The following is an excerpt of an op-ed by MassBio CEO & President Kendalle Burlin O’Connell and Termeer Institute CEO Catharine Smith in the Boston Business Journal.
The biotech industry is entering a critical inflection point. After a brutal correction that shrank funding, forced layoffs and thinned company ranks, the sector is showing signs of recovery. But there’s a hidden vulnerability: The industry is running short on the executive leaders it needs to convert this momentum into lasting impact.
At its core, this is not just a workforce challenge — it is also a leadership challenge, tied directly to the industry’s mission of translating scientific discovery into meaningful improvements in patients’ lives.
This is playing out in the data. In a survey of our membership, over 90% of Massachusetts biopharma companies reported difficulty hiring for non-entry-level roles. The most cited reason? Small applicant pools. Companies are also failing to plan, with 86% reporting a lack of succession strategies for critical leadership roles. And there’s an equity issue that should surprise no one: Women hold only 14% of board seats at publicly traded bioscience companies.
That’s why we started building. In 2024, we co-launched the CEO & Founder Link, a peer network for biotech founders and first-time CEOs that has grown to more than 300 members. That work confirmed enormous demand for intentional leadership support at critical stages of growth. But we kept hearing the same thing from the next tier of leaders: senior directors and VPs who aspire to the C-suite but lack a clear development path to get there. Termeer Ascend is our answer.
Termeer Ascend: Leadership in Practice embodies Termeer’s philosophy at its core: the belief that to translate great science to critical patient impact, we need great leaders. It pairs real-world insights from experienced biotech leaders with skills-based modules for senior leaders just a few years from the C-suite. But we’re not just trying to accelerate the people already on that track. We want to broaden and diversify the whole pipeline, because the leaders who will shape the future of biotechnology won’t only advance science. They will shape cultures, steward trust and make decisions that ultimately determine how quickly and equitably new therapies reach patients.
Read the full op-ed in the Boston Business Journal.