Sarwar Islam

Sarwar Islam is a member of our Healthcare & Life Sciences and Private Equity practices. 

Sarwar has 25 years of experience in biopharma and medtech as a consultant and industry executive. He has deep expertise in driving growth strategies and large-scale transformations at global biopharma, off-patent pharma, and medtech clients. He has worked extensively across the US, Europe, and Japan, as well as in various emerging markets.

Prior to joining us, Sarwar was the Chief Corporate Development Officer and a member of the executive committee at Concordia International Corporation. While there, he was responsible for the near-term turn-around and longer-term growth of the company through expansion of the marketed portfolio and development of the new product pipeline, business development and licensing, and M&A and strategic alliances.

Previously, he served as a partner and managing director, as well as head of the Off-Patent and Established Medicines Practice, for another top consulting firm. Throughout more than 15 years there, he advised biopharma clients on inorganic moves to expand portfolio, pipeline, and geographical footprint; revenue uplift through market access, pricing, contracting, and commercial operations optimization; company-wide transformations to enhance profitability and drive operational improvements; and manufacturing and supply transformation to improve competitiveness on both cost and supply reliability. He also led asset identification, diligence, and portfolio value creation efforts for private equity funds.

He was trained as an organic chemist and molecular biologist and previously worked as a research scientist at Abbott Labs.

Sarwar is an active investor in early-stage healthcare companies, focusing on digital therapeutics and biotech. He has also served on the boards of several early-stage healthcare companies.

He holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.