Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 142 - Cary Claiborne - CEO of Adial Pharma

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Episode 142 - Cary Claiborne - CEO of Adial Pharma · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  Welcome to another episode of the Bio Hub brought to you by
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  Avetix Talent Solutions. I'm here with with Carrie
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  Claiborne. He's the CEO of Adyle Pharma, a
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  clinical stage company working in medicines for addiction,
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  which is doing such important work.
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  Today we're going to talk about Carrie's tales across finance
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  and M&A, stepping into ACEO role and Adyle's mission and why it's
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  so important especially in in in today's market.
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  So let let's jump into it, Carrie.
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  So first of all, I just want to talk about your journey from
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  finance and M&A to biotech leadership.
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  What what was the transition like for you, and what surprised
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  you most when you first jumped into biotech?
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  First of all, let me say thanks Max for for having me on the on
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  the podcast. Love to talk about a dial and
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  what we're doing here. So, but yeah, let me start with
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  my career. You know, I started my career
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  for over 40 years ago with GE right out of school.
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  I spent the 1st 15 years of my career working at GE and GE
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  Capital during the the Jack Welch year.
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  So it was a great place to learn.
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  Ultimately, I was CEO and President of a subsidiary of GE
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  called New Generation New Enterprise Wholesale Services.
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  And I left GE to go to MCI as Vice President of FP and a
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  financial planning and analysis where I worked on their merger
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  with Worldcom, which at the time was the largest merger in U.S.
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  history with Worldcom. Once I left MCI was VP of FP and
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  A at Home Depot and Constellation Energy.
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  And then in the early 2000s when I was about, you know, in my
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  early 40s, I really started to look back at my career up to
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  that point. And I felt like, you know, I had
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  some great jobs, had great experience, help companies like
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  GE and Home Depot and others make a lot of money and grow
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  successfully. But if I thought about what kind
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  of mark I was making, what kind of legacy I was leaving, I felt
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  like I haven't really made the kind of mark that I wanted to
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  make a mark that can't be a race, so to speak.
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  And I transitioned, I look, you know, I was looking for ACFO
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  role and I joined a really small biotech company called Osiris
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  Therapeutics, which was private at the time.
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  And they were looking for someone with a strong financial
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  background that could take the company public ultimately.
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  And the company had a great mission.
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  They their, their goal was to be the first company to get an
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  adult stem cell product on the market.
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  And what struck me the most was the passion that those employees
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  had for that mission. And they were working on some
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  really devastating diseases. Their primary focus was a
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  disease called graft versus host disease.
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  And these are cancer patients that got a bone marrow
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  transplant and then that transplant starts attacking the
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  body. And once they've exhausted all
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  the therapies that are on the market, their mortality chances
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  were about 80% that they were going to die.
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  And a lot of these patients were babies.
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  And because Osiris's drug wasn't approved, patients had the
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  physician to the FDA to get compassionate use, which led to
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  a lot of work on Osiris's part to get that drug to those
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  patients. And we were literally saving
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  babies lives. And I just remember at the time
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  thinking, wow, I mean, this is so much more important than how
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  many cans of paint we sold at Home Depot last.
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  And that really, you know, sold me on life sciences.
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  I've never really looked back from that.
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  And it was a, you know, a big transition going from, you know,
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  GE, Home Depot, MC has some of the largest companies in the
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  world going to a company like Osiris that had just 30
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  employees. So big transition.
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  But again, the passion that those employees felt, you know,
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  was, you know, contagious. You know, you just felt it, too.
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  And you really felt like you could make a difference in terms
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  of actually saving people's lives.
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  Yeah. I love your.
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  Story because it it it's not typical.
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  And I think this podcast will really shed a light on some
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  people who have been in biotech their whole career in no other
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  industry. And just, you know, for them,
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  it's so easy just to to take it all for granted, the work
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  they're doing and, and, and how purposeful it is.
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  But listening to this, I think that you could really sit back
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  and go out. You know, we are actually super
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  lucky to work in an industry like this.
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  Absolutely. But you know, it was really
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  wasn't a job for these people. It was really a mission, a
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  mission to, you know, get something to market for an unmet
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  need that can help people. So, you know, after Osiris, you
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  know, as I said, I kind of never looked back.
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  Yeah, I would. I spent a brief time in biofuels
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  running a company called New Generation Biofuels, first as
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  their CFO and then ultimately the CEO there.
