January 26, 2017
By Karyn Korieth, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Symic Bio, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new category of therapeutics based on matrix biology, has moved to a larger office and laboratory space in the Bay Area and plans to add 15 employees this year, expanding its workforce by about 50 percent.
Growth plans include building-out the research, regulatory and R&D organizations within the company. The new hires will support activities related to filing investigational new drug (IND) applications, as two compounds in Phase I/IIa clinical trials are expected to advance, as well as to strengthen the company’s discovery and preclinical work in the areas of fibrosis, oncology and central nervous system disorders.
“The number of potential applications for our technology is far and wide,” Ken Horne, Chief Executive Officer, Symic Bio, told BioSpace. “We were very passionate, as founders, about being a platform company. We wanted to help as many patients as we can in a variety of different areas for which therapeutics don’t exist yet.”
Symic Bio therapeutics are called matrix regulators, which interact with the extracellular matrix (ECM), the noncellular component of tissue critical for healthy healing. Two compounds are in clinical development. One treatment (SB-030) is designed to prevent serious complications of cardiovascular procedures; efficacy data from the SHIELD Study is expected later this year. The other compound (SB-061) aims to treat pain and modify disease progression in osteoarthritis; top-line results from the MODIFY-OA Study are expected to be announced in the first half of 2017.
“One of our objectives for 2017 is potentially filing INDs for each of the therapies. There is a lot of manpower involved and we need to be ready to have the skills in-house for that work,” said Danielle Herrerias, Senior Director of Human Resources, Symic Bio.
Current job postings include Associate Director of Quality Control, Director of Quality Assurance and Scientist II for Process Development. Shortly, the company also plans to hire a Vice President of Chemistry.
Symic Bio rapidly outgrew its QB3 incubator space at the University of California, San Francisco, where it operated for two years, and in November moved to a 25,000-square-foot office and state-of-the-art laboratory facility in Emeryville, Calif., which has become home to many biotech and software companies in the Bay Area. The company, which began with two employees in 2012, currently has 30 full-time employees.
As it expands, the company continues to build a strong culture that promotes cross-functional communication and collaboration across all levels of the organization. Members of the leadership team serve as mentors and employees have an opportunity to meet with the CEO on a quarterly basis. New hires also receive equity in the organization.
While Symic Bio has been successful at fundraising, having secured $43 million from investors, Horne said the company is not being built to be acquired. “We are building for the long-term. We do five-year strategic planning and beyond. Our vision is for the company to be self-sustaining,” Horne said.
When hiring new talent, human resource personnel look not only for candidates with strong scientific credentials, but also for individuals who are team-oriented, flexible and open to new ideas. Creative problem-solving and critical-thinking skills are also high on the list of desired competencies.
“What we are looking for is someone who can roll up their sleeves and enjoy the excitement of being in a startup environment where they are doing a lot of different things and interacting with people across all functions in all levels,” said Herrerias.
Since Symic Bio is developing a new category of therapeutics that offers a biologically innovative approach to treating disease, job candidates inevitably lack specific experience with the company’s type of compounds. To address this challenge, Symic Bio’s hiring practices ensure employees represent diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Individuals, for example, have experience with both small and large molecule drugs and represent a variety of scientific backgrounds, including chemistry, biology and bioengineering. A majority of employees have worked for large biopharmaceutical companies, yet the company also hires talent from startups or straight out of graduate school. The qualification all new hires must share, however, is a passion for biopharmaceutical development.
“Startups are fast-paced, challenging, exciting environments. One of our six cultural values is being happy and excited about the work. If you don’t care about what we are doing, then this is not the right place for you,” said Horne. “People come here because we’re doing novel science. You have to get up in the morning being excited by that and have some amount of passion, otherwise it’s not going to be a good fit for you.”
