Only 3% of new biotech CEOs are women

Women make up just 3% pof new CEO appointments in biotechnology and their companies get only 5.4% of venture capital invested in biotechnology companies, according to new research.

The research by Liftstream Ltd, a company providing executive recruitment services to the biotechnology sector, found biotechnology companies with all-male boards garner 57% of all venture capital financing.

Its new gender diversity report, “Investing in Biotechnology Management”, is a study of venture capital financing and hiring trends in European and US biotechnology companies and the gender representation on the boards and at the executive level. The research analyses 110 investment deals in private biotechnology companies as well as 308 biotech executive appointments.

The report details the board gender composition of private biotechnology companies who have achieved venture capital financing over a fixed period during 2014 and 2015, revealing specific data about the gender balance of those company boards and the executives leading them. It showed male CEOs raised over $17 to every $1 raised by their female counterparts.

The survey also looked at executive hiring trends in the biotech sectors, charting 308 recent biotech appointments at the board, C-suite and function leadership level. The report reveals that just 17% of all appointments were women and only 3% of CEOs appointed to run biotechs were women.

Karl Simpson, CEO at Liftstream said: “Having last year published the biotechnology sector’s largest ever study of boardroom and executive gender diversity, we are pleased to reveal this new study. Our intention was to explore the strong relationship between venture capital financing in biotechs and the management and boards of those companies. With increasing evidence that gender diverse leadership delivers better returns, it was important to understand if the venture capital community were responding to this opportunity.

”We have also looked at the biotech sector’s executive hiring trends for indicators of increased levels of female representation across the C-suite and at the Board of Directors. Recruiting board and executive team members must be meritocratic but we have shown that the sector is heavily male dominated and the lack of structure and process around hiring is perpetuating this outlook.”

To download the full free report visit: http://www.liftstream.com/investing-in-biotech.html

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