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The IPO gets treated like a finish line because it has all the visible signals of arrival: the ticker, the headlines, the bell, the sudden sharpness of public scrutiny. In biotech, it is tempting to let that moment stand in for the real work, as if the company has crossed from uncertain science into inevitable success.

Leen Kawas has built a career arguing, by the way she operates, that the public offering is only the start of a more demanding phase. She is the CEO of EIT Pharma, sits on the board of Inherent Biosciences, and is the co-founder and managing general partner of Propel Bio Partners, a biotech-focused venture firm.  Before that, she co-founded and led Athira Pharma, taking it public in 2020 after raising more than $400 million across the company’s growth journey. 

If you listen to how she frames that milestone, the emphasis is not on validation. It is on what the IPO enables, then what it demands.

The IPO as a tool, not a trophy

Biotech companies do not go public to celebrate. They go public to fund time. Drug development consumes time in a very specific way: it burns cash while it waits for results that cannot be rushed. An IPO, in Kawas’s framing, is a financing event that can extend the runway long enough for clinical programs to mature and for infrastructure to catch up to ambition.

Athira’s IPO in September 2020 raised $204 million in the offering itself, according to GeekWire’s coverage at the time.  Yet the deeper story is what the IPO made possible. It created access to a broader capital base and a currency for partnerships, recruiting, and long-horizon planning. That is why Kawas treats the IPO as “beginning” territory. It is when a company becomes accountable to a new set of stakeholders while still needing to prove, in the most unforgiving way, that its science holds up.

Public markets replace one problem with several harder ones

Private biotech has one dominant constraint: fundraising. Public biotech has a more complex set of constraints, many of which feel less controllable.

After an IPO, the company must run rigorous clinical programs, communicate progress with discipline, and build internal systems that can survive constant scrutiny. It must also manage the psychological shift inside the team. The mission does not change, but the environment does. Every decision gets interpreted through signals. Timelines become storylines. Hiring becomes a statement.

Leen Kawas’s track record suggests she sees that shift early. Her bio on Propel Bio Partners highlights that she advanced multiple late-stage clinical programs and guided Athira through its IPO, tying capital raised to the operational demands of moving programs forward.  The point is not that an IPO makes the work easier. It makes the work more visible, and visibility punishes weak systems.

The “beginning” is governance

One of the least glamorous post-IPO realities is governance. Public companies have to mature quickly: board processes, controls, audit readiness, compliance rhythms, investor relations. These are not optional layers. They are the scaffolding that keeps the scientific mission fundable.

Kawas’s later roles reinforce this orientation toward systems. At Inherent Biosciences, she is positioned as bringing expertise across drug discovery, clinical methodology, regulatory strategy, commercialization, and financing, the same domains that get stress-tested after a company goes public.  At EIT Pharma, her CEO profile similarly emphasizes biotechnology leadership and investment experience, suggesting continuity in how she approaches execution once a company has to perform in public. 

In other words, the IPO is when governance stops being an administrative detail and becomes part of the product.

The “beginning” is learning to build under pressure

Biotech is full of quiet tradeoffs that only become obvious when the stakes rise: how fast to expand a team, when to partner, how to allocate capital across a pipeline, what data to prioritize, how to communicate uncertainty without eroding trust. The IPO amplifies every one of those choices.

Kawas’s venture work at Propel Bio Partners points to a philosophy formed by that pressure. Propel’s team page frames her as leveraging experience as an inventor, scientist, and entrepreneur to support early-stage biotech innovation.  The implicit lesson is that capital is not enough. The company needs operating judgment, especially once the market can react daily to incomplete information.

This is also why she often speaks about the IPO as a transition in responsibility. Once public, the company becomes a custodian of other people’s patience: investors, employees, partners, and patients waiting for therapies that may take years.

The “beginning” is returning to the real objective

A biotech IPO can distort priorities if leaders begin optimizing for market applause instead of clinical truth. Kawas’s story is useful because her emphasis repeatedly returns to the same anchor: the science has to work, and the organization has to be built to find out.

