Dave Penake

Dave has been the CEO of Saol Therapeutics since 2016.  In his role, he has been instrumental in the company strategy that resulted in more than $100M in aggregate financings and subsequent divestitures to support the funding needed to initiate new product development.  These successes ultimately led to the creation of a late-stage pipeline that included the approval of LYVISPAH® in 2021 and the sale of the Commercial programs that have accelerated Saol’s investment in SL-1002 in pain related to osteoarthritis of the knee, spasticity, and SL-1009 in rare diseases and oncology.

Prior to Saol, Dave held a number of roles with consistently growing responsibility at both Genentech and Corcept Therapeutics.  As Vice President of  Commercial Operations at Corcept, he was instrumental in the early turnaround of the Korlym® franchise, which has since continued to grow at a rapid pace.  His overall experience in the industry is based on a balance of commercial leadership roles and those which have required technical expertise in the areas of product development, manufacturing scale-up, finance and CMC.



Dave holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Northwestern University, as well as Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his post-graduate studies at Stanford University and has performed research at Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute.  Dave has been granted 10 US patents, multiple international patents and has pending applications in the fields of pharmaceuticals, drug delivery, medical devices and health technology.  He currently serves on the Georgia Bio Management Board.