Biotower Bustles At Bio-Biz Award Ceremony

Kat Kayser-Bricker has spent decades researching and spearheading efforts to develop medications to fight cancers — from cancer inhibitors to tumor-killing drugs. 

In addition to PhD and innovator and chief scientific officer, she now has one more title to add to her list of accomplishments: entrepreneur of the year, as bestowed during a holiday party celebration at the new 101 College lab and office tower.

That title is a coveted award in the Connecticut life sciences community, bestowed annually for the last 11 years by Shipman & Goodwin LLP, a New Haven-based law firm, and BioCT, a life sciences trade organization. 

On Thursday evening at at 101 College St., Dormer Stephen, a partner at Shipman and BioCT board member, presented the award to Kayser-Bricker at a ceremony held during BioCT’s holiday party. 

The event capped a long day of festivities at the new 10-story, 500,000 square-foot life sciences research and office building that opened earlier this year after almost two years of construction. It shined a light not just on Kayser-Bricker’s accomplished career, but also on the type of work New Haven hopes to attract more of amid with lab towers like 101 College and the city’s growing biotech sector. 

Some of 101 College’s other tenants include Yale University, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, and BioLabs New Haven, the latter of which has partnered with the city and New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) to set up new​“BioCity” classrooms at the biotech hub. (Meanwhile, another local biopharma company, Arvinas, paid more than $40 million to break a 10-year lease and not move in.)

Kayser-Bricker received her PhD in organic chemistry at Yale, where she studied and synthesized therapies to inhibit the enzyme cluster Akt, a known cancer-causing agent. She spent ten years at FORMA Therapeutics, where she eventually became head of Early Discovery Chemistry and helped the company bring its first drug — another cancer inhibitor — to market. And for the last five years, she’s served as chief scientific officer of New Haven’s Halda Therapeutics, where she’s been spearheading the company’s effort to create tumor-killing drugs.

“I’ve been on the committee the last 11 years, and every year we get more candidates, much better candidates every year,” said Stephen at Thursday’s entrepreneur-of-the-year ceremony. ​“It’s really impressive, the quantity and the quality that has increased over the years.” 

Even before the libations flowed and the award was announced, the 300 executives, scientists, and staff in the BioCT orbit filling the ground floor of 101 College had spent the afternoon watching the Life Sciences Pitchfest hosted by Yale Ventures. During that competition, a panel of judges scrutinized the pharma projects of 32 Yale labs. The eventual three or four winners will each receive up to $300,000 from the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale. 

Once the pitching had wrapped up, just before 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, the crowd’s attention swung to the staircase leading up to the building’s lab and office spaces. There, alongside Stephen, BioCT President Jodie Gillon, and BioCT Board Co-Chair Stanley Choy, Kayser-Bricker accepted the distinction for her work in life sciences entrepreneurship and nodded to the village of entrepreneurs and researchers in the room. 

“It’s really a privilege to be a part of a community that fosters innovation, celebrates creativity, and values collaboration,” Kayser-Bricker said. ​“Together, we’re not just building businesses, we’re really shaping the future.” 

Once the applause died down, the crowd began milling around and talking shop and diving for the hors d’oeuvres. Attendees had come in from one Connecticut-based pharma company or another, and the event, like BioCT’s other forums and conferences, presented an opportunity to get caught up on the latest scientific breakthroughs and funding moves in the state. The community is close and convenes often, said Paul Flicek, the chief data science officer at the Jackson Laboratory up in Farmington., and it benefits from facetime with state and local government and the output of Yale and other university departments. 

“Connecticut’s never going to be Boston,” Flicek said. ​“But it can do things that Boston can’t.”

Also in attendance on Thursday was another pivotal member of the BioCT community, or ​“ecosystem” (a word repeated over and over and over again): Carter Winstanley, the real estate developer behind 101 College as well as the Alexion building at 100 College right across the street. 

“The goal is to become a much stronger New Haven market and industry,” Winstanley said about the growing menu of pharma offices in the city. ​“The City of New Haven has been a great partner, Yale University has really made a major shift with Yale Ventures, and the state of Connecticut also recognizes that this is one of the essential innovation spaces in the state.”