Finding the business cases for human cell therapies

Lineage Cell Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech developing novel, “off-the-shelf” cell therapies to treat medical conditions, including vision or hearing loss, is approaching the five-year mark since it struck a major deal with a pharmaceutical company worth up to $670 million. The small-cap company’s CFO, Jill Howe, is playing an integral role in reinvesting the proceeds from that deal to develop other products, and communicating those efforts with investors.

In late 2021, Lineage announced a collaboration and license agreement with Roche and Genentech for development and commercialization of OpRegen, a cell therapy to treat certain eye conditions. The deal included $50 million up front and up to an additional $620 million in development and milestone payments.

Proceeds in part went to developing Lineage’s patented manufacturing platform called AlloSCOPE, from which Lineage has “spun out three really strong assets,” Howe said.

Next steps. Working alongside CEO Brian Culley and other key leaders, Howe helped identify those assets during an “extensive” evaluation process a couple of years ago, she said.

Lineage considered which of the hundreds of cell types in the human body might be applicable to its Alloscope platform and which among that cohort had the largest total addressable market, Howe explained. It eventually narrowed its options down to a few therapy programs, including one in the preclinical stage for treating an eye condition corneal endothelial disease.

“I’m very much centric to that process as a team,” Howe said. “We work together to identify what these [opportunities] are, and then we first apply the modeling to it, we apply the business case, we apply the [investor relations] piece as we think about how we can message this.”

Howe added that a strong operations background means she’s “able to bring the operations in on top of managing through the timelines, aligning the budget with that, aligning potential future fundraising, non dilutive and dilutive capital, and how all of that comes together as we continue to drive value for this organization.”

Tag team. Howe said she works closely with Culley in speaking with investors—who range from the typical biotech investor with extensive knowledge of the science, to high net-worth family offices that may lack the technical expertise but “understand the good opportunities, and they oftentimes want to back the jockey.”

Howe and Culley each have their role to play when talking to investors.

Culley, she said, “is the scientist and the business person, so he certainly spends a lot more time leading those conversations and giving a lot more on the thesis of the organization.” Howe, meanwhile, fields questions about things like financing structure, how Lineage intends to use the proceeds, and how leaders are thinking “about the current pipeline and asset allocation across that pipeline.”

“That’s where I really support the story there, [is] from more of an institutional perspective,” she said.

And for the investor audience less versed in the science behind the products? The message to them, Howe said, is “really about ensuring that our honesty and our integrity in the way we run this organization, and what we bring into this organization, and the value proposition is reading authentic—as we are authentic in what we’re doing.”

New territory. When Howe joined Lineage four years ago, she brought experience leading the finance function at preclinical biotech DTx Pharma and as VP of finance and treasurer for Gossamer Bio, which went public during her tenure. Lineage, on the other hand, has been publicly traded, initially under the name BioTime, for more than three decades.

“I often describe walking into this company [as] like walking into Season 3 of Downton Abbey and you hadn’t watched the first two seasons,” Howe said. “You have to figure out who the players were, the characters, and really understand the…lay of the land.”