Welcome to Partnology’s Biotech Leader Spotlight Series, where we highlight the remarkable accomplishments and visionary leadership of biotech industry pioneers. This series is about showcasing the groundbreaking strides made by exceptional leaders who have transformed scientific possibilities into tangible realities. Through insightful interviews, we invite you to join us in following the inspiring journeys of these trailblazers who continue to shape the landscape of the biotech industry. This week we are recognizing:
Lynn Kirkpatrick, PhD, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Lynn Kirkpatrick serves as Chief Executive Officer & Board Member at Ensysce Biosciences. She also serves as Chief Executive Officer at PHusis Therapeutics. She has spent over 25 years in cancer drug discovery and development. From 1999 to 2006 she served as Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of ProlX Pharmaceuticals, taking three small molecules from bench to bedside. When ProlX was acquired by Biomira, a publicly traded company, she became the Chief Scientific Officer of the merged company which changed its name to Oncothyreon, Inc. in 2007. She is also a former Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Regina in Canada. She received her PhD in Medicinal and Biomedicinal Chemistry from the University of Saskatchewan and did post-doctoral research in Pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine. She has published extensively in the area of targeted cancer drug discovery and development and holds numerous patents for novel cancer drugs.
Can you give me a summary of your career in your own words, noting some of the most pivotal moments or decisions in your career?
I’m actually a Medicinal Chemist. I received my PhD in Canada. I went to Yale for a postdoc and then I went back to Canada and taught Chemistry and Biochemistry at Regina University for 16 years. During that time myself and a few of my colleagues started a biotech company called ProIX Pharmaceuticals. I eventually gave up tenure and my Full Professor position at the University to move into the biotech industry. I would say that was probably the first and biggest career changing decision I made. At that time, my career was all in the oncology field where I was involved in chemistry, designing new drugs, understanding pharmacology, testing new drugs and trying to develop them. At ProIX we took some of my discovery research and actually translated it from research and brought it into clinical trials. I am proud to say we took two of my drugs into the clinic. It was very rewarding to be able to see my creation actually helping cancer patients.
ProIX was eventually acquired by a public pharma company, Biomira, for the three small molecules we had developed by that time. Through that acquisition I moved from being the Chief Executive Officer of ProlX to the Chief Scientific Officer of the new merged company, which they re-named Oncothyreon. That meant I went from a small startup company into a larger public company. I spent two years transferring the ProlX technology, getting our three drugs into the clinical trials, and working with the CEO to get the company financed. I then decided I wanted to get back to the roots of a small biotech company. I resigned and started working with Ensysce Biosciences, where I am now, as well as some other smaller companies, so this was the second major decision point in my career.
The focus of all my work at that time was in the oncology space. At Ensysce, we had a highly novel technology, which was utilizing carbon nanotubes to deliver large biologic molecules to treat cancer. I was learning an entirely new field because carbon nanotubes and large biologics were brand new to me. As we were developing the carbon nanotube technology, we had the opportunity to acquire the technology that we’re developing today, using prodrugs to deliver pain medication. When we acquired that technology I then shifted from being in the oncology space to now understanding pain, abuse, and CNS drugs. I again had to learn an entirely new field, which was another pivot point in my career. That said, it’s really the chemistry that drove the uniqueness of the products we’re developing for treating severe pain, which I love.
What caused the transition from oncology to pain medication?
It was the Ensysce merger with the company that had the pain products, and those pain products were closer to the clinic. That was what forced Ensysce to pivot from oncology to pain, because of the near term opportunity. As you know, in biotech, anything close to the clinic takes precedence over early R&D. The nanotube technology was before its time, exquisite technology but much farther from the clinic. When I think about COVID in the last few years, some of the challenges were around the delivery of the mRNA vaccines, and had we been still working with carbon nanotubes it might have been a possibility for advancement.
What are some of your proudest professional accomplishments?
I think it was the first time I experienced somebody being treated with one of the drugs that I had actually designed, developed, taken through the FDA, and having that patient say they felt better. I would say that’s my proudest accomplishment. The second, was the acquisition of our company, ProIX, by a public company. That acquisition provided a positive exit for all of our shareholders and our investors, which were mainly the founders at that time. And thirdly, being able to pivot and do some different things; moving from small molecule oncology into biologics and pain medication. Right now we are looking at moving our programs towards commercialization. So I’ve done everything from work on the bench mixing chemicals together, to treating patients, and now looking at marketing and commercialization.
What do you see as the most promising technologies in biotech over the next 10 years?
Well, I’m a small molecule person, so I don’t think small molecules are going away. But, CRISPR is very interesting, and all of the things we’ve learned through COVID, which really jump started mRNA technology. I think there’s so much being learned in the biological space. Even combining other technologies with small molecules, I’m sure there’s going to be breakthroughs in many areas, but I believe there will always be the need for the small molecule therapeutics.
I know you’re developing safer opioids for pain at Ensysce, which is a huge need with the opioid crisis in the US. Could you talk a little about that?
Well, we’re not curing addiction, but we are trying to develop an opioid that individuals won’t want to abuse, which has led to the current problem. Obviously, opioids produce a feeling that makes some people want to use them recreationally. I mentioned my chemistry background; so what we’ve done is chemically modified the opioid, so that it’s inactive unless you swallow it. We’re utilizing chemistry to allow your body’s own enzyme to break off a piece of the drug, which leads to a second chemical reaction that releases the opioid. The enzyme, called trypsin, is used to digest our meat and protein products and is only found in the small intestine. So you can’t chew our product to make it work faster. You can’t snort it. And if you inject it, it gets eliminated, it doesn’t convert to an opioid, because there is no trypsin in the blood. In other words our chemistry eliminates those forms of abuse. People like to take OxyContin and chew it because they get a rush of opioids in a very short period of time, but you can’t do that with our product. Now the other aspect of the second product we are developing, which is fascinating, is that we mix our chemically modified opioid with a little bit of trypsin inhibitor.
The trypsin inhibitor is a small molecule that’s used in Asia to treat pancreatitis, and it’s exquisitely potent. This means at very small doses, which we’re mixing in our capsules, the trypsin inhibitor doesn’t do anything. If you take too much of this combination product, you have more of the inhibitor, it starts blocking the trypsin so that the opioid won’t release and therefore you have overdose protection. We’ve just reported clinical data this year showing this overdose protection works. We feel that this is something extremely unique, not only for our products, but we can use our chemistry on other drugs to provide more drugs that have overdose protection. That’s why we’re referring to a ‘safer opioid’; one that recreational drug users won’t particularly like and that has overdose protection. Even if you mistakenly take too many pills because you forgot you had already taken your medication and accidentally double your dose, you would have built in protection to protect from an overdose.
With the experience and insights you have gained, what advice would you give to young people aspiring to work in the biotech industry?
I would say follow your passions. A lot of my career has been about taking chances, such as giving up a tenured faculty position to start a biotech company. And deciding to move from a big company back to a smaller company to enjoy what I was doing again. Try to find a position where you’re doing rewarding work in a field that you find is interesting, that’s probably the best advice I could provide. Also, I’ve surrounded myself with other individuals with expertise in areas where I was inexperienced. Many people provided me with an education along my entire career. I was a Chemist, I wasn’t a regulatory person, I wasn’t a commercial person, I wasn’t a CEO, but my skill was finding people who had the skills that I could learn from. Truly, it was a team that helped me to succeed. So not only do you need to enjoy what you do, but also continue to learn and surround yourself with smart people.
