Sheila Mikhail, JD, MBA

Adviser/Co-Founder, Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc.

Sheila Mikhail has over 20 years of biopharmaceutical leadership experience and is a Co-Founder of Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio), a company she started in 2001. She served as the Chief Executive Officer of AskBio until March 2023 and currently serves in the role of Advisor/Co-Founder. During her tenure as CEO, she built three GMP manufacturing facilities in Spain and AskBio’s excess capacity is sold under the tradename Viralgen for CDMO services and TAAV for plasmid supply.  With $235m in Series A funding, she built the company to over 349 employees operating in five countries. Under her leadership, AskBio has advanced programs into the clinic for Pompe, late stage Heart Failure, Parkinson’s, Multiple System Atrophy, and Huntington’s. In December 2020, Ms. Mikhail led the negotiation of the $4b AskBio acquisition by Bayer AG and has since grown the company to over 800 employees worldwide.  Prior to her role at AskBio, she served as Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Bamboo Therapeutics which, in 20 months, raised $50m, advanced a therapeutic for GAN into the clinic, completed pre-IND studies for a Duchenne muscular dystrophy therapeutic, and built a GMP manufacturing facility. Bamboo was acquired by Pfizer in August 2016 in a deal valued at $827m. Prior to that, she was part of the management team at Chatham Therapeutics which was acquired by Baxter in 2014. Ms. Mikhail practiced law for more than 15 years. During that time, she founded Life Sciences Law which serviced clients including Bayer, Gilead, GSK, Sanofi and Aventis. She also practiced with Ropes and Gray in Boston. She earned a JD with honors from Northwestern University, a finance MBA with honors from the University of Chicago, and a BS with highest honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.