Leen Kawas on why health innovation only matters if it's built for access

A breakthrough therapy that reaches only a fraction of the patients who need it isn't truly a breakthrough. It's a proof of concept with limited impact. This tension - between scientific achievement and real-world accessibility - defines one of biotechnology's most pressing challenges.

Leen Kawas, Managing General Partner at Propel Bio Partners, has built her investment philosophy around this conviction. "One of the main goals I aspire to achieve is accessible treatments," she explains. "I enjoyed the potential positive impact of reaching everyone." For Kawas, the measure of innovation isn't simply whether something works in a clinical trial. It's whether that something can actually reach the people who need it.

The Gap Between Discovery and Delivery

Scientific progress in biotechnology has been remarkable. Gene therapies now offer potential cures for conditions once considered untreatable. Precision diagnostics can detect diseases years before symptoms appear. Artificial intelligence accelerates drug discovery timelines that previously stretched across decades.

Yet access to these advances remains strikingly uneven. Clinical trials between 2000 and 2020 enrolled participants whose demographics bore little resemblance to actual patient populations - Hispanic participants comprised just 6 percent of median enrollment, Asian participants 1 percent, and one in five trials included zero Black participants. White participants, meanwhile, were overrepresented at 80 percent median enrollment.

These representation gaps create downstream consequences. Fewer than 20 percent of drugs approved between 2014 and 2021 included any trial data on treatment benefits or side effects specifically for Black patients. When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force sought to issue colorectal cancer screening guidelines for Black Americans - a population facing higher colon cancer mortality - insufficient study participation made specific recommendations impossible.

Innovation built on narrow foundations serves narrow populations. Leen Kawas recognised this dynamic early and structured her approach to biotechnology investment accordingly.

Designing for Reach From the Start

The traditional venture capital model evaluates companies primarily on scientific novelty and market potential. Kawas adds a third criterion: capacity to serve underserved populations. This isn't philanthropy dressed as investing. It's recognition that genuine market opportunities exist in addressing needs the industry has historically overlooked.

Propel Bio Partners' portfolio reflects this orientation. Persephone Biosciences, where Kawas serves on the board, is conducting the largest-ever study of infant gut health. Research indicates that 90 percent of U.S. infants lack key beneficial bacteria like Bifidobacterium infantis, potentially contributing to rising rates of allergies and chronic conditions. The company's My Baby Biome study uses mailed collection kits to reach diverse communities - a design choice that prioritizes accessibility from the research phase forward.

"Eventually all babies can develop a healthy gut microbiome," the company's CEO describes as the goal. This vision—universal benefit rather than selective availability - exemplifies what Kawas means by building innovation for access.

Inherent Biosciences addresses a different kind of access gap: gender equity in reproductive healthcare. Up to half of infertility cases involve male factors, yet women have historically shouldered the diagnostic burden through invasive procedures while male contributions received minimal scrutiny. Inherent's epigenetic sperm test provides answers that were previously unavailable, shifting care to be more equitable between partners regardless of economic status.

OmniVis tackles global health access through smartphone-enabled cholera detection. Traditional testing requires laboratory infrastructure and takes days. The OmniVis device diagnoses infections in 30 minutes using a simple disposable chip, designed specifically for vulnerable communities in developing countries or disaster zones where conventional diagnostics remain out of reach.

The Business Case for Inclusive Innovation

Skeptics might view access-focused investing as idealism that sacrifices returns. The evidence suggests otherwise. Healthcare disparities impose enormous economic costs - analysis indicates the United States could lose hundreds of billions of dollars over 25 years through reduced productivity and higher expenses attributable to unequal health outcomes.

Modest improvements yield substantial gains. Reducing disparities by just 1 percent would generate over $40 billion in economic benefits for diabetes care and $60 billion for cardiovascular disease treatment. Companies that design products for diverse populations position themselves to capture these opportunities while competitors remain focused on affluent, well-insured patient segments.

Regulatory dynamics reinforce this logic. When the FDA approved Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm, Medicare initially refused broad coverage and demanded additional trials with more representative patient samples. This unprecedented response signaled that payers and regulators increasingly expect innovations to demonstrate effectiveness across the populations that will actually use them. Companies building diversity into clinical trials from the outset avoid costly post-approval complications.

"I'm not just investing in women or minorities - I'm investing in diversity because this will bring the best innovation and the best returns," Leen Kawas emphasises. Studies consistently show companies with diverse leadership teams outperform homogeneous competitors. The same principle applies to product development: innovations designed for broader populations capture broader markets.

Beyond Financial Returns

For Kawas, the access imperative connects to motivations deeper than portfolio performance. Her journey from Jordan to American biotechnology leadership shaped a perspective on what innovation should accomplish. "I would love it to be accessible globally," she says of the technologies Propel Bio supports. "I want to invest in companies that are building technologies that can help human health."

This global orientation influences which opportunities attract her attention. Rather than concentrating exclusively on conditions affecting wealthy populations in developed markets, Propel Bio evaluates ventures addressing needs across economic and geographic boundaries. The firm's emphasis on supporting diverse founders reinforces this approach - leaders from varied backgrounds often identify opportunities that homogeneous teams overlook.

Clinical trial management represents one area where Leen Kawas sees immediate opportunity for improvement. She advocates for increased diversity in trial management teams, convinced that more women and minority trial managers would increase patient participation from those demographic groups. When potential participants see leadership that reflects their communities, trust increases and enrollment follows.

The Standard Worth Pursuing

Biotechnology has demonstrated extraordinary capacity to solve problems that seemed intractable a generation ago. The question facing the industry isn't whether scientific breakthroughs will continue. It's whether those breakthroughs will remain concentrated among populations already well-served by healthcare systems—or extend to communities historically left behind.

Leen Kawas has chosen her answer. By evaluating investments through the lens of accessibility, supporting founders committed to broad impact, and backing technologies designed to reach underserved populations, she's demonstrating that innovation and equity aren't competing priorities. They're reinforcing strategies that produce better science, stronger companies, and healthier communities.

The therapies that matter most aren't simply the ones that work. They're the ones that reach the people who need them.