621: The CFO as Science Enabler | Ivor Macleod, CFO, Athersys

When veteran CFO Ivor Macleod first contemplated joining an early-stage pharma company, the condition known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) was not appearing in nightly news headlines and was yet to be ranked as the number one cause of death among COVID-19 patients. Nevertheless, ARDS captured his attention—or rather, Athersys did.

The Cleveland, Ohio–based company, with fewer than 100 employees, met one of Macleod’s foremost criteria in that the company was focused on the area of medicine known as “critical care”—a space that Macleod characterizes as having “high unmet medical needs.”

“It was the science that attracted me and not necessarily the capital structure,” explains Macleod, when asked whether he may have preferred to join a privately held firm instead of a public one.

As the former CFO of F. Hoffmann–La Roche, Inc., North America, and vice president of finance for Merck Research Labs, Macleod knows better than most the risks being taken and the high rate of failure when it comes to introducing new medications.

“You take big swings at big diseases, and you are not always going to be successful. So you have to be prepared for failure,” explains Macleod, who says that he came to view “the job” of finance leadership in pharma as being one of enablement.

Says Macleod: “I didn’t want scientists to be worrying about resources. I would take care of that. I had to make certain that they had all of what they needed to continue on their path.”

Last January, when he entered Athersys’s CFO office for the first time, he would have only a mere few weeks to work alongside his new colleagues before the spread of COVID-19 within the U.S. led management to encourage employees to work from home.

Suddenly, as the disease spread, ARDS began to garner headlines, and last spring, within a span of 6 weeks, Athersys was granted FDA approval for a COVID-induced ARDS study and subsequently began populating designated sites with patients.

“There is no known treatment for ARDS,” comments Macleod, who appears to be savoring his role as an enabler of science now more than ever. –Jack Sweeney Subscribe