Ella Korets-Smith is having a hectic morning, busily working on a big grant application for Virica Biotech, an Ottawa-based medical sciences startup she co-founded that uses breakthrough biotechnology to enhance the production of viruses for the benefit of disease-fighting gene therapies.
While the company’s goal is simple — it aims to make viral medicines and cell therapies less expensive and easier to produce, ultimately helping more patients access life-saving treatments — the science can be puzzling, especially if you don’t have a background in biotechnology.
But Korets-Smith, Virica’s chief strategy officer, does. She’s a scientist who worked in genetics before deciding to make a bold career move.
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“I loved science, but I didn’t want to be in the lab. So I worked on my MBA and joined a biotechnology company. I was mentored by the CEO and transitioned into business development. I was still talking about science, I just wasn’t doing it,” she says.
From there, she went out on her own, advising early-stage companies looking for business development support.
“That’s how I got to know my co-founders at Virica. They called me when they were ready to start the company and the rest is history.”
Virica was founded in 2018 by Korets-Smith, Ken Newport (Virica’s executive chairman) and Jean-Simon Diallo (CEO and scientific founder). The premise of the company is based on more than 10 years of research in Diallo’s lab at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He had been studying oncolytic viral therapies or OVT, which is an immunotherapy that uses viruses to kill cancer cells. He developed small molecules called viral sensitizers (VSEs) to boost the efficacy of OVTs. He recognized how vital VSEs could be for gene therapies and how they could play a role in fighting other diseases.
Although Diallo isn’t a fan of this metaphor, what the company does is perhaps most easily explained this way: Virica makes fertilizer for viruses.
“That’s a visual I like, because everyone knows what fertilizer is and we’re essentially trying to grow more virus from the same amount of material,” says Korets-Smith. Inactivated viruses stimulate the immune system and can deliver healthy genes into cells to treat disease.
“Our VSEs help cells become more friendly to the virus, so we can get more in both quality and quantity at the end of the day,” she says. “It allows us to make more virus from the same number of cells and that’s important because the cost of producing gene therapies and vaccines is extremely high and the scale at which they need to be produced is not enough to supply the world.
“The sheer amount of material you need for these treatments is huge and if we can make them more efficiently in less time, more people can be treated. We’re trying to improve the world’s ability to utilize these therapies.”
Virica’s solution to “democratize gene therapy” will benefit countless patients, including those with rare hereditary diseases such as hemophilia B, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease.
Viruses and vaccines have been even more relevant over the past four years with the onset and progression of COVID-19, not just with the public, but also with the government and investors.
“The pandemic educated everyone about vaccines, biotechnology and pharmacology in a way that hadn’t been done before. It changed public perception, increased awareness about the value of vaccines and reinforced why we need to fund important research when it comes to viruses,” Korets-Smith says.
In 2022, Virica announced a collaboration with the federal government and last year the company confirmed its involvement in the Canadian Pandemic Preparedness Hub, a federally funded multidisciplinary research hub created to grow a strong bio-manufacturing sector.
The company has also benefited from the upswing in interest from investors exploring biotech startups and has raised millions in financing to scale its technology.
“We raised our series A and B rounds with large venture groups but, before that, we were just three founders trying to get the company off the ground. That’s why the support of angel groups like Ottawa-based Capital Angel Network has been so instrumental,” Korets-Smith says.
“Angels have played a really important role — they’re what gave us the working capital to get going. Without that, we wouldn’t have gotten our first customers, we wouldn’t have been able to supply them with material, and we wouldn’t have been able to close our series A. Angels have made introductions and have offered to meet and help wherever they can as we close our current financing round. Engagement is there and we’ve made many personal connections.”
Korets-Smith says Virica is now at the point where customers (the company currently has more than 50) are starting to scale and use the products.
“We’re seeing VSEs do what we thought they’d do and I’m looking forward to some of our clients taking the product through regulatory agencies (such as Health Canada) and into the clinic this year. That would validate the regulatory path for our clients going forward and it’s a big step — it will be a milestone for us.”
In the meantime, the demand for this technology is growing, and so is Virica. With a team of 30 and expanding, the founders are showcasing their VSE platform across North America and overseas, plus they’re enlarging their labs in Ottawa.
“It’s a great time. As an entrepreneur, it’s all about working with likeminded people who are passionate about what they do. With Virica, the technology is there and I trust what I’m selling,” she says. “I love building things, it energizes me, and so does the creativity that comes with uncertainty. Seeing this grow has been really exciting.”
Suzanne Grant is an entrepreneur who has built bootstrapped and equity-financed businesses in Canada, Australia and Qatar. Today, she supports business growth and positioning while sharing insights to demystify early-stage fundraising. Grant leads the Capital Angel Network as part-time executive director.
