'Patients are Waiting'

Mike Hennessy Jr., President and CEO, MJH Life Sciences

Welcome to the May issue of Pharmaceutical Executive, where this year, we feature our annual profile and recognition of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association’s (HBA) newest Woman of the Year. For 2024, that esteemed honor went to Yvonne Greenstreet, CEO of Alnylam. In early January, the HBA announced the longtime executive, who, notably, has also served in leadership roles at Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, as WOTY, and this month honored Greenstreet and other HBA award winners at a celebratory event in New York City. “Throughout her 25 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, she has been instrumental in delivering medicines that transform the lives of people living with diseases in the United States, Europe, and around the world,” the HBA said of Greenstreet in its January release.

Today, as CEO of Alnylam, where she first joined in 2016 as chief operating officer, Greenstreet is an influential presence across all facets of the business, from strategy to value creation to organizational development and R&D. Alnylam’s treatment efforts are centered in RNAi therapeutics, with specific focus on addressing rare genetic diseases, cardio-metabolic conditions, and hepatic infectious diseases. As COO, Greenstreet led the launch of Alnylam’s first three commercial products, which officially ushered in RNAi drugs as a new class of medicine. In 2022, with Greenstreet now CEO, the company won FDA approval for Amvuttra, the first second-generation RNAi therapeutic, which treats the nerve damage caused by hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis, an aggressive, debilitating, and often fatal disease. “Without taking risks, you’re not going to be able to innovate,” Greenstreet tells editor Mike Hollan in our profile piece. “...This is a culture that we foster with a purpose, and we call ourselves fiercely innovative.”

For Greenstreet, the “fierce” part of that calling was perhaps fostered at an early age. She was born in London but raised in Ghana, where she witnessed, first-hand, significant community struggles in accessing quality healthcare. That experience formed a desire in Greenstreet to be a physician. And, today, it permeates in the culture at Alnylam, one built, she says, on the understanding that “patients are waiting.”

Please join me in congratulating Greenstreet on her HBA accolade, and we hope you enjoy reading about her inspiring journey and story.

Mike Hennessy Jr. is President and CEO of MJH Life Sciences