Jan Skvarka took Trillium Therapeutics from a $16 million market capitalisation to a $2.26 billion acquisition by Pfizer in only 2 years and in the midst of the pandemic.

When Skvarka took the reigns at Trillium in September 2019, the stock price had fallen from $30 to $0.40, the company was about to be delisted from NASDAQ, and they had 5-6 months left of cash.

Given the challenging situation, Skvarka spent six months on the diligence of the underlying science and Trillium’s assets. He wanted to confirm that the scientific foundation was solid and that he had the board’s support.

Before he joined, he wrote a memo to the board outlining his analysis of the situation, strategic options, and a plan and hypothesis for how to proceed.

Once he had the board’s support, he was in.

Skarkva described Trillium’s 2-year turnaround in three stages:

1 – The Emergency Room – 3 months

“We approached the situation like a patient in an ER; we first had to stop the bleeding. We laid off 40% of the staff and reset our strategy focusing on our most promising assets.” Decisiveness and speed helped us rebuild investor confidence.

2 – The Transformation – 15 months

“It was a lot of systematic blocking and tackling, touching every aspect of the company. We had a new team in place, a restructured executive team, a restructured board, a world-class SAB, and two promising molecules.

We did a lot of work in the trenches with investors. We had over 400 meetings with investors in 2020. We raised $300 million in two rounds and secured an equity deal with Pfizer for $25 million.”

3 — The Build-Out

“With money in the bank, we launched a broad Phase 2 program with nine clinical studies across multiple indications in both hematologic malignancies and solid tumours, while doubling the size of the organization within the next year.

We were in a great place to continue building the company, and we had high confidence in our assets. However, come May 2021, the stock price started coming down, due to the markets getting nervous about biotech and some retail investors selling out of their Trillium positions.

I approached Pfizer’s head of business development for oncology, to ask if Pfizer would consider another $25 million equity investment, given that we had generated substantial additional data since Pfizer’s initial investment.

Pfizer asked to look at the data and started the diligence. While they were looking at the updated Phase 1 results, Phase 2 data started coming in, including some from very tough multiple myeloma and AML patients, two indications of strategic interest to Pfizer.

It was at this point that Pfizer shifted their interest from a simple equity investment to a full buy-out…” From an initial bid of $15 per share, Pfizer ended up buying Trillium at $18.50…

6 Lessons:

1. Don’t partner just for the money.

When Skvarka first partnered with Pfizer, he added the CSO of Pfizer Oncology to his SAB.

From that point, Pfizer had a front-row seat to see what Skvarka was doing, they liked what they saw, and they ended up pulling the trigger.

“The partnership with Pfizer was not just about the money; it was about validating our work, building relationships, and getting access to Jeff’s expertise”. — Jan Skvarka

2. Layoffs are painful but “you have to stop the bleeding.”

“The toughest part of my time at Trillium was the Emergency Room. Turnaround situations require decisive leadership and speed. There is no room for hesitation. You cannot procrastinate.

Maybe you can still pay severances if you move today, but if you prolong things six months the company could run out of cash. And the team is deflated and maybe considering moving on to other opportunities — so staff are already anxious to hear where we are heading.

So, we did those changes with speed, balanced with respect and transparency. It was this respect and transparency with our staff that allowed us to rehire several laid-off employees once we were stabilized.”

In a video about Trillium’s success, a former employee said: “Jan had to take some difficult decisions, I was in that 40% that he had to let go” (Not sure if that person was rehired, but regardless, this speaks volumes about the culture and letting people go with respect).

3. Culture is not about buzzwords; it’s about actions.

“I’m not a believer in lengthy meetings about culture and putting lots of buzzwords on the wall. Buzzwords are cheap — after all, even Enron had “Integrity” engraved on their headquarters entrance wall.

I think culture is shaped organically through how we make decisions, who we recruit, and how we treat employees. It has to be with respect, transparency and honesty, while always keeping patient impact in mind.”

4. Have a clear direction.

“It’s critical to have a vision and be crystal clear about the company’s direction. And not just clarity about who you are, but who you are not. Without this clarity, companies and executives get distracted and pulled in different directions.”

5. Pharma partnerships are all about trust.

“Trust is key. Don’t oversell, always be honest and transparent. In our case, Pfizer had about 150 people on the due diligence, and they turned over every stone.

So, if there are any problems, just be transparent about them, and disclose them upfront, as you don’t want them to come up later in the diligence and then play defence.”

6. Always remain humble.

Skvarka said, “Were we successful? I am not declaring success. The success will come when our CD47 molecules are on the market and they’re saving patients’ lives”.