In a venture ecosystem flooded with capital and fueled by innovation, one imbalance remains stubbornly intact: women founders receive a fraction of available funding. For Leen Kawas, this isn’t just a statistic—it’s a structural problem that limits the very innovation the industry claims to support. As a scientist, biotech entrepreneur, and CEO of EIT Pharma, she is building an alternative.
Kawas’s path into venture was forged through firsthand experience. As co-founder and former CEO of Athira Pharma, she raised over $400 million, took the company public, and joined the ranks of just 22 U.S. women to lead a company through an IPO. That visibility brought its own pressures, but it also granted her clarity. Despite having the data, the clinical assets, and the track record, access to capital remained a battle she had to win repeatedly. And she knew many others wouldn’t get the same chance.
The gender gap in venture funding is well-documented. In life sciences and biotech, it’s even sharper. Female founders struggle to secure lead investor positions, to be taken seriously in technical diligence, and to navigate networks that still function as closed loops. Leen Kawas doesn’t frame this as a bias issue alone. She frames it as a failure of imagination—a missed opportunity to fund companies with different questions, better representation, and often more sustainable models of leadership.
At Propel Bio Partners, Kawas has helped design a platform that confronts this head-on. The fund backs life science companies with high-impact potential, but it also prioritizes leadership teams that reflect the real world—women, people of color, and scientists whose experience isn’t always polished into investor-ready language. The goal isn’t optics. It’s access. Because the metrics for success don’t change with gender. What changes is who gets in the room.
Her philosophy is built on proximity. As someone who has sat across from skeptical boards and stood in front of IPO roadshows, Kawas understands what founders need—especially those not groomed by the usual accelerators or venture pedigree. They need capital, yes. But they also need someone who can help translate science into strategy, help anticipate regulatory barriers, and help navigate the social nuances of fundraising when you don’t look like everyone else at the table.
Kawas emphasizes that closing the gender gap isn’t about loosening standards. It’s about applying the same standards with the same scrutiny to everyone. Too often, female-led companies are judged on risk. Male-led companies are judged on potential. Kawas works to flip that script by investing in teams with scientific integrity, clear product-market fit, and operational discipline—while also pushing investors to interrogate their own defaults.
One of the challenges she names is the false neutrality of venture capital. Firms often insist that they are “founder-agnostic” or “data-driven.” But when deal flow is shaped by referrals, pitch introductions, and alumni networks, neutrality becomes a myth. Kawas encourages LPs and GPs alike to audit not just their portfolios, but their patterns—who gets follow-up, who gets coached, and who gets the benefit of the doubt.
Beyond funding, she believes that mentorship infrastructure is essential. Women founders often lack access to experienced advisors who understand the realities of raising a Series B while also leading a clinical trial team or balancing technical leadership with investor communications. At Propel, portfolio support includes not only capital strategy but also governance, positioning, and scale planning. Kawas doesn’t separate capital from guidance. She knows most founders—especially those breaking the mold—can’t afford to either.
There is also a generational component to her work. Leen Kawas wants the next wave of women in science and tech to see venture not just as a gatekeeping mechanism but as a tool they can master and, eventually, reshape. That means shifting narratives early—training PhDs to think about capitalization, training postdocs to think about leadership, and encouraging women at all stages to think expansively about their place in biotech’s future.
For Kawas, the gender gap is not just a question of representation. It is a constraint on progress. Ideas are being lost. Products are being delayed. Patients are being underserved. Not because the science isn’t viable—but because the system still filters founders through a narrow lens of credibility.
Her work at Propel offers an alternative: a structure where merit is still king, but access isn’t pre-filtered. Where diversity isn’t a quota, but a signal of relevance. And where women don’t just get funded—they get built in.
In Leen Kawas’s view, closing the gender gap isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the most pragmatic way to accelerate innovation in life sciences. Because better ideas come from more places. And the future of medicine should reflect that.
Learn more about Leen Kawas’ other work at Inherent Bio as a member of the board.