Empowering Health: The Inspiring Journey of Lital Gilad-Shaoulian and Purpose Bio

Lital Gilad-Shaoulian is an experienced entrepreneur and business leader with a deep passion for empowering the next generation of biotech innovators. She’s the Founder and CEO of PurposeBio, an LA-based preclinical synthetic biology platform company developing best-in-class therapeutics for unmet needs in cardiometabolic disease, including obesity.

With a background in tech product development, strategic sales, revenue growth, and marketing, she brings a unique blend of expertise in business development and leadership to her current ventures. Lital is passionate about giving back and serves as Startup mentor at Nucleate, and is a Founding Ambassador at Boost by BioBreak, a platform fostering community and positive change in the life science industry.

We recently set down with Lital, as one of the most influential female CEOs in biotech today, to talk about her passion about making a meaningful impact on patients’ lives.

Radyus: What inspired you to start a company in the biotech industry?

Lital: A few years ago, after 20 years in the high-tech industry, I felt it was time to make a big and meaningful change. I felt I was on automatic mode and didn't have a challenge in a career I actually loved.

Turning 40 and witnessing a friend go through a major health crisis that changed his and his family's lives forever, played a big role in the drive to go for it.

I knew I wanted the following:

1. To build something with a huge, positive meaningful impact on human life. I was hoping to leverage my skills for a good and important Purpose.

2. To choose the people I work with: I was fortunate to experience many types of companies’ DNA and culture. I’m striving to build a culture of utmost excellence and impact, without jeopardizing the critical values of support, empowerment, and respect to one another.

3. And - after building successful businesses, some with major exits, for so many years for others, it was time to build my own successful business.

So, I started as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) at Menlo Park, searching for a real world problem to solve that could help as many humans to be healthier and happier. Knowing I came from the tech world, SRI suggested I read about bioinformatics to start my quest. I started reading, learning, and researching and came across Dr. Elaine Hsiao's phenomenal scientific articles in Nature. These sparked some ideas so I reached out to UCLA's Tech Transfer office, and here we are 4 years later... today Elaine is my co-founder and we are developing a super novel drug.

Radyus: Can you share a bit about your company's mission and the impact you hope to make in the industry?

Lital: We aim at helping 1 in 2 adults in the world lead a healthier life.

As an adult, who has kids, a family, and lost my most amazing dad to cancer, I know that health is all we need. Good health is a critical base for happiness and success.

Our drugs could potentially help billions of people, as cardiometabolic diseases are impacting so many of us. Obesity alone impacts between 30%-50% of adults, depending on where you live.

The Metabolic Syndrome umbrella is our indication bucket. We are working hard to develop safer and more tolerable drugs that will be highly efficacious, in order to meaningfully help as many people as possible.

Radyus: What advice would you give to other women who are aspiring to start their own biotech companies?

Lital: Whether they’re a woman or man, I would ask them first if they are ready for a double marathon. This journey is long and complex.

As much as its complex, it is extremely rewarding.

I would advise, as in any area, if you want something, and you truly believe you have the skills and ability to attract world class talent to help you make this happen, then sit down, make a detailed plan for the next 5-10 years (it will change for sure, but you need to start somewhere) and go for it.

You'll need the best people with you. The team - the human capital, as in so many other industries, is everything. Our team and our company are a sophisticated puzzle in the making. You need expertise in many areas. While you can learn anything, having world class subject matter domain experts is key. As a leader, the more advice and better advice you have, the better decisions you can make. I always ask as many professionals I trust for their thoughts, even if I know some will have complete different opinions. I then use this tool bag of great advice, and decide which advice or parts of advice I take, and am able to form a solid decision. Professor Eran Elinav, M.D, PhD from The Weizmann Institute is the Chair of our Scientific Board. Having Professor Elinav as the

North of every scientific decision, gives me extra faith in our complex journey.

I personally always go for the most experiences, most validated world class talent. While making sure, we always choose genuinely good people to work with.

And lastly, in the beginning of this journey, I was very insecure about making ‘scientific suggestions’ since I’m not a scientist. I’ve seen that you can always bring a unique angle to the table. Sometimes, not being a scientist, and having a real different perspective, is as important and makes the puzzle become stronger and more powerful.

Radyus: Thank you for your time and insights. How can people learn more about your work and Purpose Bio?

Lital: They can go to our website https://www.purposebio.com/ or ping me directly here on LinkedIn. I’m super passionate about what we do and the potential to change lives for the better. Always happy to discuss ways to make it happen or offer advice if I can.