Sophie Kornowski: From Drugs Style-Tester to Information-Pushed Dealmaker

Sophie Kornowski most likely is aware of greater than another CEO {that a} spoonful of sugar helps the medication go down.

Rising up in Paris, “my father was a pharmacist, and he used to deliver residence potions for us to pick out the flavour as youngsters. And I assumed this was actually cool, the chemistry aspect of issues was very spectacular,” Kornowski, the outgoing CEO of Boston Prescribed drugs, advised BioSpace in an interview.

Being set on changing into an actress, she didn’t instantly think about drugs as a profession possibility, however she later returned to the thought and hasn’t seemed again since. “Chemistry received me actually in love with pharmacy, and I’ve actually loved … the medication aspect of issues, the product, and naturally, the sufferers and the end result,” Kornowski mentioned. “I’ve by no means regretted that alternative.”

Kornowski now sits at a crossroads in her profession. Boston Prescribed drugs just lately bought off its lead Part III liver illness asset to GSK for as much as $2 billion, and he or she’s seeing via the winding down of the corporate. After that, she has a giant resolution to make: What’s subsequent?

Simply the Starting

Kornowski’s first job was at Abbott Diagnostics recent out of school in France. She entered the business amid a raging AIDS epidemic, which made an influence on her. She ultimately rode Abbott to its Chicago headquarters earlier than heading again to high school on the College of Chicago. From there, she returned to Abbott earlier than making the leap to Massive Pharma, together with stints at Sanofi, Merck and at last Roche, the place she was head of partnering.

In that position, Kornowski was accountable for constructing out the famed Swiss pharma’s pipeline. By the point she left, over half of its molecules had come from offers she executed. However there was one downside. Kornowski would develop into closely invested in these property in the course of the dealmaking course of. However then, as soon as the handshakes had been performed and the packages folded into Roche, she misplaced monitor of them.

“Regardless that you say the deal is barely the start, you’re right here just for the start,” she mentioned. “Regardless that the journey of the deal is loopy laborious and all of that, I simply needed to be a part of being answerable for outcomes.”

Regardless that Kornowski wasn’t personally shepherding therapies via the clinic, the offers she was concerned with have actually delivered. Kornowski was pivotal within the acquisition of Basis Drugs, the genomic profiling biotech that Roche purchased in 2018 for $2.4 billion. She additionally labored on Roche’s $600 million 2013 Prothena deal, which has culminated as we speak right into a Parkinson’s illness program. Whereas the antibody prasinezumab missed in a Part II trial, the companions introduced final month that they are going to advance it into Part III.

Kornowski’s deal guide has some duds, too, which is to be anticipated within the enterprise of drug developments. She was just lately excited to see Sanofi’s $9.5 billion acquisition of Blueprint Medicines, as a result of she labored on an earlier licensing partnership between the biotech and Roche. That partnership didn’t work out and Roche handed again rights to the packages the 2 firms had been engaged on, however she’s completely satisfied to see Blueprint go on to succeed.

“Severin Schwan had this nice expression when he requested me to hitch, which was, most of what you do is not going to succeed, however should you do nothing, you then’re additionally not going to succeed,” Kornowski remembers, talking of the previous Roche CEO who stepped down in 2023.

Throughout her time at Roche, Swiss entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli was forming Gurnet Level Capital. He would ultimately ask Kornowski to hitch as an investor, giving her hands-on expertise in biotech firm formation and enterprise capital.

Regardless of all that, Kornowski realized she was lacking R&D and innovation. Bertarelli then requested her to assist an organization in Gurnet’s portfolio, Boston Pharma.

Boston’s Overhaul

Kornowski arrived as CEO in 2022 with a giant job to do. Boston Pharma’s pipeline was overflowing with tasks the corporate would by no means have the ability to end. So Kornowski narrowed its focus to candidates for liver illnesses, particularly the FGF21 analog efimosfermin alfa. She remembers that it was a troublesome job to deliver the Boston Pharma crew on board with such a dramatic change in path.

“I’m not the most effective at change administration, however I’ve realized clarify and I additionally use information,” she mentioned. The choices had been fastidiously made with advisors who studied drug growth plans, price potential and different points. “It’s not intuition. It’s not imaginative and prescient. It’s information.”

She continued: “You probably have the appropriate crew, and also you clarify why you need to do one thing and the way you’re going to do it, you then do take them together with you.”

Information analytics and benchmarking have develop into a pillar of Kornowski’s management. She wants that onerous information to make selections and by no means makes assumptions about the place she may find yourself.

“I don’t know navigate another manner. Possibly as a result of I’ve no sense of path. I’m not somebody you set me on the street, and I do know precisely the place [to go],” she mentioned. “I would like proof.”

She additionally notes that her expertise with each profitable and not-so-successful offers at Roche ready her for Boston Pharma. The most important takeaway for her was the ability of the due diligence course of and being prepared at any time.

“While you’re in biotech, don’t hope to be purchased. It doesn’t work like [that],” she mentioned. “Simply do your work actually completely and be prepared to point out all of it in minute element, as a result of that is what due diligence goes to be like.”

Transferring On

With Boston Pharma now winding down, the due diligence is over. Kornowski has one other early pipeline asset to take care of however in any other case is in a transitional interval, serving as a marketing consultant to GSK as wanted for some time longer.

“It’s laborious to let go, however that’s what my job is about,” she mentioned.

She plans to hunt a board seat and ultimately transfer on to Switzerland. One other CEO position will not be out of the query, though Kornowski was noncommittal on her precise subsequent steps. However Boston Pharma and its MASH drug shall be one other legacy for Kornowski, in a illness that, previous to Boston’s and Madrigal Prescribed drugs’ curiosity, didn’t have any therapy choices.

She remembers visiting sufferers with the illness alongside specialists within the area and seeing the dire state of affairs they had been in, worrying about their very own survival. “Should you don’t have well being, your life is a really completely different story. In order that’s once more, why I really like pharmacy.”