honor Biotech's Top Performers
February 24, 2005
The James D. Watson Helix Award honors leadership in three distinct areas: scientific innovation, company growth and corporate citizenship. It is presented by the Long Island Life Sciences Initiative (LILSI) and is jointly sponsored by BIO, Stony Brook University and The Center for Biotechnology.
International Winner: Genmab A/S
Genmab announced positive data from all five of its clinical programs in 2004, including obtaining Phase II proof-of-concept data for two products, HuMax-CD4 and the Amgen-partnered AMG-714, as well as promising Phase I/II data for HuMax-CD20, HuMax-EGFr and HuMax-Inflam. Genmab also received Fast Track designations for HuMax-CD4 and HuMax-CD20 from the FDA and obtained two orphan drug designations. On the financial front, the company raised a total of approximately US$100M, primarily through a successful follow-on offering, and the stock price appreciated by 96 percent during the year.
Second Annual High-Tech Hall of Fame draws 150
Winter 2000
The Biotechnology Council of New Jersey, Inc. and the American Electronics Association (AEA) hosted the Second Annual New Jersey High-Tech Hall of Fame Induction Dinner on Wednesday, October 18, at the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey. This year’s inductees included Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, Senator Robert Singer, and industry leaders Dr. Lisa Drakeman and Dr. Donald Drakeman of Medarex, Inc. and Mr. Reuben F. Richards, Jr. of EMCORE.
Dr. Lisa Drakeman was honored for serving BCNJ in the appointed position of Vice President of Public Affairs from 1997 through earlier this year. One of her most notable accomplishments was her lobbying and research efforts in support of the Technology Business Tax Certificate. Lisa is the current CEO of Genmab A/S, a publicly held European biotechnology company. Lisa Drakeman was honored by Bio in 1997 for her leadership in promoting the industry.