Tough At The Top

Daphne Zohar, Founder and CEO of Puretech Health plc

August 06, 2021 Steve Davies / Daphne Zohar Season 1 Episode 3
Tough At The Top
Daphne Zohar, Founder and CEO of Puretech Health plc
Show Notes

Daphne Zohar is the Founder and CEO of Puretech Health plc. A serial entrepreneur, she has transformed an initial investment of $100,000 into a company now worth £1bn, with stock market listings in both London and New York. She created a unique model to develop and commercialise the scientific IP coming out of Boston's biotech cluster, turning conventional wisdom on its head by starting with unmet medical needs and then bringing the best brains together and letting their creativity run wild in order to construct new therapeutic solutions. This has led to successful innovations such as a video game to help children with ADHD, an orally taken capsule that swells up inside the stomach to reduce appetite and assist weight loss, a novel combination drug that could represent the first significant step forward in schizophrenia for 50 years and a potential treatment for long COVID. 

Daphne explains how she was able to persuade some of the most prominent figures in science to take a punt on a company with no track record and a CEO with no scientific background; the importance of persistence and how she tries to learn something from everyone she comes across; how she has changed her leadership style in the 15 years since the company was founded; and her excitement at the opportunities now available to female CEOs compared to a decade ago.