Assistant Managing Editor Kerry A. Dolan sits with Co-CEO Maky Zanganeh of Summit Therapeutics.

Zanganeh earned hundreds of millions as an investor and executive, speaks four languages (Farsi, German, English, French), survived breast cancer and runs, as co-CEO with Bob Duggan, Miami-based Summit Therapeutics, a Nasdaq-listed biotech that has minted her a $1.5 billion fortune of her own.

That wealth has landed Zanganeh, now 54, on Forbes’ list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women (at No. 23) for the first time. She is one of 38 self-made female U.S. billionaires on the list, and one of just five to have made a billion-dollar-plus fortune in health care.