b'RisingAntoinette Gawin, President & CEO of Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies, took the helm in 2019, after running M&A deals TO THE under Jack Welch at General Electric (GE) and then decades in VP roles at GE Healthcare and Baxter. She was the head of global com-mercial at Terumo BCT for three years before becoming president. C-SUITE Despite her Fortune 500 resume, Gawin didnt originally see herself in such a career. Raised in a Polish immigrant community in rural Michigan, Gawin grew up picking berries with migrant workers and working as a maid for wealthy people. She never Antoinette Gawin Leads considered college until one of those cleaning clients, EY partner $1.5 Billion Bioscience Business Dick Baker, suggested she apply to the University of Michigan. When youre a farm girl in the middle of nowhere, and you dont know anyone whos going to school, you cant imagine yourself doing things like going to work at GE or being an officer, Gawin says. So it was important to have somebody who said It doesnt matter if you dont know what it is, youre just going to go to school. And, trust me, its a good idea.Gawin gained a reputation over the decades as someone who could come in and turn around a business. Thats what Terumo BCT wanted, since the divisions sales had been flat for years.I knew how to grow organizations and make it stick, she says. But in the middle of that turnaround, the pandemic struck, and Gawin pivoted the company to use its blood filtering technology to help COVID patients before a vaccine emerged. Terumo BCTs device, Spectra Optia, was used by healthcare providers to filter COVID patients blood for cytokines, or the immune response triggered by the body to attack COVID, because cytokines would otherwise overwhelm their bodies and kill them. The hope was that COVID patients could leave the intensive care unit faster. The company also worked to ensure Terumo BCT could provide enough products amid demand for convalescent plasma. We had a 24/7 war room mentality, talking to customers ona daily basis trying to figure out where there might be a need, Gawin says. We hired several hundred people in Colorado to Terumo Blood and Cellkeep our factories going and ramp up.Terumo BCT is still absorbing the huge costs from COVID, but Technologies President &top-line growth has indeed surged. Now Gawin is working to CEO Antoinette Gawin grewstrengthen global operations, simplify Terumo BCTs global footprint and lean into products to automate blood processing, up in a rural community and automate the manufacturing of cell and gene therapies, and expand therapeutic applications, such as filtering blood for pursued higher educationgenetic markers to treat certain genetic disorders. thanks to the encouragementThe opportunity to use technology to combat disease appeals to Terumos inspirational leader. Thats wildly exciting for us, of an EY partner. says Gawin.20 BIOSCIENCE COLORADO 2024-2025'