SALT LAKE CITY – November 5, 2025 – BioUtah today announced its 2025 Life Sciences Awards. Five awards will be presented during the 2025 Mayer Brown Utah Life Sciences Summit November 12 at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center Hotel. BioUtah's annual awards recognize leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and companies who have made significant contributions to the state's life sciences industry.
To register for the summit and learn more about the award winners visit utahlifesciencessummit.com.
"We are proud to recognize this year's award winners," said Kelvyn Cullimore, president and CEO of BioUtah. "These honorees exemplify the innovation and dedication that define Utah's life sciences community, and their work continues to deliver transformative healthcare solutions to patients in Utah and the world over.”
"These awards reflect the dynamic leadership and culture of healthcare innovation we have here in Utah," said Mark Paul, executive director of the University of Utah Health Center for Medical Innovation and chair of the BioUtah Board of Directors. "I look forward to celebrating these distinguished individuals and companies at the summit."
Awards will be presented as part of the summit's morning plenary session. The awards and winners are as follows:
Wesley Sundquist, PhD, Samuels Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, University of Utah, for his decades-long contributions to Utah's life sciences industry, and in particular, for his research on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) assembly and replication, which led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Lenacapavir in June 2025, a drug Gilead Sciences created using his findings, for HIV prevention.
He received a BA degree in Chemistry from Carleton College, a PhD in Chemistry from MIT, and then did postdoctoral research with Sir Aaron Klug at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK.
Sundquist is a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Horwitz Prize for Biochemistry (Columbia University), the TIME100 2025 list of most influential people, the Bhaumik Breakthrough Prize (Science Magazine), the World Laureate Association Prize for Life Sciences, and the Alpert Foundation Prize in Biomedicine (Harvard University). He has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
Fred Lampropoulos, Executive Chairman, Merit Medical Systems, South Jordan, Utah, for his outstanding leadership, vision, and determination in founding and guiding Merit Medical Systems since its formation in 1987. He is the current Executive Chair of the Merit Medical Systems Board of Directors having recently transitioned from the position of President & CEO. Lampropoulos’ zeal for developing and bringing to market life-changing medical technologies has resulted in more than 500 domestic and international patents and applications on medical devices.
The company has benefited immensely from Lampropoulos’ experience and forward thinking. He has deep knowledge of the industry and the markets in which Merit’s products compete, and strongly supports his employees with on-site medical and dental clinics, and community gardens. He has shepherded the growth of Merit to over $1.5 billion in revenue through organic product development and strategic acquisitions. While headquartered in Utah, Lampropoulos has presided over Merit’s expansion to Texas and Virginia in the U.S., and globally to Ireland, Mexico, Singapore, Netherlands, and France.
He is the recipient of numerous community and industry awards, including the 2003 and 2018 Utah Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology, and the 2016 BioUtah Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition, he serves on several community and advisory boards.
Shawn Fojtik, CEO, Distal Access, Park City, Utah, for his bold, inspiring can-do spirit, and constant drive for innovation to improve patients’ lives, resulting in 100+ combined issued and pending patents and the founding of multiple companies, including Axiom, CIRCA, Distal Access, Fluidx, Pinyons, PolyEmbo, Transit, and VentiV, to name a few.
His intellectual property contributions include cardiovascular angioplasty and delivery catheters; embolic liquids and plugs; blood-clot filters; guidewire controllers; thrombectomy systems; electrophysiology mapping, ablation, sensing systems; and other technologies with more than one million safe-patient uses that Fojtik anticipates will be 10 times that amount soon. Fojtik’s technology has resulted in more than 10 exits to third parties who have commercialized or incorporated the technologies he has invented.
Fojtik brings to his pioneering endeavors years of senior level experience at GE, Boston Scientific, and Black & Decker.
Nusano, West Valley City. Utah, for developing a new class of targeted therapies using radioisotopes that deliver precise, high-energy radiation directly to tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue. Their proprietary platform can produce more than 40 different isotopes, enabling both advanced diagnostic imaging and next-generation cancer therapies.
Nusano has attracted some of the brightest minds in physics, chemistry, and engineering, individuals who left long-established careers in national labs, universities, and leading life-science companies. Their decision to come to Utah is bringing world-class expertise to a region that has long sought to build deeper technical capabilities in this field.
Nusano’s work is attracting other life sciences and radiopharmaceutical companies to Utah, such as Ratio Therapeutics and PharmaLogic that are interested in expanding their operations and partnerships in the state. Nusano’s technology is building an ecosystem of innovation that accelerates the fight against cancer, fuels job creation, and cements Utah as a destination for breakthrough science.
Taylor Randall, President, University of Utah, for his partnership and support in advancing Utah’s life sciences ecosystem.
Randall has been deeply involved with the state's life sciences industry through initiatives such as the Life Sciences Workforce Initiative to ensure the state has a pipeline of highly skilled workers for the field. His administration is focused on transforming the university's research into practical applications that benefit society and the state's economy, including building the University of Utah Eccles Health Campus and Eccles Hospital in West Valley to expand access to healthcare and training in Utah, the completion of the James LeVoy Sorenson Center for Medical Innovation, a world-class medical device incubator and the establishment of the University of Utah Venture fund in partnership with EPIC to help bring technologies through the valley of death.
In late 2024, Randall joined university, government, and industry leaders on a discovery tour to Galway, Ireland, which led to the creation of life sciences training and placement programs funded by the Utah legislature in 2025. He is the first university alum in 50 years to hold the position of President.
