Catherine Pearce receives 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award

May 2, 2024

Xavier will honor biopharmaceutical executive Catherine Pearce, DHSc (’97, MBA ’04) with its prestigious Distinguished Alumni Award.
 
The Distinguished Alumni Award is given annually to a Xavier alumnus or alumna who has given outstanding service to the University or society while living out Xavier’s Jesuit Catholic morals and ethical values.
 
Xavier’s Public Honors Committee presented Pearce as a candidate for the award to the Board of Trustees in December. Pearce will be formally recognized as the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient during Xavier’s Commencement ceremony, which takes place on May 11, 2024.
 
“Through her many accomplishments in the field of biopharmaceuticals, Catherine Pearce has demonstrated a commitment to serving others in accordance with our Jesuit Catholic mission,” said Shannon Cassidy-Cox (’00, M.Ed. ’04), who sits on Xavier’s Public Honors Committee. “Her professional career and her character exemplify the ideals we are collectively looking to foster within our Xavier students.”
 
Over the past 25 years, Pearce has worked to expand patient access to cost-effective medicine through the development, approval and retail distribution of therapeutic drugs. Pearce has led hundreds of global clinical trials of novel therapeutic drugs, which have resulted in dozens of marketing approvals worldwide.
 
As an executive, Pearce led a team at Teva Pharmaceuticals that was dedicated to making better, more accessible drugs from generic pharmaceutics.  Notably, Pearce’s evaluations led to the development of Uzedy© – a drug used for the treatment of schizophrenia. Under Pearce’s leadership and founding, a clinical research team at the biotech incubator CinRx developed multiple novel drugs in cardiovascular, oncology, and rare disease indications.  CinCor, a subsidiary of CinRx, was recently sold to AstraZeneca to advance a first-in-class medicine for hypertension and chronic kidney disease. 
 
With a goal of bringing more efficient and cost-effective medicine to patients, Pearce founded JucaBio – a biopharmaceutical incubator company that acquires and develops novel therapeutic medicines in areas of high unmet medical need.  Their first portfolio company, AllRock Bio, Inc., is dedicated to advancing a first-in-class compound for the disease of pulmonary arterial hypertension. 
 
Pearce serves on a number of private biotech Boards and Advisory Committees with a commitment to helping researchers with important medicines advance their drugs efficiently to reach the patients that depend on them.  She also mentors a number of students and professionals looking to work in the biotech industry.
 
Pearce earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology from Xavier in 1997. She returned to Xavier and earned her MBA in 2004 before going on to earn a doctorate in Heath Sciences from Nova Southeastern University in 2017.
 
Pearce has served as a member of Xavier’s President’s Advisory Council since 2020. She and her husband, Leonard, have three children.