Roy Zwahlen

Roy Zwahlen, J.D. is the Chief Strategy Officer at Eshelman Innovation and Associate Dean for Strategic Partnerships and Risk Management at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Roy has spent his career studying, advising, and building system-level models of innovation in the life sciences sector. At Eshelman Innovation, Roy builds strategy and manages the operations that deploys approximately $26MM programmatically each year across therapeutics and digital health programs. For the School, Roy oversees risk management and compliance functions specifically designed to enable innovation and builds out strategic partnerships to help drive translation of key research and capabilities at the School.

Prior to coming to UNC, Roy worked at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization where he studied biotech ecosystem innovation models and advised governments on global best practices for systems that effectively move technologies through “the valley of death” between academic research, startups, companies, and capital. Based on strategy work Roy had completed around innovation models in underserved populations, Roy recently completed the Fulbright Specialist program in Australia evaluating the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country and exploring models and mechanisms to increase engagement by underrepresented communities.

Roy is the proud father of five children who fill his life to overflowing in all of the best ways (most of the time).