Building Uniquity Bio: Teams, Capital, And Strategy
By Ben Comer, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
On a recent episode of the Business of Biotech podcast, Brian Lortie, president and CEO of Uniquity Bio, offered up useful advice about the complex process of building and leading a biotech startup in today's uncertain and evolving landscape. Drawing on his extensive experience at Big Pharma, as well as the formation and sale of Onspira Therapeutics at the end of 2019, Lortie detailed several key strategic and operational philosophies that underpin Uniquity's approach and business model. Three key takeaways emerged from the discussion: the critical importance of people and culture in the success of a startup; the reasons for securing capital ahead of selecting an asset for development; and the necessity of efficient and flexible clinical development to create a path to partnership or acquisition.
Foundation Of Success: People And Culture
During our conversation, Lortie consistently emphasized that regardless of the size or stage of a company, the quality of the people on the team is the most crucial factor for success. At Uniquity, building that "varsity team" has been a thoughtful process. Lortie’s team is largely composed of individuals with experience in large or midsize pharma companies, who bring a deep understanding of the rigor and scientific muscle required to avoid costly mistakes and understand the importance of getting things right — no cutting corners. Team members also have the "wiring" and "internal DNA" necessary for a more entrepreneurial and nimble company environment.
This combination of Big Pharma rigor and entrepreneurial drive is vital to Uniquity’s business strategy, explained Lortie. He stressed the importance of interpersonal skills and shared values, implementing a "no jerk policy" to ensure a respectful and collaborative workplace. Working with people who share your value set is crucial, particularly because team members often spend as much or more time with colleagues as with family, noted Lortie. Building a strong culture involves actively nurturing it — like tending a garden — rather than letting it develop passively.
Uniquity invested time in defining their desired culture, which includes intellectual horsepower, hard work, being nice, having fun, being respectful, and being open-minded. Openness of communication is a core tenet; team members are encouraged to share feedback, whether positive or negative, about work processes or interactions. Lortie encourages feedback on his own performance, and emphasized the collective team effort required for success. During the hiring process, technical skills are table stakes, but a significant amount of time is spent assessing soft skills and cultural fit, which includes the use of a validated behavioral insights tool. Bad hires create an emotional strain, and waste a lot of time, which makes a rigorous approach to the hiring process pay off, said Lortie.
Strategic Model: Capital First, Asset Second
Uniquity formed with a distinct strategic model: securing capital partners before identifying a specific asset and programs to build the company around. Learning from previous ventures, Lortie and his cofounders — Steve Tullman and Kelly Copeland — decided this approach would provide the freedom to operate and find a high-quality program worthy of significant investment. Leveraging existing relationships, they connected with the Blackstone Life Sciences team (Nicholas Simon and Kiran Reddy), and agreed to build a company focused on immunology and inflammation (I&I), an area with clear unmet need as well as an appropriate scale of opportunity for Blackstone. Together, Uniquity was launched on Blackstone's deployable capital and the Uniquity team's operational capabilities and company-building track record.
Having a strong capital partner involved from the start was invaluable, said Lortie. Blackstone brought not just cash, but also expertise, scientific insights, connections, and "intellectual tension" to ensure sound decision-making at each step. Uniquity is structured as C Corp for the management team, representing intellectual capital and operational capability, and a separate C Corp containing capital and asset intellectual property. This structure provides flexibility, allowing for a potential transaction of an individual program, without losing the team. Backing from Blackstone allowed Uniquity to acquire a high-quality program, solrikitug, an anti-TSLP monoclonal antibody in-licensed from Merck. Because Merck conducted early studies on solrikitug, but decided not to pursue it for strategic reasons, that clinical data helped de-risk Uniquity’s development effort. This model serves a useful purpose in the biopharmaceutical ecosystem, explained Lortie, by facilitating the development of promising assets that have stalled at large companies.
Efficient Development And Strategic Flexibility
Operating as a smaller, focused company gives Uniquity the ability to be more efficient and adaptable than Big Pharma, particularly in decision-making. Unlike larger organizations with layers of management and bureaucracy where things "just takes longer," Uniquity can interpret new data and adjust its strategy rapidly. By way of example, Lortie described attending an American Thoracic Society (ATS) meeting in San Diego, and hearing about outstanding COPD efficacy data supporting Tezspire (tezepelumab), Amgen and AstraZeneca’s on-market TSLP inhibitor. Immediately following that presentation, Uniquity's team convened to interpret the implications for their solrikitug program. Strategic changes were made to the program in a matter of days, said Lortie.
Speed is so important because time is a scarce resource that, unlike capital, cannot be replaced. In a competitive field like I&I, with multiple programs advancing, being quick and efficient can make the difference between success and failure. Uniquity’s “goldilocks approach” aims at being large enough to maintain rigor and avoid cutting corners, but small enough to be efficient and responsive. Although Uniquity is focused solely on clinical development of solrikitug, Lortie said his and other team members’ experience in commercial functions adds focus to the ultimate goal of delivering a new medicine to patients.
Lortie intends to take Uniquity’s lead solrikitug monotherapy program all the way through Phase 3 if necessary, but recognizes the opportunity value of partnering or being acquired by a larger player that is better equipped for big Phase 3 trials or global commercialization. Generating high-quality data is the best path to creating value for Uniquity’s growing portfolio, which now includes two bispecific antibodies using solrikitug as a backbone.
Lortie's insights on the Business of Biotech offer a compelling look at how Uniquity Bio is structured to navigate a challenging biotech landscape, and provides a model other would-be startups can follow. To listen to and view Lortie’s Business of Biotech episode, as well as hundreds of previous episodes, visit the Business of Biotech tab at Life Science Leader.