GeekWire’s reporting on Athira’s IPO captured her focus on the milestone as a step toward impacting patients, not as a conclusion.  Propel’s materials describe her as having led the advancement of clinical programs through late stages, reinforcing the idea that financing events are meaningful only insofar as they fund progress. 

That is the core of why she sees IPOs as just the beginning. The bell-ringing is easy to photograph. The beginning is what follows: building a company sturdy enough to survive long clinical timelines, honest enough to report what it learns, and disciplined enough to keep the mission intact while everything is louder.

Learn more about Leen Kawas in the below interview:

Dr. Leen Kawas: Investing in a Brighter Future!

On the morning after Athira Pharma’s IPO in September 2020, the ticker symbol was already streaming across financial news feeds. The company had just raised more than 200 million dollars in gross proceeds, adding to a total capital haul that would exceed 400 million dollars under Leen Kawas’ leadership. Inside the company, the mood mixed celebration with urgency. Clinical trials still needed every visit. Manufacturing plans still had deadlines. The science had not changed overnight. The context around it had.

For Kawas, those first 100 days as the CEO of a newly public biotech became a live laboratory in how to navigate public markets without losing sight of patients. The experience now informs how she leads EIT Pharma, advises portfolio founders as managing general partner at Propel Bio Partners, and contributes on boards such as Inherent Biosciences.

The IPO as a starting line

By the time Athira went public, the work behind it stretched back nearly a decade. Kawas had co-founded the company in 2011, then stepped into the CEO role in 2014. The team advanced small molecule therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases and built a late stage clinical pipeline in areas like Alzheimer’s and dementia. Athira’s IPO in 2020 placed her among a very small group of women founders in the United States who had led a biotech from inception to the public markets.

Crossing that threshold did not feel like a finish. In those first weeks, Kawas saw how easily an IPO can be mis-framed as a destination. Internally, she worked to reinforce that it was a financing event that provided tools to execute the original mission. The new capital allowed Athira to expand trials, invest in manufacturing readiness, and strengthen its team. The market listing created visibility with partners and researchers. The underlying objective stayed the same, which was to generate high quality data that could move therapies closer to patients.

One of her core takeaways from that period is that leaders need to set this tone quickly. If employees and investors start to treat the IPO as the story, attention drifts from the clinical and scientific milestones that actually create value.

Learning the cadence of a public company

The first 100 days also imposed a new rhythm. Earnings calls, quiet periods, SEC filings and analyst meetings appeared on the calendar alongside trial readouts and regulatory deadlines. Leen Kawas had to layer public company responsibilities onto the existing operating plan without letting them overwhelm the teams that were running the science.

She learned to treat communication as a discipline rather than an occasional task. Scientific progress needed to be translated into clear, consistent messages for different audiences. Investors cared about timelines, risk and capital needs. Collaborators focused on study design and data quality. Employees wanted to understand how market reactions might affect their day to day work.

In practice, that meant building internal routines: pre-briefs before major announcements, tight coordination between clinical leaders and investor relations, and early preparation for each reporting cycle. The lesson she carries forward is that founders should start practicing this type of structured communication well before going public. Doing that work early reduces the shock of the post-IPO environment.

Governance as an enabler of ambition

As a scientist and pharmacist by training, Kawas had always been close to the laboratory side of biotech. The move into the public markets pushed governance higher on her agenda. In the first few months, Athira strengthened its board, activated key committees and formalised decision pathways on capital allocation, portfolio prioritisation and risk oversight.

She came to see governance as more than compliance. Strong board structures, clear charters and well prepared committees gave her space to focus on strategy. When audit and compensation frameworks are robust, leadership can spend less time reacting to process issues and more time thinking about how to advance programs and partnerships.

At Propel Bio Partners, she now encourages founders to treat governance as a growth tool. Building an engaged board, refining reporting habits and clarifying who owns which decisions can accelerate a company’s ability to handle the complexity that comes with scale and, eventually, with public status.

Balancing volatility with a patient-centric anchor

Public markets move quickly. In the months after an IPO, share prices respond to sector sentiment, macroeconomic news and biotech-specific cycles, sometimes more than to any individual company event. Kawas experienced that volatility first hand.