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  They were a public company working on renewable energy.
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  I then was at SU Campo Pharma as CFO and you know my first
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  exposure to drug therapies for addiction was when I joined a
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  company called Endeavour to complete their spin off from
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  Reckitt and Kaiser. And Endeavour is the leading
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  company in addiction treatments. They do about a billion a year
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  in revenue treating opiate addiction.
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  That was my first real exposure to the addiction industry, which
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  ultimately led me to a dial. Yeah, yeah.
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  In that time at Indivio, I could see you know how, how much it
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  meant to you because then came Adal, right And you were, you
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  were COO before stepping into the CEO position.
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  Right. Just just talk us through the
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  initial attraction into ADAL. And then what?
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  What is your guy's mission? Yeah.
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  So again, what attracted me to ADAL was their the mission of
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  treating addiction. It's it's somewhat personal to
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  me because I lost a very close family member years ago to
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  addiction. So it became personal.
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  That's what attracted me to endeavor and then ultimately a
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  dial and I joined a dial first as a board member helping the
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  current at the time CEO. And you know, after the company
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  reported out on the phase three study that had some mixed
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  results and really put the company into a turn around
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  situation, the board asked me if I would be interested in
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  becoming the CEO. I had already kind of stepped in
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  as CEO to help the CEO at the time and they wanted to make a
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  make a change at that point. And I felt like, you know, first
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  I had to decide whether, you know, coming out of this miss
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  endpoint in the clinical trial, whether there was a path for it.
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  And I really saw an opportunity there and decided to, you know,
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  step in as CEO and see if we can really develop a path for it.
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  And, you know, talking just about a DIAL, its mission is
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  treating addiction, primarily focused right now on alcohol use
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  disorder, which is a huge unmet need.
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  In the US alone, it's estimated over 30 million people suffering
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  from alcohol use disorder. And there haven't been any new
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  treatments on the market since 2006.
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  So there are a lot of people suffering from it.
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  And we think we have a really a novel approach at a DIAL in
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  terms of how to treat that. Yeah, it's, it's awesome to be
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  fair, just just in layman's terms and and for those who
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  don't know, Adal, just just give us a snapshot of the whole
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  problem, what you're doing to solve it.
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  And then and then just talk us through your lead candidate as
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  well and how that that fits in. So again, the problem, you know,
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  is, you know, alcohol use for it really is alcohol.
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  People that are addicted to alcohol, you know, they drink
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  too much. You know, it's, it's a huge,
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  huge issue, huge public health crisis worldwide, much larger
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  actually than the opiate crisis, which gets a lot of attention.
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  There are more people really dealing with alcohol related
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  issues. It's the number one cause of,
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  you know, risk factor for death for people aged 15 to 49 in the
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  US. It impacts over 200 different
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  diseases. You know, there's the domestic
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  abuse that happens when people drink too much.
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  You know, someone gets behind the wheel of a car and not only
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  hurts themselves, it can a lot of times hurt people they don't
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  even know. Other families are impacted by
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  it. So it is it's really a a major
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  problem. And as I said, no new treatments
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  have been on them, you know, come to the market in over 20
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  years. So because of that, there are
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  very few people that even seek medical treatment for alcohol
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  use disorder because. Sorry, why is that, that there
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  hasn't been new anything new on the market for so long?
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  Well, you know, that's a really great question.
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  I think, you know, the bigger farm companies, farmer companies
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  haven't really focused on addiction as much.
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  They're going after, you know, other other diseases.
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  There have been attempts at new therapies that just haven't
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  haven't worked out or gotten approved.
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  So I think there, there are various factors and it's just
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  hasn't been as widely talked about until, you know, more
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  recently about, you know, it is such a large devastating issue.
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  And it got, you know, much worse over COVID where people were
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  less, you know, staying at home. And, you know, one of the few
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  stores that were open at the middle, you know, the beginning
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  of the pandemic where the liquor stores were so people were just
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  sheltering in place and drinking and it just got worse from that
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  standpoint. But we think at a dial, we
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  really have a, a novel approach to treating this because our
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  drug, our drug candidate is a precision medicine.
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  So it's really targeted to only patients with a certain genetic
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  profile. So it's not for everyone.
