Johanna Allston thinks the term “serial entrepreneur” is overused. While she would certainly qualify as one, having been an integral part of building three successful biotech companies, she sees herself more as a nanny who raises a child to teenager and then moves on to the next baby.
The latest young company currently in her care, bioCapture, could be Allston’s most successful. She is financing its early growth out of her own pocket as she builds it into something she hopes is strong enough for someone else to come into sustain.
“Building a company like this is very high risk, but the satisfaction of building a company that can have this much impact on healthcare is exciting,” she says.
Specifically, that impact comes through breakthrough technology called Capture Agent-coupled Particles (CAPs) that separate biological materials.
The platform has great potential for stem cell research and regenerative medicine, purification of therapeutic proteins that should reduces manufacturing costs for biological products, and to improve existing diagnostic tools.
Based in the PA Biotech Center of Bucks County in Doylestown, bioCapture is moving fast this summer. A new website (designed by Pottstown sustainable branders BarberGale) just launched, Allston is rounding up friends and family as angel investors, and bioCapture is ready to start making sales.
“We have products manufactured in the refrigerator and ready to go out the door,” says Allston, who adds that there are four more products waiting in the wings that could be ready for distribution by the end of the year. “We think we have three areas that will improve the quality of medical care for people.”
Those products are capture agents that determine what the particles will find. The first product will be used to purify stem cells for cancer treatments and for research on numerous other diseases like diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer’s. The company’s second product removes interfering substances, reducing the number of false-negative results for the diagnosis of diseases like Lyme’s. Another will be used to purify therapeutic proteins. This will also be key for researchers, like those who study protein interactions.
This isn’t the first time, nor the first venue, in which Allston has driven success. It started in the labs of academia. Her doctoral research thesis at the University of Alabama’s Birmingham Medical School was the first major sign of things to come, as it formed the basis for the mechanism of action for the influenza drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. During her post-doctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, Allston and her colleagues made a discovery–that the immune system mutates the genetic code for the binding site of antibodies to amplify their affinity for binding the foreign invader that elicited the immune response–that appears in many immunology textbooks today.
As Allston kept moving up and diversifying her experience, she continued to innovate. After a stint as an assistant and tenured associate professor at Alabama, she joined Ridgefield, Conn.-based Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals as its director of molecular research. Her team discovered the first non-nucleoside analog inhibitor of HIV and set a record by moving the discovery to NDA with the FDA in four years. It’s around that time that the entrepreneurial bug started to bite Allston, and she would soon become an integral part of the then-burgeoning life sciences sector in Southeastern PA.
“Working in academia was very exciting,” says Allston, who earned her undergrad at the College of Charleston and did pre-doctoral work at Rockefeller University. “That’s where I learned we need to translate research from the classroom to the bedside. As much as I loved academia, I couldn’t see my teaching benefiting patients directly.”
She wasn’t alone in her thinking and she and a small team of entrepreneurial scientists founded ViroPharma in 1994 in the hopes of fulfilling a vision of the ideal pharmaceutical company-a mix of good science, good people and a value-based culture. As VP of business development, Allston helped the push for a successful IPO within 18 months of ViroPharma’s founding. Today, the company is one of the region’s success stories and is an industry leader in life-saving medicines for life-threatening diseases.
“That generated the appetite I had for starting companies, to take something and move it quickly from seed to plant,” Allston says. “I think we’ll be able to do the same thing with (bioCapture’s) technology.”
In 2002 she left ViroPharma to join Procognia, a company formed from an Israel-based firm, and quickly helped it raise $18.3 million in less than a year. With its unique technology platform for glycoanalysis (analyzing sugars), the company with operations in Delaware County, London and Ashdod, quickly became a world leader in glycobiology in several categories, like pharma, cancer cell research and food production.
It pushed Allston into a leadership role on the Greater Philadelphia life sciences scene. Frank Baldino, one of the region’s brightest life sciences-entrepreneurial stars and founder/CEO of pharma giant Cephalon, believes Allston’s background means big things for bioCapture.
“That’s what’s nice about her role here, she gets to apply all that knowledge she has,” says Baldino. “I have a lot of confidence in her.”
Allston got some help in making her most recent move. Lorraine Keller, portfolio manager for Montgomery County-based BioStrategy Partners, a virtual life sciences incubator, introduced Allston to the technology behind bioCapture. The organization was also instrumental in introducing bioCapture’s senior executives to the right people in the region and helped them find office space in Doylestown.
Allston remembers when she was at ViroPharma and employees would celebrate milestones by running down the hall and ringing a cowbell. She expects similar celebrations with bioCapture, and also knows at some point it will be time to move on to the next seed.
“As much as I liked research and being in the lab, it’s about making that science work for patients, and that’s what’s happening with bioCapture,” says Allston, who has also been active in helping raise millions for special needs children throughout the region.
“I never envisioned doing what I’m doing now, but once you see the seed of something important, it’s very hard to step back and not try to build on it.”
Joe Petrucci is managing editor of Keystone Edge. Send feedback here.
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Photos:
Johanna L. Allston working with colleagues in the lab at the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County in Doylestown.
Allston is president and CEO bioCapture.
Allston at work in the lab.
Allston working with a colleague in the lab.
All Photographs by Jeff Fusco