Her response was to hold the organisation close to a patient-centric anchor. She has described how helpful it was to regularly bring the conversation back to why the company existed in the first place. Clinical trial participants and their families had entrusted Athira with their time and hope. That responsibility did not fluctuate with the stock chart.

In practical terms, this meant reinforcing long term priorities in internal meetings, making sure resource allocation decisions lined up with the most important clinical questions, and explaining to staff how near term market moves did or did not affect hiring, program plans or partnerships. The habit of returning to patients as the reference point is one she now applies across her roles in venture, company building and board service.

Using the experience to guide the next generation

Today, as CEO of EIT Pharma and managing general partner of Propel Bio Partners, Leen Kawas often finds herself on the other side of the table, helping founders think through when and how to access public capital. Her advice is shaped by those early months after Athira’s IPO.

She urges teams to build public company muscles early: disciplined financial reporting, regular practice explaining risk and timelines, and a culture that is comfortable with transparency. She encourages them to see the IPO as one milestone in a continuum of financing options, which include private rounds, strategic partnerships and follow on offerings. She also emphasises the importance of diversity in leadership, drawing on her own path as one of a small number of women who have led a biotech from concept, through late stage trials, into the public markets.

Most of all, she shares a perspective that grew clearer in that first 100 days. The structure of being public can be demanding, however it also provides a platform to pursue ambitious science at scale. When leaders enter that phase with a clear mission, strong governance and realistic expectations, the transition becomes less about surviving scrutiny and more about accelerating the work that mattered long before the bell rang.

Learn more about Leen Kawas in this interview:

Dr. Leen Kawas: Investing in a Brighter Future!

When Simbi Wabote took the helm of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in 2016, he inherited a familiar dilemma: how to modernize an industry rooted in global systems while ensuring that Nigerians benefited directly from their country’s vast energy resources. For Wabote, this wasn’t a binary choice. Drawing on decades of international experience at Shell, he believed that global standards and local priorities could not only coexist but strengthen each other—if managed with clarity, strategy, and conviction.

Under his leadership, Nigeria’s oil and gas local content rose from 26 percent to 54 percent, a transformation that rippled across the economy. But the numbers tell only part of the story. Behind them was a deliberate recalibration of how the sector defined excellence. Wabote argued that achieving world-class standards did not require importing every model from abroad; it required cultivating domestic capacity to meet those benchmarks from within.

At the core of his philosophy was a simple premise: global competitiveness begins with local competence. Wabote often emphasized that Nigeria’s goal was not to isolate itself from the international energy ecosystem but to participate in it from a position of strength. By developing local expertise—engineers, fabricators, financiers, and service providers—he sought to make Nigerian companies indispensable partners in the global supply chain rather than peripheral contractors.

His approach was both strategic and human-centered. Wabote recognized that achieving global quality in local contexts demanded more than technical training; it required infrastructure, financing, and institutional confidence. During his tenure, the NCDMB launched initiatives that supported indigenous businesses through access to capital, compliance programs, and mentorship. These measures helped small and mid-sized Nigerian firms scale up to meet the exacting standards of multinational operators. In his view, empowerment was not an act of protectionism but of preparation.

One of his signature achievements was the establishment of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Park Scheme—industrial hubs designed to host manufacturing and service companies supporting the upstream sector. Each park was conceived as an ecosystem where knowledge, logistics, and innovation could converge. The model reflected Wabote’s belief that local content policy should not merely dictate participation but enable excellence.

He also understood that global standards were not static. The energy transition, digitalization, and sustainability reporting were reshaping what “best practice” meant across industries. Rather than viewing these shifts as external pressures, Simbi Wabote positioned them as opportunities for Nigeria to leapfrog outdated systems. He encouraged domestic firms to integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks early, arguing that doing so would future-proof their competitiveness.

This mindset—ambitious yet pragmatic—set Wabote apart. He rejected the notion that local priorities must come at the expense of efficiency or profit. Instead, he framed them as preconditions for resilience. “A strong local base is what gives you staying power in a global market,” he often remarked. His tenure proved that investing in local skills and infrastructure was not charity—it was smart economics. His profile on f6s.com explores this further.

