Andrea Leone-Bay
Board Member

Andrea started her career as a synthetic organic chemist with a PhD from Texas A&M University. From there she spent one-year testing the academic waters as a lecturer at the University of Maryland and then moved on to a postdoctoral research position at The Ohio State University. Subsequently, Andrea made her initial foray into industry as a research chemist at Stauffer Chemical Company designing and making novel herbicidal compounds. But the pharmaceutical industry came calling and Andrea joined a small start-up, Emisphere Technologies, pursuing novel approaches to oral drug delivery. While there, Andrea invented an oral absorption enhancer called SNAC. It is the primary component of the Novo Nordisk diabetes blockbuster Rybelsus® oral tablet. Moving from oral drug delivery to inhalation drug delivery, Andrea joined Mannkind Corporation where she played a major role in the development and regulatory approval of Afrezza® inhaled insulin.

By this time, Andrea was an internationally recognized authority on drug delivery with extensive experience in drug development from inception to FDA approval. This experience led to an association with Greg Wesner and they co-founded Receptor Life Sciences where Andrea serves as Chief Scientific Officer. At Receptor, she’s developing an orally inhaled CBD for the treatment of acute anxiety.

Andrea lives in Connecticut with her husband and daughter. She is the President of the Board of Directors of ROAR (Ridgefield Operation for Animal Rescue) where she is also an animal care volunteer. Andrea will freely admit that she likes animals better than most people.

EDUCATION

• BA from Mount Holyoke College

• PhD from Texas A&M University

• National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at The Ohio State University

PUBLICATIONS

Andrea has two FDA-approved and currently marketed products to her credit. She is an inventor on 110 issued US patents and the author of 49 peer-reviewed journal articles.