President & Chief Executive Officer, vTv Therapeutics (February 2025)

Paul Sekhri has over 35 years of experience in the Life Science Industry. His experience encompasses senior management in large corporate pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as private equity and venture capital. Paul is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of vTv Therapeutics, Inc. Prior to this, he served as President and CEO of eGenesis, Inc. from 2019-2022 where he was a Board Member and Senior Advisor to the Chairman until 2024.

Paul has been a Director on more than 35 private, public company, and nonprofit Boards and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Veeva Systems, Chair of the Board at Compugen Ltd., and Kaerus Bioscience. He is also on the Board of AdhereTech Inc. He was, until recently, the Chairman of the Board of Pharming N.V. and was also Chair of the Board of Longboard, Inc. until its recent sale to Lundbeck. He also spent 5 years on the Board of Ipsen, S.A. Additionally, he is on the Board of Directors of The Metropolitan Opera, and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall. Most recently, he was nominated as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Young Concert Artists, Inc.

Key milestones in your career journey to date?

  • CEO of 4 biotech companies.
  • Senior leadership positions in 3 major pharma companies (Novartis, Teva, Sanofi).
  • 35 Board positions and 18 Board Chair positions.
  • Experience across the life science industry including Venture Capital, Private Equity, small biotech, big pharma, consulting.

Who has had the greatest influence over your career?

  • My first manager in the industry, Peter Savas, now CEO of Likeminds, who gave me my first shot.
  • My first manager at Millipore, Tim Leahy, who was really my first mentor.

What top three attributes make an outstanding and relevant leader in today’s world?

  • The ability to synthesize a lot of disparate information.
  • The ability to really listen (not out of politeness while you formulate a response).
  • The ability for pattern recognition to give you a head start in recognizing familiar situations and where things are the same and different.

Describe your approach to motivating and leading high-performing, multi-generational teams in a flexible hybrid working culture

  • Varying my communication approach to individuals and teams; which include spending “Zoom” time, phone calls, texts, emails etc as individuals and as a team and, importantly, scheduling face to face time in person on a regular basis (i.e. I get my entire leadership team together in person in NYC once a month – I think this is vital).

Are there particular leadership characteristics which have encouraged greater cultural diversity in your company, resulting in different behaviours and outcomes?

  • Being an LGBTQ+ manager has helped this, as well as focusing on expanding ones reach for the right individual while paying attention to creating a truly diverse team.

What are your learnings from the Biotech Winter which has engulfed the sector since 2022 and are you feeling quietly confident that a thaw is in process?

  • Always be raising money.
  • If offered more financing and think you need it, take it.
  • Diversify your investor base and be clear about real value inflection points. You don’t want to run out of gas just short of the finish line.
  • Don’t worry about dilution.
  • Our industry has proven again and again that it is cyclical and no doubt, even if a thaw is coming (is here?) there will be another winter at some point so keep focused on the bullets above.

How do you believe the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) 2022 will impact the biopharma sector, particularly investor habits? (www.bcg.com/publications/2023/navigating-inflation-reduction-act-impact-on-drug-pricing-innovation)

  • Personally, I am not worrying about the things that are really beyond my control as a leader.

What impact will AI make both operationally and across research applications in your business over the next 5 years?

  • For my business probably not much. For our industry, especially early R and later stage D, probably a great deal.

How do you switch off and strive for a healthy work/life balance?

  • I like the adage, “if you love what you do, you won’t work a day in your life”. That said, regularly scheduled “down time” is important too.
  • On the non-scientific front, I’ve had a lifelong passion for classical music. I started playing the violin at the tender age of five and continued until my twenties. Around the age of ten, I discovered the piano and became utterly captivated by it. This passion led me to set my life’s goal as becoming a concert pianist. I dedicated approximately five hours of daily practice for fifteen years before realizing that pursuing piano as a career might not be the most fulfilling path. Today, I find great satisfaction in chairing a 65-year-old organization called Young Concert Artists. Our mission is to nurture and develop world-class classical musicians, and it aligns perfectly with my own values and passions.

Tell me something about your company that you would like to share with the PIR community

  • If our drug is successful, it will offer the T1D community the first therapeutic agent since insulin. Our small molecule drug focuses on reducing the frequency of hypoglycaemic events, an area of high unmet need in this patient population.

What advice would you give your 23-year old self?

  • Don’t worry so much. Surely the universe is unfolding the way it should.

Words of Wisdom?

  • Best Advice I was given:
    • You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.
  • Advice I’d give:
    • Only connect. There’s nothing more important than connecting with people. People do business with people; companies don’t do business with companies.
  • What I wish I’d known:
    • Karma is real.