The results were tangible. Thousands of jobs were created through projects financed under the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund. Fabrication yards, pipe mills, and training centers emerged across the country, reducing dependence on imports and stimulating regional economies. At the same time, Nigeria retained its attractiveness to international partners, who increasingly viewed the country as a site of genuine capability rather than a logistical challenge.

Still, Wabote was candid about the complexities of striking this balance. Global operators bring not just technology but expectations—of speed, compliance, and accountability. Meeting those standards, he argued, requires consistency in governance and policy. His stewardship at the NCDMB prioritized transparency, encouraging data-driven evaluation over bureaucratic opacity. In doing so, he sought to build trust between government, investors, and the communities that host development.

His legacy extends beyond oil and gas. The framework he built—linking industrial policy to human capital development—has become a template for other sectors seeking to localize production without compromising on quality. Wabote’s model suggests that the path to national self-reliance does not lie in closing borders, but in strengthening the capacity to compete within them.

Today, as global energy systems pivot toward decarbonization and new technologies, his philosophy remains relevant. For emerging economies navigating similar crossroads, Wabote’s tenure offers a case study in measured transformation: an insistence that ambition must be matched with structure, and that global relevance begins with local readiness.

In balancing international standards with national priorities, Simbi Wabote did more than raise local content numbers—he redefined what they mean. His work reminds us that progress is not about choosing between global and local, but about building the bridge sturdy enough for both to walk across together.

Learn more about Wabote at the link below:

https://about.me/simbiwabote

When Leen Kawas led Athira Pharma to its IPO in 2020, she wasn’t chasing headlines. She was executing a strategy—one that had been built patiently, piece by piece, over years of research, investment, and preparation. By the time Athira rang the bell, the company had raised over $400 million and become one of the few biotech firms led by a female founder to reach public markets. But for Kawas, the milestone wasn’t the finish line. It was a pivot.

As a scientist-turned-entrepreneur, Kawas approached the IPO not as an end goal, but as a funding event. She viewed it through a pragmatic lens: an opportunity to expand access to capital, build trust with institutional investors, and sustain momentum through later-stage clinical trials. It was never just about valuation. It was about velocity—moving a promising therapeutic pipeline closer to market, without compromising its integrity.

The decision to go public was not made in isolation. Kawas and her team had already laid the groundwork: rigorous preclinical data, a focused pipeline, and a clear regulatory path. But the broader context mattered too. In biotech, timing is currency. Public markets were receptive, interest in neurodegenerative disease was growing, and Athira’s profile aligned with investor appetite for long-term innovation rather than short-term gain.

That alignment was intentional. Leen Kawas understood that a successful IPO depended not just on science, but on narrative. The company had to tell its story in a way that bridged the technical and the human. Investors needed to understand the scientific rationale and the commercial vision. Regulators needed clarity. Analysts needed metrics. Kawas worked to ensure that each audience heard what they needed without diluting the message.

She also brought discipline to the decision-making process. The IPO filing wasn’t rushed. Milestones were met before capital was raised. Investor materials were grounded in data. Kawas believed that trust is earned early, and that credibility is one of a biotech leader’s most valuable assets—especially in public markets, where transparency becomes non-negotiable.

One of her key insights was that going public doesn’t transform a company—it reveals it. The scrutiny intensifies. The reporting requirements sharpen. The ability to communicate with precision becomes central to leadership. Kawas embraced that challenge. She treated it as a shift in role: from builder to steward.

This stewardship extended beyond financial performance. She remained focused on the scientific mission, even as the company scaled. That balance—between advancing therapeutic innovation and managing public expectations—required constant calibration. Kawas didn’t view it as a tradeoff. She viewed it as a responsibility.

The strategic moves surrounding the IPO also reflected her broader view of capital. Kawas does not see funding as fuel alone. She sees it as alignment. A well-structured cap table, supportive investors, and disciplined burn rate are not back-office concerns. They are leadership priorities. For her, equity is a tool—not just to grow, but to protect the company’s core purpose.

