After founding a drug development company, Nurulain Zaveri, Ph.D., focuses on drug addiction and chronic pain.
By Mark Crawford
Nurulain Zaveri is founder, president, and chief scientific officer of Astraea Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company with a strong pipeline of drug-addiction medications and pain treatments. After she earned her Bachelor of Pharmacy in 1985 in India, she followed what was then considered to be the “common career path” for women with a pharmacy degree in her country—working in Pfizer India’s Quality Control and Analysis Department. She later attended Duquesne University, where she received her doctorate in medicinal chemistry in 1992.
In 2009, Zaveri accomplished something that most pharmaceutical scientists never attempt, let alone achieve—starting her own company. Today, six years later, Astraea Therapeutics has a drug candidate in advanced investigational new drug (IND) development and two mature preclinical programs in advanced stages of candidate selection. The company also continues to maintain its strong research focus and active collaborations in areas of central nervous system (CNS) disorders such as drug addiction and chronic pain.
“My goal is to bring research discoveries from my laboratory, through the translational preclinical development pathway, and into medication development,” says Zaveri. “Our mission is to develop medications for CNS disorders in areas of high unmet clinical need that are under -represented in pharmaceutical industry pipelines, and leverage our long-standing research-intense approaches. I hope to advance at least one of Astraea’s drug candidates to the patient bedside to improve and save lives.”
THE PROCESS OF LEADERSHIP
Establishing a successful start-up requires leadership skills that go beyond science and technology (the most comfortable spot for scientists) to include business operations, strategic planning, marketing, fundraising, and the ability to motivate cross-functional teams—sometimes with limited funding. How people perform within an organization often mirrors the values and behavior of its top leadership—in other words, leadership by example.
“True leaders are those who lead by example and earn the respect and trust of their staff through their conduct,” says Zaveri. “They have a vision for their leadership role and can articulate it to their team. Successful leaders are often committed to mentoring junior staff. They also hold themselves accountable for the successes and failures under their leadership.”
From her own experience of running a company, Zaveri has learned to never underestimate the power of positive reinforcement. “Everybody likes to be appreciated for what they do,” she says. “A small gesture or acknowledgement goes a long way, not only for building self-esteem but ensuring that everyone knows that their contribution is essential to the success of the endeavor. This is especially true in a small-company environment, but also applicable within groups with a group leader.”
Accomplishing this requires a supportive work environment. Employees can only do their best science, or make their best contributions, when they are happy with their work environment and motivated to excel. “No matter how good they are, or how passionate they are about their work, a less-than-supportive work environment can stifle the best scientists,” says Zaveri.
The best way to create a supportive work environment, according to Zaveri, is to encourage openness in communications, maintain fairness in acknowledging contributions, encourage scientific curiosity, and deal with issues in a fair and equitable manner. “Making the choice to proactively develop this kind of environment at Astraea has allowed me to have the most productive years of my career,” she adds.
Effective leaders also do not become complacent—they stay curious, take on more challenges, and step out of their comfort zones. Leadership is an ongoing process that often requires more responsibility, more knowledge, and more interaction. Six years into running her company, Zaveri is still learning a great deal about the areas of pharmaceutical development that are required to bring a drug candidate from discovery to IND—which is only about the mid-point in a drug’s life cycle. “Personally, I am learning that the tougher parts are yet to come,” she says. “I will have to step out of my comfort zone to advance the development of Astraea’s pipeline toward clinical development.”
FOLLOW YOUR PASSION
A big reason Zaveri is successful and enjoys her work so much is that she has always been open and collaborative about her research and loves to talk to fellow scientists about their work. A perfect environment for this type of interaction is within a professional association, like the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). Zaveri started volunteering at AAPS as a graduate student in 1988, managing the audio-visual aids (remember slide decks and carousels?). She later became more involved with the Drug Discovery and Development section, serving as vice chair and chair. She continues to stay actively involved, both at the section and AAPS level.
“My participation in AAPS helped mature my thinking and expand my knowledge about the aspects of pharmaceutical drug development that are not in my immediate area of expertise, but are crucial for my ultimate career goal of developing medicines for human health,” she points out.
Being involved in the leadership and section committees allows Zaveri to network with colleagues from different areas of pharmaceutical sciences, as well as from a variety of institutions (academia, big pharma, small biotech, consultants, etc.), providing her with valuable perspectives on pharmaceutical drug development. For example, her research into nociceptin receptor ligands started when a fellow scientist happened to mention in a casual conversation how his field needed “tool” compounds to facilitate the study of the pharmacology of opioid receptors.
With no funding, but a very strong sense of curiosity, Zaveri’s lab designed a few compounds, which seemed to modulate the pharmacology of the receptor. “That set us on a path which, 15 years later, has shown this receptor may be a novel target for medications for chronic pain. Similarly, my research in nicotinic ligand discovery [toward medications for smoking cessation] started when, during a brainstorming session, a colleague with deep experience with treating smokers who wanted to quit, complained that there were really no new discoveries for smoking medications or new approaches.”
To improve the odds of finding exciting new opportunities like these, Zaveri recommends that doctoral students and postdocs make an effort to go beyond the topics of their dissertations and expand their scientific curiosity. “Talk to scientists from other disciplines, attend seminars from other departments, read current literature, and in general, be spunky enough to ask questions about things you don’t know much about, but would like to,” recommends Zaveri. “It can be surprisingly rewarding to learn about other related—or even unrelated—disciplines, which may lead to innovative approaches to your own research. After all, great ideas come to open, receptive minds. Pushing the limits of your curiosity will bring out your inner scientist and set you up to be a true problem-solver.”
Mark Crawford, a freelance writer based in Madison, Wis., specializes in science and technology.