Namal Nawana is a business leader and health care investor and entrepreneur with a focus in the medical devices and diagnostics industry. He is the chairman and founder of Neoenta, a wholly owned private company with ownership interests and intellectual property assets in health care.
Mr. Nawana is the executive chairman and founder of Sapphiros, a consumer diagnostics company in partnership with leading global private equity firm KKR. He has previously founded or co-founded several medical technology and in-vitro diagnostics companies, including GrapheneDx, Satio and InnoVoyce. He is the author of extensive U.S. and international patents and select peer-reviewed scientific articles.
Through his design firm Neoenta Design, he has personally led the design of numerous technologies, most recently the blood draw and detection patches and drug delivery and self-vaccination patches that form Satio’s portfolio.
Mr. Nawana has extensive experience leading global public companies and was formerly chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of Smith & Nephew Plc, based in the United Kingdom. During his tenure, he led a strategic and operational transformation, resulting in marked improvements in business performance and an increase in market capitalization of over $8 billion in just 18 months.
Prior to that, he was chief executive officer and member of the board of directors of Alere Inc., a NYSE listed company, until its $8 billion acquisition by Abbott Laboratories in 2017. Alere was known as the global leader in rapid diagnostics, delivering some 1.5 billion tests annually to global markets. Mr. Nawana led the turnaround at Alere, resolving quality, operational, financial and culture challenges, resulting in a greater than three-fold improvement in its enterprise value during his tenure.
Before joining Alere, he spent more than 15 years at Johnson & Johnson in progressively senior leadership roles globally, including Worldwide President of Johnson & Johnson’s multibillion dollar DePuy Synthes spine business.
Mr. Nawana is a member of the board of directors of Hologic, Inc., a Nasdaq-listed company, and past board member of AdvaMed and separately AdvaMedDx, the peak industry associations of the medical device and diagnostics industries. He is a past board member of Malaria No More, an organization dedicated to the reduction in mortality from malaria and eradication of the disease.
Mr. Nawana holds an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in medical science from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, as well as a Master of Business Administration from Henley Management College.