Episode 11: Starting a Biotech Company in the Gulf South with Key Opinion Leader Nick Pashos

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Welcome to Bio from the Bayou, and I'm James Zanewicz, one of your hosts. Today, our returning guest is Dr. Nick Pachos, the founder and CEO of BioAesthetics. Nick, welcome back to the podcast.

Yeah, thanks, James, for having me back. I appreciate it.

My first question as we talk about starting a company in the Gulf South is, how did your company get started?

I think I kind of have a little bit more of a unique story on how my company got started. You know, I started when I was still in graduate school. I was a student in Dr. Bruce Pinnell's lab at Tulane University. I think I LLC'd in 2015, and I only did that because I was joining a local competition for businesses, and as part of that requirement, you had to LLC. And that business competition, I believe, was the Bio Challenge through the New Orleans Bioinnovation Center, and it was for a $25,000 win. It was an opportunity to get in front of people and judges, VCs, all that, right? Investors and pitch an idea. And so that's what I did. And it started to get legs and kind of grew from there. And I just kept going and ran with it.

And so you started at, at Tulane, kind of out of Bruce Spindel's lab, and you had time at IndieBio. What was that like? And what's the key thing you learned from them?

Yeah, IndieBio was probably one of the most transformative experiences for Bioaesthetics, I have to say. We met IndieBio actually through an introduction of you, James, down in New Orleans. IndieBio came down to Tulane by the invite of you to meet with local startups, and I had an opportunity with my business partner, Billy Haim, also a Tulane graduate, to sit down with IndieBio for a 10-minute meeting. And I just remember in that meeting, I was in— I think, James, you were there. It was in your office. And in that meeting they said, Nick and Billy, do you guys like San Francisco? And I was like, you know, I've never been, but I've heard great things. And he's like, would you live there? And I was like, yeah, you know, I would consider it, you know, just kind of depends. And they're like, could you move there in a week? Because their next cohort, Cohort 5, was starting at the beginning of April. And Billy and I just kind of looked at each other and we were like, sure, we think so.

And then you had to have a conversation with your lab head, right?

Well, that's exactly it, right? I was still a PhD candidate. I was in Bruce's lab. I hadn't had my final committee meeting yet. We hadn't set a date for me to defend. You know, I was probably in my last year anyway, but I still had some experiments to do. I had all this stuff and I just remember Going upstairs to the lab, it was 7, 8 o'clock at nighttime. I called Bruce up on his cell phone. I was like, hey Bruce, sorry for calling you so late, but I got to talk to you about something. And he's like, sure, what? And I told him the story of the meeting and he's just like, oh my goodness, that sounds like a fantastic opportunity. It sounds like you should take it. And I had another advisor who's actually now a board member. Her name is Dr. Sandra Souffle. She's a VC and has had multiple exits. She's also a breast cancer survivor. And being that Bioesthetics' inaugural product is a nipple graft for predominantly breast cancer survivors, she was a perfect fit for the company. And Bruce asked me, hey, did you talk to Dr. Souffle? She's more of a business person than I am. What does she say about the investment opportunity? And I said, that's a great idea. Let me give her a call. And I called her and I was— Billy and I both call her my business partner. We'll call her. She just cut us off in the middle of it and she's like, you take that. You take that right now. We'll call her back. So we did. I gave Bruce a call back and I was just like, yeah, Sandra, Dr. Supal says we should do it. It's a great opportunity. Bruce says, well, then it sounds like it would be a stupid mistake not to take it. You should do it. We'll figure everything else out. That was it. Emailed IndieBio, said, absolutely, you know, let's do it. And then it was a lot of working through with tech transfer and Tulane of, you know, what is and isn't IP with BioSetics versus Tulane, since we'll be getting external funding and developing stuff on our own outside of Tulane as well. So it was, it was really kind of an exciting time, and that was 2017. So we had reincorporated the company from an LLC to a C corporation, moved out to California for 3, 4 months, and we had an opportunity to do a biological model A preclinical model with the NEC graft, the nipple-areolar complex graft for breast cancer survivors, showed really wonderful results and raised a seed round of like $1.3 million, I think, through IndieBio essentially.

So obviously your time there was, was important. What is the most important thing that you learned from your time at IndieBio? What's like the one key concept they distilled in you?

You know, there were so many parts. Power is so important. One, you know, my business partner and I, it was our first opportunity to work together full-time. You know, we were both working full-time in the company at that time. We sat, our desks literally touched. We sat shoulder to shoulder for like 3, 4 months, you know, and that's a really great way to get to know somebody, right, is to see how they work every day. And then separately, they had this award every week, every Friday at IndieBio. And it was basically, they went around to all the companies that they invested in that cohort and they said, tell us what the biggest science impact or decision you made this week and also the business one. And so we did. We would always go around and every week we would say something. And the point of it wasn't to see how you stacked up to your colleagues. The point of it was to see if you actually made decisions and progress every week. And that just kind of stuck with me. And so, you know, every week I kind of try and do a reflection as well, even now, of, okay, what have I done? What can I do? What can I do better? And how does this progress Biostatics? How does this progress this product? I think that kind of just stuck with me.

