Susana Frazao Pinheiro, PhD, MBA

Susana is a scientist (immunologist) with experience in academia, entrepreneurship, health and science policy and investment. She acts as investment advisor and assessor of life sciences innovation and technology for the EU and European Innovation Funds and is part of several Boards and Committees. She is currently building an innovative funding initiative in oncology.

She created and led the pioneering Healthcare and Life Sciences Initiative at the UCL School of Management; she was Associate Professor at UCL. Prior to that, Susana conducted and published research in HIV immunology in Oxford, the Medical Research Council in The Gambia and the NIH (Fort Detrick) in the USA. After her PhD, she worked in a clinical trial for an HIV vaccine at Oxford.

Susana entrepreneurial journey started in 2003, when she was co-founder of Oxford Entrepreneurs, created to bridge the gap between business and science. Twenty years ago, she started a pioneering initiative to use mobile phones to improve access to health in The Gambia, and them carried out a successful pilot of an innovative real-time, data-driven outbreak detection and prevention system, co-funded by the European Space Agency. This her to be named Social Capital Markets Entrepreneur 2012 (San Francisco). Susana was co-founder and Executive Director of IES - Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Portugal, that addressed innovation nationally.

She has spent over a decade working on health and security policy with the UN across several sites, and with Ministries of Health in Europe and Africa. Susana acted as scientific advisor to the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. 

Susana holds a Doctorate in Clinical Medicine (Immunology), and MBA both from the University of Oxford, a BSc in Microbiology and MSc in Tropical Medical Microbiology, from Portugal.

In 2022, her efforts to advance science and education were recognised by the President of Portugal, who bestowed her the Honour of Commander of the Order of Public Instruction.