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  We know that and we believe that, you know, treating
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  addiction, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
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  Our approach is to focus on the data showing that people that
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  have a certain genetic profile, this drug candidate seems to
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  help them drink less. And, and one of our, you know,
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  differentiators is our drug is really designed to help people
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  drink less. They don't necessarily have to
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  stop drinking entirely. And that is different from the
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  other drugs that were approved on the market.
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  They were all, you know, designated to have someone go
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  abstinent, you know, stop drinking entirely and then
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  maintain that. And you know, that's a goal
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  there works for a very small percentage of people that can
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  maintain that long term, because usually if someone has to stop
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  drinking, making entirely and maintaining an absence, they
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  have to make a pretty radical change in their life to be able
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  to do that. You know, a lot of times they're
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  they're strongly encouraged to stay away from triggers that may
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  encourage them to drink again. And that could be certain family
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  members or friends or going to social events, you know, where
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  alcohol is being served. And you know, if you think about
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  how many social events have you ever been to that there wasn't
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  an open bar or alcohol being served?
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  So it's, it's really hard for, for people to maintain and
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  therefore a lot of them don't try that kind of treatment.
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  So our, our approach is different.
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  You know, our drug is designed to take them down from heavy
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  drinking down to more moderate levels and get, really get it
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  under control. And we think that's going to,
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  you know, that's a breakthrough approach to treating alcohol
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  addiction. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense,
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  makes perfect sense. And like love what you guys are
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  doing. We're we're, we're in a tough
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  market now right as well. And you guys are fairly unique
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  in terms of being a public micro cap company clinical stage.
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  But like what what? What are the challenges of
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  running a micro cap company in in this market?
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  Yeah, great. I mean, great question.
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  I mean, running a micro cap, you know, clinical stage, biotech or
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  biopharm company, to me, it's like steering a fragile ship
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  through a storm. And if you think about it, you
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  know, you've got high risk, you're trying to develop a drug,
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  you've got limited resources, you know, there's no guarantees.
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  You're dealing with financial constraints, investor scrutiny.
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  And it makes it one of the toughest environments from my
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  perspective for any leadership team, because you're clinical
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  stage and you don't have a product on the market, you know,
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  you don't have revenue. So you're heavily dependent on
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  external sources to finance the business.
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  And it's last as your point, you know, the last several years
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  have been extremely tough in the capital markets for for these
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  micro cap companies to raise capital.
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  And it requires a lot of capital to move from clinical stage to
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  commercial stage. And it's very tough in this
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  market where the last, you know, time I look, which wasn't that
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  long ago, there were still hundreds of micro cap companies
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  trading below their cash value, which means the market really
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  isn't giving them any value for their technology, which is
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  really unusual, right? Because you know, some of these
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  companies are going to make it. And you know, if you can get to
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  the approval stage, you know, investors will be rewarded, but
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  it's really difficult to attract the larger institutional
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  fundamental investors that can, you know, invest for the long
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  term. So then therefore, you're
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  dependent on multiple capital raises, are relying on grants or
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  other kind of partnerships to get to that stage of, you know,
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  being commercially viable. So it's extremely challenging
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  for doing that. And the way, you know, you want
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  to ask about how do you keep your team motivated through
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  that? You have to really set a clear
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  mission for what the long term goal is and and making sure
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  everyone on the team understands what the impact is of achieving
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  that mission that ultimately it's all about, you know,
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  getting this drug to the market that can help these patients
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  that that are really suffering. Yeah, do you.
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  But we talk about getting the team motivated and yeah, the
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  main goal is to get these drugs to market.
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  What about people who don't know people with addiction, right?
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  Like they haven't seen it first hand.
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  Do you, you know, get them alongside patients that you're
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  treating and help them see the value there?
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  Like is the value in that or? Yeah, I think it is.
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  But you know, yeah, one of the things I found with, you know,
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  what we're focusing on is that just about everyone I speak to
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  knows someone that struggled with alcohol, right.
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  So it's not some rare, you know, disease that you can't
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  pronounce. It's, you know, a well known
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  issue. You know, someone said I had an
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  uncle, I had a, you know, my father or parent or brother or
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  friend. So it's, it's well understood
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  that it's an issue. So it's really just trying to,
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  you know, have the capital markets pay more attention to
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  the smaller micro cap companies that, you know, if you think
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  about a lot of innovation comes from small companies that
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  ultimately the bigger companies will, you know, typically will
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  buy out at some point. But that's where a lot of
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  innovation does come from is, is the smaller companies that are
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  laser focus. We're laser focus on one thing
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  and one thing only right now. Not, you know, 15 different, you
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  know, clinical trials. We're just focused on this drug
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  to treat alcohol use disorder. Yeah, yeah, like you say, I mean
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  tackling addiction, it's it's one massive task that you guys
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  are on, but it's it's also one with with a lot of unique
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  complex complexities, right. How do you go about positioning
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  the company fixed success in in such as challenging space?
