John Simboli
That’s the voice of Saiid Zarrabian, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kintara Therapeutics, headquartered in San Diego. Listen in now to hear Saiid’s thoughts about leadership and how Kintara Therapeutics is pursuing the development of new cancer therapies for patients with rare unmet medical needs.
I’m John Simboli. You’re listening to BioBoss.
John Simboli
Today I'm speaking with Saiid Zarrabian, President and CEO of Kintara Therapeutics, headquartered in San Diego. Thanks for speaking with me today, Saiid.
Saiid Zarrabian
It's a pleasure to meet you, John, and to have the opportunity to speak with you today. Thank you.
John Simboli
Saiid, what's it like to be a CEO?
Saiid Zarrabian
There is a certain level of loneliness to it. Because you wake up Monday morning, and you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, you have employees in biotech, you have patients, which adds a completely different layer. It's an incredibly gratifying and lonesome job. It's even more so as a biotech company, as a biotech CEO. I've been in the product business, and you know, you sell a product, somebody uses a piece of software to do some analysis, and there's a certain success associated with that. But here, especially as an oncology biotech, we are worrying and thinking and considering patient lives, we get intimately involved as CEOs with these patients who call us personally, to get on our expanded access program. And it's gratifying. But it's also devastating, because you see firsthand patients, especially in our market world, glioblastoma, the most deadly brain disease. And you know, the physicians and the patients consider that a death sentence, because the median survival is 18 months; less than 5% of patients make it five years. So it's extra lonesome and I think extra stressful in biotech because you're not just talking about revenues and earnings and shareholder value, you're actually talking about people's lives and quality of life. And that adds a layer to it that makes it even I think, more complicated.
John Simboli
What led you to this role as president and CEO at Kintara?
Saiid Zarrabian
It's a great question, John, As most of my last 20 years' worth of endeavors, it's one of those things where one thing led to the other. I retired in year 2000, after a very successful endeavor at a company. And I went right back to work in three weeks as a board member and then became involved as an executive. And that same thing happened here at Kintara. I actually joined in July of 2017, as an independent board member. And in a few months, the board decided that I had the skill set required to take the company to the next stage. And they asked if I would come out of retirement and take on the role. And I actually agreed initially on an interim period, because we wanted to make sure that we could align our visions and strategy together. And then I took the permanent role in May of 2018. And I'm now working at the requisite 80 to 100 hours a week to try and get at least one if not two drugs to the market. And I think what the board saw was my turnaround capabilities. I'm a very active board member, sometimes the CEOs I work with don't like that. But most of the sophisticated ones do because it's an extra set of hands and experience. And in this case, the board thought that my turnaround experience would be optimal for the company. And I decided I could join and indeed make the impact that the company needed. And most importantly, for me, I always take on things that are challenging, I just have this—my mother was an entrepreneur in Iran in 1952. So I learned a lot from her. And one lesson was if you take jobs in companies that are 98% efficient, who's going to know what you did? Is anybody going to recognize you made them 99% efficient? If you take troubled companies, even a 50, 70, 80% improvement strategically helps the company and that's what I've been doing for the past 20 some-odd years.
John Simboli
Do you remember that interval, that three-week interval? Do you remember what you were thinking where you were saying, I'm retired; I really don't know if I want to go back?
Saiid Zarrabian
You know, I think my wife would be a better candidate to answer that. But yeah, I explicitly remember. I retired on Christmas of 2000. And I told her and we were ecstatic. I started playing golf. Although I played golf a little bit, I started playing golf every day. And I swear to God, this is the truth. My wife will vouch for this. Three weeks later, I happened to get a call from a friend of mine and says, Listen, I'm in San Diego, I have a little troubled company that can really use your help, would you come on as CEO? And I told them I am so bored playing golf. I'll take anything. And I go tell my wife and the curious interesting comment she made was, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You got to get the hell out of the house. Go do something other than golf. So that's how it came about. And this is the real, this is how it happened.
John Simboli
Having been a board member and having been in the industry in many different ways. How did you go about deciding, well, I want to be the guy again, I want to be the CEO? Was that at all a difficult decision?
Saiid Zarrabian
No, I think from early, early days, even when I had my first major job at Computervision, this is back in 1978, I always aspired to have a senior executive role leadership position. I have that innate leadership built into me, you know, as a desire. So I chose a different path, I decided to go into a company and then take on different roles and different experiences. So I first started in customer support. From there, I went to quality assurance, then from there, I went to head of R&D, and then that led to a VP level Chief Operating Officer level, and that led to the CEO role. And it was because I worked in sales, I ran marketing, I ran every department and that helped me be able to gather the right people around myself because I knew the right questions to ask, and also be able to read when people were BS-ing us and then kind of be careful on what you rely on as facts. So it came as a strategic plan formed early on and thoughtful process of how do I enable myself to get there because I don't have the two basic foundational requirements of being a deep scientist running a biotech nor had I run a multi-billion dollar sales organization when I saw it. I now have so that helps me in this role.