Since Athira, Kawas has continued to shape how emerging life sciences firms think about growth. Through her work at Propel Bio Partners and her leadership at EIT Pharma, she advises early-stage companies on how to prepare—not just to raise money, but to grow into it. She brings a founder’s lens to venture capital, emphasizing that capital alone cannot compensate for unclear strategy or weak execution.

Her own IPO journey gives her the credibility to speak candidly. She knows the pressure that builds during roadshows. She knows how quickly investor sentiment can shift. She understands that not every promising company should go public, and that the readiness checklist includes more than trial data. Governance, pipeline durability, and market positioning all matter.

But she also believes in the power of public markets when used wisely. The visibility, access, and validation that come with an IPO can propel a company forward—if leadership is prepared to deliver. That preparation, she argues, begins long before an S-1 is filed. It starts with culture. With clarity of mission. With confidence in what the company brings to the world.

Leen Kawas didn’t just lead Athira to an IPO. She showed what it looks like when science, strategy, and leadership move in sync. Her approach was not flashy. It was measured. And in an industry where timelines stretch long and stakes run high, that kind of steady execution is what builds value that lasts.

Learn more about Leen Kawas through her interview with Billion Success:

Dr. Leen Kawas: Investing in a Brighter Future!

When Leen Kawas led Athira Pharma through its initial public offering in 2020, she achieved something few entrepreneurs ever do. The company raised more than $400 million, positioning her as one of only 22 women founders in the United States to take a biotech company public. For Kawas, the IPO was not just a financial milestone. It was the culmination of years spent navigating the complexity of science, business, and leadership. The experience offered lessons that continue to guide her as co-founder and managing general partner of Propel Bio Partners, and as a mentor to biotech founders.

The Importance of Preparation

Kawas often explains that going public requires a level of preparation far beyond what many anticipate. Scientific validation, operational discipline, and financial transparency must all withstand scrutiny from regulators and investors. She recalls that at Athira, every process—from clinical trial management to corporate governance—had to be sharpened in advance.

She emphasizes that founders must adopt a mindset of readiness long before an IPO is on the horizon. By building strong systems early, companies reduce the risk of scrambling under the pressures of public disclosure. For Kawas, this preparation was as much about culture as it was about compliance. Teams needed to embrace accountability as part of their identity.

Balancing Science and Business

One of Kawas’ key lessons was the necessity of balancing scientific ambition with business pragmatism. Biotech companies often push forward with groundbreaking research, yet translating discovery into value for investors requires disciplined communication. She describes how Athira had to convey complex science in terms that markets could understand, without oversimplifying or overpromising.

This balance, she explains, is crucial to sustaining credibility. Investors support innovation, but they also demand clear strategies for commercialization. By bridging the language of science and the language of business, she ensured that Athira could appeal to both researchers and financial stakeholders.

Leadership Under Pressure

The IPO process also tested Leen Kawas’ leadership. Market conditions were uncertain, regulatory requirements were exacting, and the stakes were high. She reflects that leaders must demonstrate steadiness in such moments, even when challenges feel overwhelming. For her, that meant maintaining clear communication, empowering her team, and staying focused on the mission of advancing therapies for patients.

She acknowledges that pressure can expose weaknesses in leadership. Yet she believes it also provides opportunities for growth. By navigating scrutiny and setbacks with resilience, leaders gain credibility not only with investors but with their own teams.

Building the Right Team

Kawas highlights that no founder can take a company public alone. Success depends on assembling a team of experts who complement one another. At Athira, she worked with scientists, financial advisors, legal professionals, and operations leaders whose combined expertise carried the company through the IPO process.

She emphasizes that founders must learn to trust their teams while also holding them accountable. Delegating responsibility is essential, but so is setting clear expectations. In her view, the strength of a company lies in the ability of its people to operate cohesively under pressure.

The Value of Resilience

Kawas also learned that setbacks are inevitable. Drug development is uncertain, investor sentiment shifts, and timelines rarely unfold exactly as planned. She explains that resilience—the ability to adapt without losing focus—is the trait that allows founders to endure the unpredictability of the public markets.

