Dr. Barthalomew (B.A.) Sillah, COO of Avesta76 Therapeutics, on Company Creation and Championing Diversity in Biotech

Looking for more life sciences stories? Check us out at Spotify, Apple, Soundcloud, or LinkedIn

Dr. Barthalomew (B.A.) Sillah: B.S., M.D./MBA — Former Venture Capitalist at Militia Hill Ventures, Current Managing Partner of Kola Global, and Current COO of Avesta76 Therapeutics

For the second episode of the season, we spoke with Dr. B.A. Sillah:

After starting his career in the investment arm of Militia Hill Ventures and as a Strategy Fellow with Talee Bio, Inc. (now Spirovant Sciences), B.A. started Kola Global, a consulting and management firm providing support in business strategy, commercialization strategy, and transaction execution for foreign investment firms and life science companies. He also serves on the investment committee at the Penn Medicine — Wharton Fund for Health. Dr. Sillah currently serves as the COO for Avesta76 Therapeutics, an early-stage biotechnology company focused primarily on oncology.

B.A. earned his MD at the University of Pennsylvania, and received an MBA from the Wharton School. He holds a degree in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology from Harvard University.

In our conversation, B.A. and I chatted about:

• Starting a career in life sciences at Militia Hill Ventures and building a cystic fibrosis company from the ground up
• Seeking out other experiences in the healthcare ecosystem before landing at Avesta76 Therapeutics
• Letting exciting science drive his vision for Avesta76 therapeutics and more creative paths for fundraising
• Championing diversity & inclusion to enable biotech to attract people of all backgrounds

1:10 to 5:30: Wanting to solve problems in healthcare through entrepreneurship

• Growing up: Dr. Sillah grew up in Wisconsin and was drawn to a career in medicine in part through the strong influence of family members who were physicians and his love of science.
• Completing the MD/MBA at Penn: During his time in graduate school, B.A. blended a mix of experiences in healthcare and grew to appreciate the impact of this work beyond his original plan of clinical medicine. This
• Starting his career at Militia Hill Ventures: He was juggling a few roles across health system strategy and in healthcare venture captial, but found he liked the pace and dynamics of venture work more. Through a connection at Penn Medicine formed through his work in global health, he was told about MHV and their work to identify promising technologies and bring them to market. He particularly liked their “active build model” similar to other well known early-stage biotech VCs.

5:35 to 13:30: Starting a company focused on cystic fibrosis and the catalytic role of a patient advocacy group

• Building a gene therapy company in cystic fibrosis: Alongside supporting the broader venture mandate, B.A. spent time driving forward a therapeutic for CF patients with Talee Bio. This experience helped Dr. Sillah understand the pain points that exist from idea formation through clinical development in the life sciences. From financing strategy to intellectual property ownership, him and the Militia Hill team were intimately involved.
• A unique starting point: Emily’s Entourage, a Philadelphia-based philanthropic organization dedicated to cystic fibrosis, was founded by a patient with a rare form of cystic fibrosis not addressed by existing therapeutics developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. This group provided upfront capital with the problem to address.
• Surveying the landscape of science: Across many modalities and potential solutions, gene therapy made the most sense given the lack of functional CFTR gene in this genetic subtype. The team then identified academic founders across respiratory gene therapy, CF preclinical animal models, and formulation science. A particularly ambitious goal was creating this gene therapy in an inhaled format.
• This ultimately resulted in a sale to Roivant Sciences (Roivant’s first full acquisition) and Talee Bio was renamed as Spirovant Sciences (still in existence today). The deal was structured primarily in “biobucks” as they are known in the industry, with upfront payments complemented by staggered milestone payments contingent on future successes.

13:50 to 16:00: Continually learning from varied stakeholders in the medical ecosystem as a consultant

• Starting his own consulting practice: After his time Militia Hill Ventures, Dr. Sillah started Kola Global, a firm focused on the intersection of fundraising and company strategy. He worked with the African Union on developing healthcare infrastructure, Penn Medicine on new innovation initiatives, and various international companies looking to start up operations in the United States.

16:05 to 29:55: Moving to Avesta76 Therapeutics and taking a creative approach to fundraising

• After being captivated by the rigor of scientific evidence (in vitro assays, oncogenic mouse models) related to oxidative stress pathways and their role in disease, B.A. joined Avesta76 Therapeutics as their Chief Operating Officer.
• Growing the pipeline: Avesta76 has broadened their development pipeline across modalities (small molecules, biologics, ASOs) while also moving into related projects in radiation countermeasures, immunotherapy response tracking, stem cell media additives, and AI-based drug discovery.
• Raising during a down cycle in biotech financing: The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid fall from frothy valuations led Dr. Sillah and his team to fund early on through family and friends. They used meetings with leading players in biotech VC to gauge which validation experiments would create incremental confidence in their pipeline. They also reached out to high net worth individuals, family offices, foundations, and foreign investment entities who are not as represented in typical biotech fundraising.

“We sat down with one of the leading biotech [VC] partners… who said ‘here are the 5 experiments we would want to see to be interested in the next round’… so we knew what we had to build toward”

• Given the broad pipeline of ongoing priorities, B.A. views the oncology applications as core to Avesta76’s growth and expects those to remain wholly owned. The other exciting components exist in collaboration with strategic partners who bring complimentary domain expertise to Avesta76’s foundational knowledge on the underlying science.

30:05 to 32:00: Incorporating DEI into their mission and career advice on risk taking

• The importance of outreach: Dr. Sillah talked about how there are many more people in biotech willing to chat about their experiences and serve as thought partners in your career decision making.
• Placing inclusion at the core of their culture: B.A. spoke about how Avesta76 is deliberately building a team of diverse perspectives that transcend many of the norms typically seen in biotech.

“We are entirely minority-led. We are recruiting a lot of people very heavily who have backgrounds you don’t typically think of in biotech. We really want to show that us being people of color, us being women, us being LGBTQ+, us having disabilities […] we can still do this work and belong here”