Saadia Basharat

Background

Saadia supports biotech and pharma companies at critical growth junctures. Areas she advises in include program prioritization and go/no go decisions, disease area and indication prioritization, partnering strategy. 

Her experience includes technical and commercial assessment/due diligence of therapeutics, out-licensing, technology scouting/in-licensing, asset valuations, therapeutic area strategy and product development strategy.

Saadia holds an Honours degree in Biomedical Informatics, a Master of Science degree in Molecular Medicine and a PhD in Neuroendocrinology from Imperial College.

Examples of her work:

Opportunity mapping

• Appraisal of 14 different autoimmune and complement-mediated diseases against the technical capabilities of a next-generation AAV gene therapy platform, with a focus on mechanism of action and translation to early clinical trials
• Review of the glioblastoma (GBM) landscape and target product profile for a novel therapy for GBM, including US and EU-based KOL and payer reactions to the proposed TPP, its clinical attractiveness, value proposition, and clinical evidence generation requirements

In-licensing & Asset scouting

• Early stage in-licensing support for a Swiss pharma company, sourcing novel oncology and anti-infective therapeutic opportunities
• EX-USA early stage in-licensing support for a Canadian biotech company, sourcing novel oncology and fibrosis therapeutic opportunities

Out-licensing, Partnering & Deal-making

• For a private Chinese biotech company with an oncology focus, partnering out one preclinical stage and one clinical stage asset, specifically with companies that could be strategic clinical development and commercialization partners ex-China

Clinical development strategy & Clinical development services

• For a US based biotech company, providing operational and strategic Clinical MD support for two clinical stage programs in severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH) and ulcerative colitis (UC);

Due diligence

• Commercial due diligence of a novel vaccine platform technology with the potential for vaccine products against herpes simplex virus (HSV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Influenza and Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections
• Financial due diligence on proprietary mAbs against a novel liver disease target for the treatment of inflammatory disorders and fibrosis

Asset valuations

• Valuation of immuno-oncology pipeline consisting of clinical and pre-clinical stage bispecific antibodies (BsAb) to treat various solid tumours
• Commercial and technical assessment of a gene therapy platform with potential products for CNS, ocular and immuno-oncology fields, including a valuation trajectory and considering the value of different commercialisation pathways such as out-licensing, co-development and spin-out