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  Again, I think that, you know, the way we are positioning again
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  is, you know, it's not a one-size-fits-all.
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  It's a, you know, it's really a precision treatment.
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  Our drug is a, we believe a novel, novel way of treating
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  alcohol use disorder. It's a it's a repurposed drug
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  called andansotron has been on the market at much higher doses
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  to treat nausea and vomiting. So it's got a 30 / 30 year
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  safety profile. And our our eighty O 4 hourly
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  drug is a MIC near micro dose of, you know, the drug that's
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  already been on the market and it's genetically targeted.
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  So which what that means is the first step is a patient would
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  take a genetic test with our compare our proprietary
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  companion diagnostic. If they test positive for our
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  targeted genotype, then they're a candidate for the drug.
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  If they don't test positive, then they're not a candidate.
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  And our data has shown that you know, people that do possess
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  this genotype, this drug being a serotonin 3 blocker.
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  So what that means is it works in the brain to impact the
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  dopamine reward system. And for people that have that
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  genotype, what seems to happen is it lowers the cravings and
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  the impulse to drink and also by blocking serotonin 3, it takes
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  away the pleasure to get from drinking.
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  So our data shown that they go from heavy drinking or binge
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  drinking down to a more moderate level of drinking, which we
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  believe is where all the, you know, all the harm happens is
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  the heavy binge drinking that people do.
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  And if they can get their drinking down to a more moderate
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  level, that's something that they can sustain over the long
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  term as opposed is struggling with trying to maintain
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  abstinence over that same long term period of time.
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  So we think positioning it that way, safe safety profile that's
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  got years of data behind it still being able to drink.
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  If they do, some patients may want to stop drinking entirely
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  and that's still possible with this drug as well.
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  So it gives them more options, very low side effect profile, so
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  they can tolerate the drug and stay on the drug.
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  And that's one of the issues with some of the treatments that
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  are on the market today. They're pretty radical in terms
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  of their side effects and the way patients have to use them.
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  You know, one of them is is really a deterrent.
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  So if you, once you're on that drug, if you get any alcohol in
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  your system, you get violently I'll, you know, serious, you
• 18:55
  know, like flu times 10 kind of impact on that person.
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  So you if you think about that, that's not very desirable for
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  someone to voluntarily go on that treatment and stay on that
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  treatment. So we think we're bringing
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  really a new way of new approach and a new way of treating
• 19:12
  alcohol uses or through this precision treatment aspect.
• 19:17
  Yeah, I think it's amazing work what you guys are doing.
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  And then we we, we look at like things you've done personally
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  throughout your career as well, Carrie.
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  So you've had to navigate spin offs, IP OS acquisitions and now
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  you're leading a small public company.
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  What advice do you give to other CE OS about staying resilient
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  and making tough calls at the moment?
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  Well, I think, you know, one of the things I learned working at
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  GE under Jack Welch was, you know, there was always a focus
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  on seeing the business reality as it really is and not as you
• 19:59
  wished it would be or hoped it would be.
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  But really understand what the real reality is.
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  Because once you come to grips with what situation you're in
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  and what the reality of the situation is, then you can
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  develop a plan to accomplish your goals.
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  You also need to stay focused on the long term goal of increasing
• 20:18
  shareholder value and not be really dismayed by the current
• 20:22
  or short term, you know, volatility in your stock price
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  and things like that. Because if you remember that if
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  you're successful in meeting those long term goals, you know
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  the stock price will ultimately take care of itself.
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  But you have to continue to take a hard look at the company's
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  value proposition as you're along that journey.
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  And maybe you said tough decisions.
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  You know, one of the things you know, the first things I I did
• 20:45
  at when I took over ADI was we had a preclinical business that
• 20:49
  had some really promising technology, but it was called
• 20:52
  pertinent. But when we looked at we
• 20:55
  couldn't afford to do both, just the reality of the situation was
• 20:59
  we got, we used to say we got 2, two children we really like a
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  lot, but we can only fund one right now.