John Simboli
Was there something about Kintara, DelMar, which became Kintara? Was there something about the company that made you think I can do something here that I can't do someplace else?
Saiid Zarrabian
You're now getting to the personal side, rather than the business or the professional side? And yes, there was. I had been involved in multiple biotechs; had worked on different kinds of drugs for a couple of decades, with the last one being La Jolla, where we actually were successful in getting a new drug approved. This was different because this was GBM, and I read on GBM, and I see how devastating that disease is. And I've had cancer in my family. So I know how it is Luckily, didn't lead to anyone's death, but you know, it's still devastating. And when I found out about the disease and the fact that it's been 20 years since the new drug was approved, and these patients' survival is measured in a matter of months, and less than 5% of GBM patients live five years. I think that was probably the one that tugged on a different side of the psyche. It wasn't the business side, it was the emotional, human side. And I thought I could actually do something and there is a tremendous gratification that can be gained from trying to, and hopefully succeeding, in getting in new treatments and giving these patients hope.
John Simboli
When someone who doesn't know you professionally, you meet them for the first time they say what do you do for a living? How do you answer that?
Saiid Zarrabian
That's actually an easy answer. I am an executive in a biotechnology company that's in the late, late stages of getting a new treatment out for oncology patients whose current treatment just doesn't work. And the disease is GBM; it's the deadliest form of brain cancer.
John Simboli
I was talking to a founder, I believe it was may have been founder and CEO, like six months ago for BioBoss and I was asking that question, what do you do for a living and he laughed and he said, Well, it used to be that my wife kind of understood what I did. But he said now that I work at home, temporarily because of the coronavirus, and she works at home because ofthe coronavirus, she came up to me one day and said, "Is that all you do all day you just talk on the phone all day?" So if I were to say what do you do all day from that perspective, what is your job? What do you do for a living? Then how would you answer that?
Saiid Zarrabian
I would say currently about a third of my time is spent on video Zoom calls because of the lack of travel. As a CEO of a public company, informing the market, informing your shareholders, bringing in new shareholders is at least 50% of the job. And we can't travel; we used to go to New York City, one week roadshow, you meet 100 people and you do face to face. So Zoom and these video conferences have replaced that. So I spend at least a third of my time talking to existing and new investors, educate them about the company, a third is spent on the telephone managing the company. And the other third is really spent on making sure management and the board and we have a lot of outside consultants, contractors, etc. know not to chase the next shiny object. How to stay focused, how to stay focused on that which delivers value.
John Simboli
So tell me about what it's like to be disciplined enough to resist the next shiny object.
Saiid Zarrabian
It's difficult. And it's difficult on a personal level. But sometimes it's much more difficult on the cultural level. Because when you go into a company who's hired 100 people and 10 are working on this project, and 10 on that one on 10 on this one, and you inevitably want to focus, that means some projects, you can't have 10 number one priorities, in my view, I think when you do then you're leaving the strategic execution of the company down to the individual employee; they decide what's number one. A leader’s role is to say, here's our number one, here's our number two, we ran out of resources, there is no number three, there is no number five, because when you do that, then number one doesn't get that. The most likely to succeed now gets undernourished. So it's, it's the cultural part of it. That's harder, I think.
John Simboli
Can you remember when you were eight or nine or 10? what you wanted to be? Maybe what your parents wanted you to be? And then does that have anything to do with what will you be when you grow up? Does that have anything to do with what you're doing now?
Saiid Zarrabian
It's an incredibly good question. And no, I had no clue. It's really interesting, because I know I have friends who knew what college they wanted to go to when they were nine years old. And they knew what career. I was clueless, I had no idea and I lived a pretty tumultuous life with my mom, leaving and being without her for seven years, etc, when I was six years old. So I started deciding what I wanted to do when I was about 15-16. And I actually, oddly enough, wanted to become a photographer, a fashion photographer, I'd get a job and it would pay great, and I would live off of it for a few weeks instead of a few months. And then I'd be scrounging again. And I went back to my computer science and engineering background and fell into Computervision as a job and one thing led to the other. But this was not planned. Other than, you know, being a leader in your organization, as a follower. The rest of it was not planned, it was just one thing, led to the other.
