People often ask me how I select the nominees for best biopharma CEO of the year an honorific that Ive been giving out since 2008. The winnowing process starts with public companies private company CEOs are not considered. (Sorry, startup CEOs, you need to grow up first.) Delivering significant value to shareholders is very important. Beyond that, the process gets more subjective. Theres no algorithm, spreadsheet, or fancy analysis that spits out definitive answers. I solicit potential nominees via social media and ask some trusted sources for advice, but the final list relies a lot on my gut and experience. A big jump in stock price is nice, but how was the outperformance delivered and why? Is there a compelling story behind the achievement?

This years best biopharma CEO finalists four in total come from a list of just over two dozen names. Congratulations to them all. There were two or three worthy candidates who were close but didnt quite make the cut. Apologies, but perhaps next year.

Perhaps next year we can also see a better gender balance; the industry, despite talking the talk lately on diversity, has precious few women CEOs. Emma Walmsley of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is the only female CEO among the 25 largest drug makers. Next year, Reshma Kewalramani will join Walmsley when she takes over the top job at Vertex (VRTX) Pharmaceuticals.

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As in previous years, youll have the opportunity to vote for your favorite CEO at the end of this post. Our champion will be announced on Friday. Oh, and stay tuned for my list of the worst CEO nominees, coming Tuesday

Doubt Global Blood CEO Ted Love at your peril. Thats a good lesson coming out of 2019.

Love said he was going to develop a drug that treats sickle cell disease in an entirely new way. Done. Love said he was going to raise much-needed awareness of sickle cell disease and bring patients into the decision-making process on clinical trial design and endpoints that mattered. Done. Love said he was going to convince the FDA that the traditional review methodology for approving a sickle cell drug was not the only way. Done.

The only thing Love didnt promise was that the FDA would approve Global Bloods sickle cell drug three months faster than expected. But thats what happened. The newly approved drug is called Oxbryta. Love delivers and then surprises.

I doubted Love at various times over the past year and he proved me wrong. Im not making that mistake again.

This is Marganores second best biopharma CEO nomination. In 2017, I chose him as a finalist for steering Alnylam to its first Phase 3 clinical trial win with a drug that works via RNA interference, a technology that uses snippets of genetic code to shut down disease-causing genes. That drug, Onpatrro, was approved and launched commercially in 2018.

Why does Maraganore deserves another slot on this hallowed list? Because a second Alnylam RNAi drug called Givlaari was approved in November, three months faster than expected. And with that approval, RNAi can no longer be dismissed as a scientific novelty, albeit one that won the Nobel Prize. RNAi is real. It works, and the direct effects can be seen in patients with rare inherited diseases who are benefiting from treatment. Maraganore deserves a lot of credit for making that happen.

Indirectly, Maraganores leadership in establishing RNAi has spawned renewed interest in RNAi-based drug development deals across the industry. There was a time when Big Pharma embraced RNAi, then abandoned the technology. Maraganore and Alnylam stuck with it. Now, smaller RNAi companies like Dicerna and Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals (ARWR) are scoring lucrative partnerships with Roche (RHHBY), Alexion Pharma, Novo Nordisk (NVO), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). The biggest RNAi deal took place at the end of November, when Novartis (NVS) announced plans to acquire The Medicines Co. for nearly $10 billion. Inclisiran, the RNAi drug at the center of the deal, was developed originally at Alnylam.

2019 was the year that Seattle Genetics became more than a one-product story. A string of clinical successes established a legit cancer pipeline that sets the drug maker up for new approvals and accelerated growth. Seattle Genetics stock price more than doubled this year, and with a $20 billion market valuation, the company is now banging on the door to the large-cap biotech club.

The long knock on Seattle Genetics has been its reliance on Adcetris, an antibody-drug conjugate approved to treat two different types of lymphoma that is not quite a commercial blockbuster. The emerging pipeline this year changed the fundamental story.

First, Seattle Genetics and partner Astellas unveiled strong clinical data and submitted a marketing application to the FDA for enfortumab vedotin, a second antibody-drug conjugate targeting bladder cancer. On top of that, the company scored a major victory with the successful outcome from a late-stage clinical trial involving its HER2-targeted breast cancer drug called tucatinib.

In July, van de Stolpe negotiated a deep research partnership with Gilead Sciences (GILD) that brought in $5.1 billion in cash and equity while still allowing Galapagos to maintain its independence.

The deal had upside for both sides. Gilead needed a pipeline recharge and had cash to spend, so it secured a preferential relationship with a highly regarded bench of European scientists and drug developers, plus ownership or option rights on more than two dozen drugs.

Galapagos received acquisition-type money without being acquired and a relationship with one of the most successful and experienced commercial companies in the industry.

Gilead and Galapagos were already collaborating on the development of filgotinib, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases of the immune system, but the July partnership turned the relationship into something akin to what Roche had with Genentech before the two companies formerly merged. Galapagos stock price has more than doubled this year.

Heres your chance to vote:

Update: Voting was closed on Dec. 19, 2019.

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Here are the nominees for best biopharma CEO of 2019. Vote here! - STAT

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