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  And we made the decision to spin off the preclinical business,
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  you know, still retain a small ownership stake in that business
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  should it be successful. And we hope it will.
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  But you know, we had to come to grips.
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  So we can't really afford to fund both these things.
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  You know, that one actually had more employees and was, you
• 21:21
  know, had higher expenses. So it drastically cut our
• 21:25
  expenses by doing that, but and it was a very tough decision
• 21:29
  that, you know, in other, if we had better funding, bigger
• 21:33
  company, you'd probably try to keep them both.
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  But so we had to make that decision and then stay vigilant
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  on, you know, our clear mission for for a dog going forward,
• 21:42
  which was focused on ADO four and doing everything we can to
• 21:46
  get that drug to market as soon as we can.
• 21:50
  Yeah, when you think about leadership, what what's most
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  important to you in terms of building culture and and leading
• 22:00
  your team? For me, it is placing the right
• 22:04
  people in the right job, the right job for them.
• 22:08
  If you hire people that you know, possess the qualities that
• 22:13
  are consistent with the company's culture and mission,
• 22:16
  the culture will take care of itself.
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  And you know, what I've found is when you're, you know, when
• 22:21
  you're looking at candidates, interviewing candidates for
• 22:24
  particular jobs, you know, if the recruiting firm or HR has
• 22:28
  done their job, all these people that you're talking to really
• 22:31
  possess the skills to do the job.
• 22:34
  So you have to look beyond the skills and you know, what you
• 22:37
  want to do is look at the, you know, what qualities do they
• 22:40
  possess? And I'm talking about things
• 22:42
  like energy, passion, empathy, strength, courage, integrity.
• 22:49
  You know, those are the kind of attributes that align with the
• 22:52
  culture that we want to build in this company and most of the
• 22:55
  companies I've been with. And if you find people that have
• 22:59
  those qualities, then again, the culture will take care of
• 23:02
  itself. So that to me is the most
• 23:04
  important thing you want to look at when you're building a team.
• 23:08
  Yeah, I mean people always say this, don't they, that the
• 23:14
  people are the the biggest reason that a start up.
• 23:18
  Well, I suppose any, in fact any company will will be successful.
• 23:23
  So it's then trying to think, well, how much time do I then
• 23:27
  put into, you know, the recruitment side of things and
• 23:31
  bringing, making sure I bring on the right people.
• 23:33
  But also that screening process. I don't know if you do anything
• 23:37
  unique in terms of a scheming screening process or there's
• 23:41
  always this thing in your back of your mind in terms of, yes,
• 23:43
  I, I could just tell when, when they arrive or they're fair or,
• 23:48
  or, or obviously, I don't know if you have this, but then other
• 23:52
  people have like a higher fast, but also fire fast mentality to
• 23:56
  make sure that they, they've always got the right culture
• 23:58
  across the business. Yeah, I think it's that is very
• 24:02
  important. I think, you know, I spend a lot
• 24:05
  of time kind of focusing on more on those attributes.
• 24:07
  And you know, if you take something like passion, for
• 24:10
  instance, they don't necessarily have to have passion for the job
• 24:13
  they were in. But do you have passion for
• 24:15
  anything? You know, maybe it's the
• 24:16
  Pittsburgh Steelers, which by the way, I'm very passionate
• 24:19
  about the Pittsburgh Steelers, but you know, because I feel
• 24:23
  like if if that person has can show that they get passionate
• 24:26
  about anything, I can get them passionate about our mission
• 24:28
  here. Same thing with things like
• 24:30
  energy and strength and courage, you know, because you're going
• 24:33
  to face a lot of, you know, setbacks in a small micro cap
• 24:37
  biopharm company. And you have to have the ability
• 24:40
  to turn those setbacks into opportunities, you know, to
• 24:43
  learn and grow from. And, you know, ultimately the
• 24:46
  leadership, especially the CEO and, you know, and the, you
• 24:49
  know, and his team, his or her team, you need to be optimistic
• 24:53
  too. You have to be an optimist.
• 24:55
  You know, no one wants to follow a pessimist right into a storm,
• 24:59
  right? So those are kind of things,
• 25:01
  again, to me are much more important than, you know, the
• 25:05
  resident skills to do a job. Because again, you know,
• 25:09
  typically if you, if you've done your screening right, the
• 25:12
  people, all the people you're considering have the skill set.
• 25:15
  Do they have those other intangibles that really are part
• 25:19
  of making a a small company culture work?
