Five Questions With: Dr. Lars Wahlberg

". At this stage, our primary needs are the access to local resources and collaborations with hospitals and universities."

Lars Wahlberg is president and CEO of NsGene, a life sciences company working on innovative brain-repair therapy that treats diseases such as Parkinson’s. An award recipient in PBN’s 2014 Fastest-Growing & Innovative Companies program, NsGene was founded in Denmark in 1999. It opened a Providence office in 2011.

PBN: Your company, NsGene, was just honored at PBN’s Fastest-Growing & Innovative Companies awards event. What does it mean to be recognized by outside organizations to your company and your staff?
WAHLBERG:
It is important to be recognized by outside organizations. It validates that you are doing something positive and important and adds to the staff enthusiasm and energy that goes into our work. I also think that the recognition is contagious to outside entrepreneurs, meaning that others will draw parallels to their own efforts and get energized by the positive business news in Rhode Island.

PBN: What initially gave you the idea that resulted in the creation of NsGene’s brain-repair device?
WAHLBERG:
As a young resident in neurosurgery, I worked with professors Pierre Galletti and Patrick Aebischer at the Artificial Organs Laboratory at Brown University where I got involved in cellular encapsulation using hollow fibers originally used for an artificial blood oxygenator. Prof. Aebischer and I made our first custom hollow fibers together during some late nights in the laboratory in the late 1980’s that resulted in some initial patents and the formation of Cytotherapeutics, a Rhode Island company that worked to develop the technology. I continued to pursue clinical neurosurgery but came back to the technology by joining Cytotherapeutics in 1997 to lend a helping hand as the company was having trouble with the product development. In 1999, Cytotherapeutics decided to restructure and became Stemcells Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif., and I was able to raise venture capital in Denmark to start NsGene and eventually in license the patent portfolio relevant to the Brain repair technology for the treatment of neurological disorders, including the early Brown U. patents. Over the past few years, we have refined and added more technologies to the Brain Repair platform to take it from an experimental platform to a realistic medical product and have tested it in a safety and feasibility trial in 10 patients with Alzheimer’s disease with excellent results. With additional funding we hope to continue trials in Alzheimer’s disease but are currently focusing on a Michael J. Fox Foundation funded development of a Brain Repair product for Parkinson’s disease. With sufficient funding and FDA approval, we hope to start a clinical trial at Rhode Island hospital in 2015.

PBN: So many people talk about how difficult the business climate is in Rhode Island. Have you found any impediments to growing NsGene in Rhode Island?
WAHLBERG:
I [open the Rhode Island office] in 2011 to draw upon academic and clinical connections and skilled researchers that I worked with in the past and therefore the Rhode Island location makes a lot of sense for my company. At this stage, our primary needs are the access to local resources and collaborations with hospitals and universities and find that there is a real interest in being part of our R&D developments. We have also found comparatively inexpensive but excellent facilities close to Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University and have found that our landlord, James Winoker and his family, to be very supportive of getting companies like mine to Rhode Island. In addition, we take advantage of the close proximity to Boston where large biopharma partners and capital are located and we attend various partnering and financing events on a regular basis. Of course, Massachusetts is strongly promoting their biotechnology sector by giving grants and help to start-up’s that are hard to compete with in Rhode Island. However, there have been some initiatives in Rhode Island that have been supported by legislation so I think there is an increasing awareness of the need to promote innovation and startup companies in the area. As we grow, we hope that the business climate will continue to improve as I believe there is an interest in making Rhode Island more business-friendly. One great advantage of Rhode Island is that it is small and you can get access to decision-makers in the state, at universities and businesses more readily than in larger states.

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PBN: NsGene is not a large company at the moment. How large do you think it can get to be, in terms of impact on the world of disease management and more simply, in terms of employees?
WAHLBERG:
As our product pipeline enters clinical development and we secure partners for co-development and financing, we should be growing reasonably quickly and hope to be around 50 employee company within a five-year period. Our intention is not to grow too quickly as I have seen too many companies that get a chunk of money, hire a bunch of people, and then fail to execute on their business plan. In my business, you have to be prepared to withstand a crossing of the money desert.

PBN: Do you think that the state’s higher education institutions are doing enough to develop the basic scientific research being done here into commercial enterprises? What more could be done?
WAHLBERG:
We are already collaborating with Brown University under a facilities use agreement and are utilizing very important resources there. I also have a staff appointment with the Department of Neurosurgery at Rhode Island Hospital and are collaborating with both clinical and basic researchers there. I also think that the University of Rhode Island is making a real effort to improve the interface with industry and streamline the use of IP and resources. In my discussions with the decision-makers at URI, there is a strong commitment to continue this effort and to help educate and foster the young entrepreneurs of Rhode Island. With recent significant private donations to Rhode Island Hospital, Brown and URI to support translational research in the neurosciences, I think there is enough critical mass for this area grow significantly. I also think that the facilitation of interactions between URI, RIH, Brown, and industry in the translational neurosciences could help NsGene tremendously and also give rise to new start-up companies and collaborations with major biopharma.

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