Mei Mei Hu

Industry: Health

Mei Mei Hu doesn’t have the typical pedigree of a pharmaceutical executive—especially not one who has embarked on the lofty, risk-filled quest of developing an Alzheimer’s vaccine. She’s not a scientist by training but rather a former McKinsey consultant with a Harvard Law degree who caught the drug development bug. Hu is also a female executive in an industry in which the C-suite is a notorious boys’ club. (Her mother is a renowned scientist and biotech entrepreneur, so maybe it runs in the family.) But Hu’s outsider sensibilities may prove a major asset as her company, United Neuroscience, seeks to succeed where countless other drug companies have failed. The firm is focusing on Alzheimer’s prevention rather than post hoc treatment—and if it succeeds, that could validate Hu’s innovative notion that vaccines can be just as effective for chronic diseases as they are for infectious ones.