• 25:23
  Yeah, I love that. I mean, that's something I, I, I
• 25:27
  end up talking about a lot, but it's great to, to get an opinion
• 25:31
  from a guy like you 100%. And finally, which is the
• 25:36
  question I ask every podcast. I don't know if you've had a
• 25:39
  chance to think about this, Kerry, but if you could have
• 25:42
  dinner with any scientist or innovator, past or present, who
• 25:46
  would it be and why? I thanks for giving me a heads
• 25:51
  up on that. So yes, I did.
• 25:53
  I did give a little thought to it and my choice would be Thomas
• 25:57
  Edison and two, two big reasons why.
• 26:01
  So first, people may not know this, but Thomas Edison was the
• 26:05
  founder of GE. So again, having started my
• 26:08
  career at GE and spent 15 years there, you learned a lot about
• 26:12
  Edison and, and so we had that connection.
• 26:15
  So that's the first reason. The second reason being myself
• 26:19
  being more a business person than a, I'm not a scientist.
• 26:22
  So being more a business person than a scientist, I chose
• 26:25
  Addison because even though he was a great scientist and
• 26:28
  innovator, the other thing he really did and focused on was
• 26:32
  take, you know, really turning those ideas and innovations into
• 26:36
  commercially viable products. Very successful, you know.
• 26:40
  And the other thing is, you know, Edison didn't invent the
• 26:44
  light, the light bulb, although he gives credit for it a lot,
• 26:47
  you know, but what he did do was he, you know, someone else had
• 26:51
  the concept and the idea of an incandescent light dog, but it
• 26:55
  only lasted a few minutes. What he did was he spent a lot
• 27:00
  of time perfecting that and ultimately got it to where a
• 27:04
  light bulb could last 14 hours and then ultimately 1200 hours.
• 27:09
  And he did that, you know, and we're still using light bulbs
• 27:13
  today, right? You know, on top of inventing
• 27:15
  the the light, you know, doing that and inventing the motion
• 27:18
  picture camera and the phonograph record player, you
• 27:22
  know, he also was good at taking other people's inventions and
• 27:25
  making them better. So he made the telephone work
• 27:28
  better. He made the Telegraph system
• 27:30
  work better. So if you talk about his
• 27:34
  products are still impacting our our lives today.
• 27:36
  So you talk about a legacy or making a mark that can't be
• 27:39
  erased. I can't think of a better
• 27:41
  example than Edison. And then the other reason I
• 27:45
  really like Thomas Edison is, you know, he's a great example
• 27:49
  of why perseverance and persistence are so critical to
• 27:54
  achieving most things in life and especially achieving it in a
• 27:58
  small micro cap company such as a dial.
• 28:02
  You know, it's been said that when he was working on the light
• 28:05
  bulb, he failed over 1000 times. And some historians have put the
• 28:10
  number at the very exact 2774 times based based on, I guess,
• 28:16
  notes he kept in his diary. But when he was asked about it,
• 28:19
  you know, he said why did it fail 1000 times?
• 28:22
  I just found a thousand ways that it didn't work and it took
• 28:26
  me 1000 steps to get it to work. So what he did, what was doing
• 28:30
  there was he was reframing failures into learning a
• 28:35
  learning process. And I think, you know, that's
• 28:37
  that's really important to show why, you know, again,
• 28:40
  persistence and perseverance are so important when you're
• 28:43
  navigating a ship through a storm, You know, you're trying
• 28:47
  to build a company, you know, realizing there will be
• 28:49
  setbacks. But again, try to turn those
• 28:52
  setbacks into opportunities of learning to to grow from.
• 28:55
  So, yeah, that's my choice. I'd love to be able to pick his
• 28:58
  brain and and take what he did and apply it to what we're doing
• 29:03
  here. Yeah, I love that not only super
• 29:07
  intelligent, successful guy, but also just, you know, elite
• 29:11
  mindset and, you know, way of thinking, which I love.
• 29:16
  Yeah. Absolute pleasure to have you
• 29:18
  on, Carrie. Like, amazing.
• 29:21
  Some great opinions and yeah, thank you so much.
• 29:25
  Well, thank you. Great catching up and look
• 29:29
  forward to talking to you in the future and updating you on our
• 29:32
  process. Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:34
  And please everyone like and subscribe to the Bio Hub and
• 29:37
  speak soon. Thanks, Kerry.