| About Myrtle Potter

Myrtle Potter is a global life sciences leader and innovator and the 2000 HBA Woman of the Year. She has established a legacy of building and leading companies that deliver blockbuster medicines that have improved and extended the lives of hundreds of millions of patients. She is also renowned for creating the pathways for women and men to be promoted into senior management, C-Suite, and board director roles globally.

Potter recently served as the founding president, CEO, and chair of the Board for Sumitomo Pharma America, a multi-billion-dollar company formed by consolidating eight U.S. biopharmaceutical companies. Before this role she was the founding CEO for Sumitovant Biopharma, a global, multi-billion-dollar biopharmaceutical company with five subsidiary companies that together achieved five novel drug approvals.

Earlier, Potter worked at Roivant Sciences as vant operating chair heading the Vant Governance Office which she established. In this role Myrtle oversaw strategy, operations and deployed capital across Roivant’s thirteen biotechnology companies. Her leadership was instrumental in driving value creation across the portfolio.  As a member of the Roivant executive team, Potter played a central role in the sale of five of the companies to Sumitomo Dainippon for $3.2 billion.

Prior to Roivant, Potter served as CEO of Myrtle Potter & Company, a global healthcare advisory firm.

Myrtle served at Genentech as COO before advancing to president of Commercial Operations. During her tenure, Potter’s leadership was instrumental in driving Genentech to achieve record sales and earnings growth for nineteen of the twenty quarters she led the company. Her strategic direction enabled the successful launch of seven groundbreaking medicines within five years, including Avastin™, the breakthrough cancer treatment. Potter’s impact at Genentech set new benchmarks for commercialization in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Before Genentech, Ms. Potter was president of Bristol Myers Squibb’s U.S. Cardiovascular/ Metabolics business, where she oversaw a $4 billion operation and 3,500 employees who brought several multi-billion-dollar medicines to market. She led this business to become the largest, fastest growing and most profitable of all BMS operating units at the time. While at BMS she also led a global strategic redesign that reduced R&D cycle time by 40 percent.

Myrtle began her biopharmaceutical career at Merck, where she designed and started Astra-Merck, Inc. which, through a series of transactions, later operated as a part of AstraZeneca.

Myrtle Potter’s influence on the biopharmaceutical industry remains broad and enduring. Her contributions have shaped organizations and advanced technological innovation. Notably, Myrtle is the sole inventor of five artificial intelligence patents, all granted by the USPTO between 2019 and 2025. This achievement underscores her commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology to drive progress across our industry.

Potter serves on the boards of Guardant Health, Liberty Mutual Insurance Group and Opentrons Labworks. She previously served on the boards of Amazon, Axsome, Insmed, Express Scripts and Medco among others. Myrtle earned a B.A. degree from The University of Chicago where she has served as a trustee since 2011. She was recently granted an honorary PhD. by Lincoln University.