Maky Zanganeh, co-CEO of Summit Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical oncology company, is now a billionaire. An Iranian immigrant, Ms Zanganeh’s rise came after shares of Summit Therapeutics, under her leadership, surged 17-fold, pushing its market valuation to $17 billion, according to Forbes.
The 54-year-old holds just under 5 per cent of the company’s shares along with stock options. She is now worth an estimated $1.1 billion, one of only 34 self-made women billionaires in the US and one of just three in the healthcare sector.
The 21-year-old company, with no approved drugs and just 130 employees, has recently caught the eye of investors due to its experimental lung cancer drug, ivonescimab. Data presented at the World Conference on Lung Cancer in San Diego showed the drug outperformed Merck’s blockbuster Keytruda, generating massive investor interest. “The big news was that we could beat Keytruda,” Ms Zanganeh was quoted as saying by Forbes.
Summit’s stock nearly doubled after the announcement, peaking at $31.93 on September 13 before settling at $23.16 by September 19.
Ms Zangesh was born in Tehran, Iran, to architect parents. Her life was forever altered when the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979. The subsequent Iran-Iraq war intensified the uncertainty. “We constantly had to face the fear of bombing,” she shared in her 2021 memoir, ‘The Magic of Normal.’ When Ms Zanganeh was about 11, a friend of her father in Germany arranged for her family to obtain German visas.
After many flight cancellations due to airport closures in Tehran, they eventually fled to Germany via Austria. Settling in Oldenburg, a small town in northern Germany, she learned German while her parents returned to Iran. Ms Zanganeh stayed behind, living with a friend and then an uncle, to finish high school.
Ms Zanganeh’s father, seeing both of her sisters in medical school in Strasbourg, France, encouraged her to follow suit. She mastered French and pursued dentistry at the University of Strasbourg, specialising in paediatric dentistry, and graduated in 1995. However, she remained unsure about pursuing a career in dentistry. In 1997, through an Iranian friend working for US robotic surgery company, Computer Motion, Ms Zanganeh became intrigued by the industry and took on a role as the company’s European coordinator, while also earning an MBA from Schiller International University.
She rose quickly, becoming Computer Motion’s head of Europe and the Middle East, and later, its global vice president for training and education, which led her to Santa Barbara, California. When Intuitive Surgical acquired Computer Motion in 2003, Ms Zanganeh left the company to explore new opportunities.
Ms Zanganeh then found her true calling in biotech, eventually teaming up with fellow billionaire Robert Duggan to lead Summit Therapeutics.
Together, Mr Duggan and Ms Zanganeh are betting big on ivonescimab. Summit licenced the drug from Hong Kong-listed Akeso in 2022 for $500 million upfront, with the potential for an additional $4.5 billion in milestone payments.
Ms Zanganeh, diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and now fully recovered, joined Summit’s board later that year and was appointed co-CEO in September 2022, just months before securing the deal with Akeso.
Ivonescimab’s success is still in the early stages, with 20 clinical trials underway in China.