Her advice to biotech leaders is to expect turbulence and to prepare emotionally as well as strategically. Resilience, as she noted in this interview with Billion Success, is not just about survival. It is about sustaining belief in the mission and continuing to lead others with conviction.

A Platform for Future Leadership

For Kawas, the lessons from Athira’s IPO extend beyond that single event. They inform her work at Propel Bio Partners, where she now supports other biotech founders. She draws on her experience to help them build stronger systems, communicate effectively with investors, and prepare for the possibility of going public themselves.

She views the IPO not only as a milestone but as a training ground for leadership. The process reinforced the importance of discipline, adaptability, and foresight—qualities she now encourages in the entrepreneurs she mentors.

Inspiring the Next Generation

Kawas also recognizes the symbolic importance of her achievement. Being one of the few women founders to lead a biotech IPO highlights the need for greater representation in the industry. She hopes that her path can inspire other women scientists and entrepreneurs to pursue leadership roles and to aim for milestones that once seemed out of reach.

Her message is clear: taking a company public is not the endpoint of innovation. It is a step in a larger journey of building sustainable enterprises that deliver value to patients, investors, and society.

Lasting Lessons

Looking back, Leen Kawas describes Athira’s IPO as both an accomplishment and an education. It taught her that preparation, communication, and resilience are the pillars of success in biotech leadership. More importantly, it reinforced her belief that founders who combine scientific vision with operational discipline can achieve breakthroughs not only in laboratories but also in markets.

For her, the path to taking a company public is not just about raising capital. It is about proving that innovation, when managed with integrity and foresight, can endure the scrutiny of the world stage.

Leen Kawas is also on the board of directors for EIT Pharma.

In the world of investing, understanding corporate earnings is crucial. These financial reports can be the key to identifying promising growth stocks and unlocking new investment opportunities.

Let’s delve deeper into this concept, the importance of Federal decisions, and the impact of global markets on your investment strategy.

Corporate earnings, also known as net income or profit, inform investors about a company’s profitability. Publicly traded companies must release quarterly and annual financial statements, providing a wealth of valuable data for analysis. The most anticipated part of these reports is usually the earnings-per-share (EPS) figure, which indicates how much of a company’s profit is assigned to each outstanding share of common stock.

An earnings report can cause significant market movements as it either validates or challenges the market’s expectations about a company’s financial health. They act as a report card on a company’s performance and can significantly influence investors’ perception, thereby affecting the stock price.

Earnings reports offer valuable insights into a company’s performance, but they can’t be analyzed in a vacuum. One must also consider Federal decisions that influence the larger economic context. The Federal Reserve decisions around interest rates, for instance, have a direct bearing on the investment climate. A hike in interest rates can potentially reduce borrowing, lower spending, and ultimately impact corporate earnings.

Furthermore, in our interconnected world, global markets can’t be ignored. Economic conditions, political stability, and market trends in other parts of the world can influence the performance of U.S. stocks. For instance, a burgeoning middle class in emerging markets can mean exponential growth for consumer goods companies who are venturing into these new territories.

So how can investors leverage this information?

Understanding the nuances of corporate earnings can help investors identify growth stocks, which are shares in companies expected to grow at an above-average rate compared to other companies in the market. High growth companies typically reinvest their earnings into further expansion, technology or product development, leading to accelerated growth and potentially higher returns on investment.

Another approach is through the Initial Public Offering (IPO) analysis. When a company goes public, it’s crucial to scrutinize their financial health, including their earnings, to determine whether they’re a viable investment.

In conclusion, being informed about corporate earnings, Federal decisions, and global market trends is essential for investors to make informed decisions. It can help identify potential growth stocks, understand market dynamics, and develop successful trading strategies.

Remember, while corporate earnings provide a snapshot of a company’s financial health, they are just one piece of the puzzle. A comprehensive market analysis should involve a holistic view of the company’s financials, industry trends, competitor performance, and macroeconomic factors. This will enable a robust investment strategy and enhance the prospects of securing high-performing stocks.

The world of investing is complex and ever-changing. However, by understanding the intricacies of corporate earnings and their interplay with wider economic and market factors, investors can better navigate the investment landscape and unlock new opportunities.