And I found out I'm incredibly good operationally. Most of the CEOs I have worked for in the past on the board, think of me as one of the most efficient managers they have ever seen in translating little cash into lots of results. And that comes out of paying attention to the grungy details, comes out of waking up and taking that challenge and doing the things you don't really like to do. And what you know, is painful and status meetings and hearing bad news. One of my philosophies, one of my management tools that I tell my staff is, tell me issues as soon as possible. Because then I can change the perception, I can change the goals, I can bring additional resources. But if you tell me too late, we've squandered the opportunity. So don't be afraid of bad news. And I really try and enforce that. Because it's that bad news and what to do about it, that, I think distinguishes success from failure. There's always going to be bad news, doesn't matter what business you're in. Maybe much more profoundly in biotech.
John Simboli
Saiid, what's new at Kintara?
Saiid Zarrabian
We have initiated a registration study for our lead indication in GBM. That was a major accomplishment on many, many levels. And in my opinion, this program, which is being executed by a group called Global Coalition for Adaptive Research, in my opinion, it's the world's best GBM trial design and execution plan. And we are now invited to join this group of people who've been doing this for four years. So they initiated a nonprofit organization; their goal is two-fold, one, to reduce the costs and timelines for drug development. This was a response in 2017, about the cost of drugs going up and the timelines that the pharmaceuticals have to absorb. So 130 clinicians got together and decided to form Global Coalition for Adaptive Research. And that simply is a group of people who want to use a tool called adaptive trial design to accelerate drug development.
Lucky for us, some of their principles were GBM-centric, so the first indication they tried to go after is GBM. From 2017 to now they worked on financing from the National Brain Tumor Society, from National Foundation for Cancer Research. American Foundation for Cancer Research and not commercial money. But they advanced the cause of the organization by submitting an adaptive design plan to the FDA and getting the highest level of support and approval for it, then initiating the effort to sign on all the hospitals on the site that would enroll for this study. As of this week, they have 33 sites that are enrolling GBM patients. And what happened this week was we announced that we initiated patient enrollment and patient stratification in this study, number one, and number two, Kintara had, I guess, the unique situation of being invited to join all three patient groups in this trial. The trial has three separate patient groups— recurrent setting, adjuvant with a biomarker called MGMT-unmethylated, which is 60% of the patients. And they have a much poorer outcome than the other 40% that don't have this biomarker. We are the only one that's going into all three patient groups.
And if I was going to do this as Kintara alone, I would have to run three separate trials, I would have to probably work for the next year to get an FDA-approved study design and approved. And then it would take a year to two years to sign up the 33 sites that GCAR has already signed up. By joining this coalition, we actually start enrolling at 33 sites very, very quickly, on an FDA-approved design that has some of the world's best clinical designers designing it. It has some of the world's best, if not the world's best, statistician group, that did the second analysis. So we get the benefit of all that. And that news just came out yesterday. I'm very excited. I think this is a major accomplishment.
And you earlier asked about sort of the personal goal. The personal side of this, in addition to obviously trying to accelerate a new treatment to patients, is if we, as one of the small companies in this trial can show this system works, we might fundamentally change the way some of drug development and discovery is done, because we will have shown that this platform, that we can compete with the bigger multibillion-dollar companies, I think we might be able to put a bigger impact than just the large impact of GBM patients, by changing and enhancing the paradigm of drug development and accelerating the drug development for many, many drugs. And that's GCAR's goal. And it's good that we have the unique position of going to all three patient groups because for us at Kintara, it gives us three shots on goal. We could succeed in any of those GBM patient groups. And if we get some tailwind, favorable tailwinds, we could succeed in all three.
John Simboli
Saiid, how would you describe the mechanism of action for the drugs that you're developing?
Saiid Zarrabian
They're obviously different. They're for two different indications, two completely different drugs. So I'll go individually through each one. On VAL-083, it's what's called a bifunctional DNA targeting agent and that means it goes to the DNA strand, and whereas the currently approved drug, Temozolomide, breaks a single strand of the DNA, our drug actually breaks the cross strand. And this enzyme I earlier mentioned repairs that single strand damage, but it cannot repair the damage that we do to the cancer cell. So it's really, our CSO, Dennis Brown, who in-licensed it is fond of saying we are actually punching with both hands versus the current therapy has one hand tied behind his back.
REM-001, which is a second asset is completely different and science fiction. You are given an injection of this drug. It's a photodynamic-activated drug and 24 hours later, the patient comes back and we activate the drug on a local lesion basis by a simple red laser light that penetrates the layer of the tissue. So in one case, we're breaking the DNA strand and breaking the cross strand, and keeping the cell from replicating. In the other case, we're activating a drug that creates oxygen radicals like radiation does on a local basis via this laser, but without the side effects of radiation, which is burning up the tissue and permanent damage. And there's actually a video on our website that explains this and I encourage anybody who's listening to this, go into the presentation section of our website. There's a video that talks about our approach to CMBC. And how this drug works. And it's incredibly interesting.. And it's easy to understand
John Simboli
What kinds of partners are a good fit to Kiintara?
