Alex Sapir, Former CEO of ReViral Ltd. and Dova Pharmaceuticals, on Advancing Pipeline Candidates and Financing Biotech Companies
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Alex Sapir: B.A., MBA — Former CEO of ReViral Ltd, Former CEO of Dova Pharmaceuticals ; Former Executive Vice President of Marketing & Sales at United Therapeutics, Current Faculty Lecturer at The Wharton School
For the third episode of the season, we spoke with Alex Sapir:
After starting his career at GlaxoSmithKline, ZS associates, and Guilford Pharmaceuticals, Alex spent a decade at United Therapeutics where he was ultimately appointed Executive Vice President for Marketing and Sales. During his tenure, the company grew from a one-product company generating $100 million in annual revenue to a five-product company generating $1.6 billion annually.
After this, he joined Dova Pharmaceuticals as CEO where he led the company through an initial public offering raising $160M. He then moved on to ReViral where he also served as CEO and led the company to an acquisition by Pfizer for $525M.
He currently serves as a Faculty Lecturer at the Healthcare Management Program at the Wharton School.
Alex received his BA in Economics from Franklin and Marshall College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
In our conversation, Alex and I chatted about:
- Jumping into life sciences through his career start at GlaxoSmithKline
- Growing his passion for commercialization and transitioning to United Therapeutics
- Deciding to take on leadership roles at Dova Pharmaceuticals and ReViral Ltd.
- Strategizing about fundraising and partnerships as an earlier stage company
- Leveraging humility as an asset in this complex industry
1:10 to 6:35 Having interest in healthcare and using a rotational program at GSK as a launching point
- Growing up : Alex grew up in Baltimore, MD and was always drawn to healthcare as his farther was a physician at Johns Hopkins University. He chose to study Economics given his interest in decision making and how markets functioned. After graduation, he chose to begin a rotational program at GlaxoSmithKline, which he credits with his immersion into the realm of life sciences.
- He held roles across functions during his time at GSK, including time in sales and market strategy, and became excited about scaling the impact of paradigm-shifting science
- Choosing consulting, but wanting to focus on operational execution: Eventually, Alex attended Harvard Business School and ultimately chose to join ZS Associates to build expertise in life sciences commercial strategy. He ultimately felt compelled to take on more execution-focused roles after a few years in consulting.
6:40 to 15:00 Joining United Therapeutics in the early days and growing the commercial portfolio
- Being inspired by Martine Rothblatt, the CEO of United Therapeutics: Martine Rothblatt had previously founded the disruptive company SiriusXM. After her daughter was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, she decided to pivot to healthcare and found a company focused on this disease for her daughter and the thousands of patients who did not have a therapeutic option at the time.
- Building United Therapeutics’ commercial capabilities: United had decided to wholly own the development and commercialization of their assets in the United States. During his 10-year tenure, the company launched four additional products. This represented a growth from one product generating $80M annually to being a five product company with annual sales of $1.6B.
- One of the biggest lessons Alex learned while at United Therapeutics was the importance of thoughtful decision making and clear communication around partnership strategy, specifically with regards to self-led commercialization vs. partnership-based asset development.
“The decision to joined United Therapeutics was an easy one, [driven by] one of the smartest and most inspirational leaders I’ve every had the privilege of working with: Martine Rothblatt”
15:10 to 20:40 Taking on the CEO role at Dova Pharmaceuticals
- Becoming a first-time CEO: After 10 years at United Therapeutics, Alex felt ready to take on an uncertain and new challenge by becoming Employee #1 at Dova Pharmaceuticals in 2016.
- When Alex joined, Dova was a private-venture backed company with a single-late stage asset with multiple potential indications. It had formed after a late-stage licensing deal from Eisai to treat thrombocytopenia (low platelet count). The Phase 3 trial read out just three months after Alex joined.
- Alex led the strategic decision making to raise funds to self-commercialize the asset. He led the company through an IPO and secondary offering raising nearly $160M in total. Dova grew to a fully-integrated company with sales, marketing, market access, medical affairs, and other functions. They also funded additional trials for indication expansion beyond the initial focus in chronic liver disease.
- In 2018, Sweden-based Sobi bought Dova Pharmaceuticals for $915M to expand their hematology portfolio.
“The thing I found most exciting about it was the opportunity to be in the CEO position and replicate what United Therapeutics had done early on by raising the necessary capital to commercialize the product on our own”
20:50 to 24:35 Deciding to go public and how to think about financing
- Timing an IPO: Alex spoke about how capital-intensive the development and commercialization of a drug is, especially when factoring in opportunity cost. He cited an often used figure of $2B+ per launched drug (accounting for failed assets).
- New priorities after going public: Alex recognized how many public biotech companies were in a similar position to Dova once they went public. All these hundreds of companies are vying for investors’ time and capital. This necessitated a shift in focus towards public investors and spending time as the CEO through 1:1’s, non-deal roadshows, or biopharma conferences.
- Leveraging his expertise in commercialization: Alex spoke about how his commercial background at GSK and United Therapeutics enabled him to position Dova attractively to investors and differentiate it from the plethora of other biotech companies vying for capital.
“One question I get a lot is ‘when is the right time to access the public markets?’. Recognizing that at any time that window can open, close, shut 50%, and its very very difficult to predict when and how much that window opens. I think you access the public markets when you can.”
24:40 to 30:30 Driving forward a new RSV therapeutic at ReViral Ltd. and engaging with Pfizer
- On pivoting to infectious diseases: Alex spoke about his motivation being guided by tremendous patient need, particularly the pediatric population that suffers from this virus. There was no viable treatment for the acute stage of RSV at the time.
“The number that really got me most interested was the fact that 160,000 patients die each year [from RSV]. But of those 160,000 people, 60,000 of the patients are under the age of 1.”
- Surrounding himself with the right team was key. He called out the experts on the team in infectious disease and virology, with whom he was drawn to working with and learning from.
- He spoke about his mindset being that the goal of biotech companies is to get treatments to patients as fast as possible. Sometimes this can be independently and sometimes this requires the right partner.
- On partnering with Pfizer: Initial conversations with Pfizer were magnified by their success with the pairing of the COVID-19 vaccine and the oral treatment Paxlovid. They had an RSV vaccine in trials and felt ReViral’s asset could provide the acute treatment component. The capital and fundraising markets as a whole were also much less attractive at the time, limiting the ability to drive forward independently. Alex called out the genuine passion and commitment they felt from Pfizer, which was the “tipping point” from his view.
30:40 to 33:20 Expectations for M&A activity in 2023
“In 2023, [I would expect] that Pharma M&A will heat up. I say that for a number of reasons. The first is that access to capital is not what it was in 2021. I think a lot of these smaller companies are operating on 6, 9, or 12 months of cash. [They] have equally as compelling compounds as what we had at ReViral but simply because of the challenging capital markets… they are having trouble accessing funds. That lack of runway is obviously having an impact in terms of depressing their share price. Many companies are trading at 20% of their all-time highs and really not much has changed about the assets they are developing.”
33:30 to 36:10 Advice to those throughout the continuum of career progression in life sciences
- Alex spoke about how the progression of his career has led to not only more learning but also an appreciation of how much he does not know. Surrounding yourself with the right teammates with complementary knowledge and being willing to learn is crucial to success. He reflected about how the most powerful insights come from teams where the leaders empowered those around them to drive decision making.