And what was it like being an entrepreneur in New Orleans? So you leave San Francisco, you come back to New Orleans, you're an entrepreneur here for a while. What was that experience like for you?

It was different, right? The ecosystem of San Francisco and New Orleans are, are very different. I loved living in New Orleans. I loved having a company in New Orleans. That was wonderful. My business partner is actually from New Orleans. He was born and raised there, and we had a great time. We have some amazing investors from New Orleans, you know, the New Orleans Bioinnovation Center, the New Orleans Startup Fund, the New Orleans Angel Network, the Pelican. Group, we have so much ties to New Orleans, and it was a wonderful opportunity. Everyone there just wanted you to succeed. You know, Tulane wanted you to succeed, the investors wanted you to succeed, the incubator spaces, all of them were kind of emailing and just seeing how they could help out. And I truly think it was out of the goodness of they wanted to have a great story and they just wanted the local entrepreneurs to to succeed instead of like having a piece of it, which was a really nice experience and it was great. I loved it.

So you've been obviously in San Francisco, you've been in New Orleans, you've been in the Research Triangle as well. There are other hotbeds like San Diego, Boston. What is the biggest obstacle you see and the biggest benefit you see to the Gulf South or New Orleans versus those hotbeds?

Yeah, so I, I've lived in Boston, I've lived in San Francisco, I Currently live in Durham, North Carolina, the Triangle, and in New Orleans. You know, I think some of the biggest challenges is when you have such a specific niche employment opportunities, right? So we specifically hire people who have experience in tissue engineering, which is a subset of biomedical engineering, who also are very big with biomaterials and polymers. And their relation to regenerative medicine. Separately, they have to have certain types of lab skills that are not easy to find. So that was one of the draws that we saw with the Research Triangle Park area, was just that it had one of the highest concentrations of PhDs in the nation. And, you know, hiring ability for this very specific subset of people became very easy for us. So I think that was maybe a little bit of an obstacle that we came about in New Orleans. I think one of the biggest benefits from New Orleans is the overall entrepreneurship community. I think the investors just in general, every, everybody who was a New Orleans investor who invested in us has been wonderful. You know, we send out quarterly updates and, you know, I always get these emails back from them or phone calls or text messages like, oh, thank you so much for the update. Let me know what I can do for you. And it's exciting. They're excited to be of it, and they're excited to see the clinical study in New Orleans. And, you know, that excitement is very contagious. And that was one thing I absolutely love about New Orleans.

Yeah, it's that resilience and community, I think, that we have in the Gulf South that— not that other places don't have it, but it's, it's special here. And community is just so important. And with that, you're obviously part of a community of entrepreneurs who started from the Gulf South. So what advice would you give younger Nick or other entrepreneurs about starting a company in the Gulf South region?

You know, it's to reach out to other established entrepreneurs in the area. I had an opportunity just to work with some companies that have built up in New Orleans that have spun out of Tulane, and the information that they shared with me as another company is unusual, right? It's, you know, we're writing grants and I had never written like business grants before and I was asking them, you know, questions that are probably very private from a business standpoint, and they were just amazingly helpful in every way. You know, when you're raising money and you got questions about a certain investor and how, how are they, and is it smart money, is it this, is it that, you know, everyone kind of knows each other too down there. And so, you know, those are always opportunities where you can ask those questions to other entrepreneurs and get honest feedback, right?

Yeah.

which is so unusual. Living in San Francisco, that's a little bit of a bigger space to play in, and that becomes difficult. And certainly still the Research Triangle, it's not like that, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I would say reach out to people, reach out to people early. They are happy to do it in New Orleans. They're happy to talk to you. They're happy to be sort of a mentor, a non-official advisor, and those things are priceless.

So is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think other scientists looking at starting their own company or being part of a startup company should know?

I think you hit it all, James.

Well, that concludes another episode of Bio on the Bayou. And with this, Nick, you are officially competing with Dr. Elaine Hamm as our most frequent guest. You are just one behind her, so we'll need to find you another topic to Sounds good.

Or, or I could be on one with—

Oh, exactly. Well, we could do that, but then she's still going to be another one up on you. So see, that doesn't help you in any way, which maybe is smart because Elaine is, Elaine is, uh, impressive and fierce. And you notice that I did not ask you who your favorite person in New Orleans helping you was because we all know it's me.

All right.

But in all seriousness, if you want to learn more about Nick, BioAesthetics, or IndieBio, we'll have contact info and links posted in our show notes. You can also stay up to date with our activities at Tulane, LSU Health, or any of our Bio on the Bayou guests at bioonthebayou.com. And Nick, I want to thank you once again for returning. It was fantastic to have you on the podcast for a second time, and we look forward to having you back again as you have more to report.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me back. I appreciate it.

Thanks for joining us for Bio from the Bayou, and we hope you'll join us again.

If you'd like to learn more about the emerging biotech scene in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, visit us at biofromthebayou.com, where we have more info on who we are, how to get involved and connected in biotech in New Orleans, and the industry events we'll be hosting where you can meet with us in person.

And we'd be remiss if we didn't give a special thanks to the Accelerator Network for providing funding for this podcast. Learn more about them in our show notes.

We'll catch you on our next episode of Bio from the Bayou.