Dr Clet Niyikiza, a Rwandan living in the Unites States, and his team at Lifting and Empowering All Families (L.E.A.F.) Pharmaceuticals have won the 2016 Health Care Innovator Award, in recognition for their leadership and innovation in the fight against cancer.
Dr Clet Niyikiza, a Rwandan living in the Unites States, and his team at Lifting and Empowering All Families (L.E.A.F.) Pharmaceuticals have won the 2016 Health Care Innovator Award, in recognition for their leadership and innovation in the fight against cancer.
The award, from the Philadelphia Business Journal, honours the people and companies who are disrupting the health care and biotechnology industries and solidifying Greater Philadelphia’s reputation as a centre for innovation, according to a statement from Rwandan Embassy in Washington D.C, US.
Dr Niyikiza, the Founder, President and CEO of L.E.A.F. Pharmaceuticals LLC, has since 2005 been a member of President George H. W. Bush’s C-Change national forum dedicated to the advancement of cancer research, treatment and prevention.
L.E.A.F. Pharmaceuticals LLC is a global pharmaceutical company located in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with a mission to discover, develop and commercialise innovative and safe therapies for cancer.
Dr Niyikiza said, in a statement, that being among the Honorees of the 2016 Health Care Innovator Awards is a recognition of his company’s core belief, commitment, and dedication to the value proposition of indeed lifting and empowering all families, "through the development of innovative, effective and safe medicines for patients.’’
"We are pleased to receive this Health Care Innovator Award because it recognises the ongoing commitment of our team at L.E.A.F. to apply innovative approaches with state-of-the-art technological advances to the discovery and development of world-class cancer therapies in the Philadelphia area,” Niyikiza added.
Dr Niyikiza, a father of three children, holds a doctorate in Mathematics from Indiana University-Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A., and is currently a member of the Presidential Advisory Council of Rwanda.
He is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
"Congratulations to Dr Clet Niyikiza and his team at L.E.A.F. who were recognised for their leadership and innovation in #fighting against cancer,” Twitted Mathilde Mukantabana, the Rwandan Ambassador to the U.S.
Since L.E.A.F. began operations in August 2014, the company has filed nearly a dozen patent applications to protect its intellectual property.
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