Saiid Zarrabian
So two different kinds of partners I think are relevant. And one is the scientific community and the clinical trial community whose belief in us, and who's working with us does two things. First, it adds credibility. And number two, it actually enables you to do the best job possible, especially for a company like ours, where we are small. You know, it's one thing for BMS, or Bayer, you know, they have a lot of staff, they have a tremendous amount of expertise, they can throw lots of money, we don't have the same resources. So having partners that fill that role is important. And towards that end, in 2019, I actually embarked on enhancing our scientific external partnerships. We recruited dr. John de Groot, who at the time was interim chairman of neuro-oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, we recruited Dr. David Reardon, who's chairman of the Department of neuro-oncology at Dana Farber and Tim Cloughesy at the David Geffen school. And it's amazing how one thing leads to another if you take the right steps. So I recruited five highly qualified scientific advisory members to really escalate the scientific and clinical trial planning going forward. The people I just mentioned have hundreds of clinical trials to their name. You know, at some point, I hope to be able to partner one of these compounds with an oncology that has a sales franchise that can sell the heck out of it.
John Simboli
When you're interacting with those three groups you just described, those three kinds of partners, what have you learned about your management style in connecting with those people, what works for you, what doesn't work for you?
Saiid Zarrabian
I am a very open CEO. I overshare information because I honestly believe how can a team, especially now, it used to be you were in the same building, you were in the same conference room, you would walk next door. Now you have to set up a conference call, you have to get people's schedules together and you're remote. It's much more complicated now operating a business than it was but we've gotten good and used to it. And I think what I do is I overshare information because that's the only way they can understand my goals, my problems, the company's goals, the company's problems, then they can contribute. And that's why by having the CEO specifically tell people on a regular basis and communicate with them and keep track of it does two things. First, it ensures everybody knows what the number one goal is, and ensures everybody knows what number two is. But also it allows me to hear early about issues.
John Simboli
Do you have the time while you're doing that, do you still have the time to think to yourself, you know, if this thing works, I'm going to bring a lot of hope to people who have GBM, other illnesses you're working on? Can you still imagine that or are you just so locked into getting it done?
Saiid Zarrabian
No, it's actually a really good question. I wake up at around 5:00 AM, just organically. And the days where I decide to stay in bed for an extra half an hour, an hour, is actually bad because I'm laying there nervous thinking about it. My heart's pounding, I think about all the things I've got to do. So I've found that get out of bed and go to work because then you get rid of the tension, you're actually doing something about it. But I think that the key here is using that GBM as a self-motivator. I mentioned earlier that many CEO roles are a lonesome role. Now, I've also been in companies where the company was succeeding despite itself, it wasn't lonely. It was, you couldn't do wrong, right? Computervision, you couldn't do wrong, our stock would go up to $80, split and go up to $80, and split. We owned the market. It just, we couldn't do wrong, right. But that's not true everywhere. Most places, there are things that go off the rails, you have to fix things, etc. And I think I use the GBM paradigm and also cutaneous metastatic breast cancer, I've seen photos, I know patients who have it, it's really devastating to suffer from these things. I have learned how to use those as motivating tools to get out of bed and go do something even though I may not want to do it because it's just boring or stressful or whatever. It's a great way to kind of say there's a grander calling. This isn't just about share prices or expenses and raising money. This is a higher calling of trying to get a treatment and that gets me to get out of bed with a spring in my step and hope and optimism that defeats the dark gray days.
John Simboli
Thanks for making time to speak with me today. Saiid.
Saiid Zarrabian
It was my pleasure. This was a very enjoyable conversation.
John Simboli
The first thing that came up in my conversation with Saiid Zarrabian was the loneliness of a CEO in biopharma. It wasn’t “It’s lonely at the top” (which, I’m sure, is a reality for many CEOs) but the sobering fact that, as Saiid said, “You have the weight of the world on your shoulders—people’s lives and quality of life.”
That weight might slow down some of us. Saiid’s solution is pragmatic—make a list each morning and check things off as they get done; what doesn’t get done goes onto tomorrow’s list. Saiid said, “Paying attention to the grungy details comes out of waking up and taking that challenge and doing the things you don’t really like to do. You get rid of the tension; you’re actually doing something.”
Attention to detail sounds like a key to Saiid’s success over the years. He likes to say he’s determined not to “chase the next shiny object” but stay focused on his strategy for delivering value.
And, like many people whose families have been afflicted with cancer, Saiid can’t help but see the big picture, the need for new cancer treatments. As he says, “It gets me out of bed with a spring in my step and hope, and optimism that defeats the dark gray days.
I’m John Simboli.
You’re listening, to BioBoss.