BioUtah Announces 2025 Life Sciences Award Winners at Annual Summit
TL;DR
BioUtah's 2025 Life Sciences Awards showcase innovators whose breakthroughs like HIV drug development and cancer therapies create significant market advantages for Utah's life sciences industry.
BioUtah presents five awards at its November 12 summit recognizing leaders based on criteria including research impact, patent development, company growth, and ecosystem building contributions.
These award winners are developing transformative healthcare solutions including HIV prevention drugs and precise cancer therapies that improve patient outcomes worldwide.
Wesley Sundquist's HIV research led to FDA-approved Lenacapavir while Nusano's platform produces 40+ isotopes for cancer treatment, showcasing Utah's scientific innovation.
The 2025 BioUtah Life Sciences Awards will recognize five outstanding contributors to Utah's life sciences industry during the Mayer Brown Utah Life Sciences Summit on November 12 at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center Hotel. These annual awards celebrate leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and companies whose work has significantly advanced the state's life sciences sector and delivered transformative healthcare solutions globally.
Wesley Sundquist, PhD, Samuels Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah, receives recognition for his decades of contributions to Utah's life sciences industry. His groundbreaking research on human immunodeficiency virus assembly and replication directly led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of Lenacapavir in June 2025, a preventive HIV drug developed by Gilead Sciences using his findings. Sundquist's distinguished career includes numerous honors such as the Horwitz Prize for Biochemistry, inclusion in the TIME100 2025 list of most influential people, and membership in both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
Fred Lampropoulos, Executive Chairman of Merit Medical Systems, is honored for his exceptional leadership and vision in founding and guiding the company since 1987. Under his direction, Merit Medical Systems has grown to over $1.5 billion in revenue through organic product development and strategic acquisitions. Lampropoulos holds more than 500 domestic and international patents and applications on medical devices and has expanded the company's operations to Texas, Virginia, and multiple international locations including Ireland, Mexico, and Singapore. His commitment to employee welfare includes providing on-site medical and dental clinics and community gardens.
Shawn Fojtik, CEO of Distal Access, is recognized for his innovative spirit and dedication to improving patients' lives through medical technology. With over 100 combined issued and pending patents, Fojtik has founded multiple companies including Axiom, CIRCA, Distal Access, and Fluidx. His intellectual property contributions span cardiovascular angioplasty catheters, embolic liquids, blood-clot filters, and thrombectomy systems, with technologies that have achieved more than one million safe-patient uses. Fojtik's innovations have resulted in more than 10 successful exits to third-party companies that have commercialized his inventions.
Nusano, based in West Valley City, is honored for developing a revolutionary platform for targeted cancer therapies using radioisotopes. Their proprietary technology can produce more than 40 different isotopes that deliver precise, high-energy radiation directly to tumor cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. The company has attracted top talent from national labs, universities, and leading life-science companies, bringing world-class expertise to Utah. Nusano's work is drawing other radiopharmaceutical companies like Ratio Therapeutics and PharmaLogic to the state, creating an innovation ecosystem that accelerates cancer treatment development and job creation.
Taylor Randall, President of the University of Utah, is recognized for his partnership and support in advancing Utah's life sciences ecosystem. His administration has focused on transforming university research into practical applications through initiatives like the Life Sciences Workforce Initiative and the establishment of the University of Utah Venture Fund in partnership with EPIC. Randall's leadership has been instrumental in developing the University of Utah Eccles Health Campus, completing the James LeVoy Sorenson Center for Medical Innovation, and creating life sciences training programs funded by the Utah legislature following a 2024 discovery tour to Galway, Ireland.
Registration for the summit and additional information about the award winners is available at https://utahlifesciencessummit.com. These awards highlight the dynamic leadership and culture of healthcare innovation that continues to position Utah as a global destination for breakthrough medical science and technology development.
Curated from Reportable