CFO panel discussion showcases what finance professionals bring to the table

A group of finance and accounting experts with diverse backgrounds expanded on stakeholder management, cross-functional consensus, and laser focus on priorities as keys to success.

At the recent Life Sciences Accounting & Reporting Congress, CFO leaders took the stage to discuss their roles, how they are responding to current challenges, and how they prepare for the ongoing and future success of their organizations.

To advance the discussion, audience members were polled on the question, “Through your role within the finance function, which strategy to you find most effective for realizing value in your transformation change agenda?” More than half—51%—of finance professionals believe that involving stakeholders from the outset to ensure alignment on goals and outcomes is the most effective strategy.

For expectation level-setting with leadership, Steven Pfanstiel, chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Marinus Pharmaceuticals, recommended communication and openness in discussions. “When that trial is delayed and is going to cost an additional $5 million a quarter ... have that discussion early on so people understand and you can get that buy-in early on.”

Pfanstiel suggested laying it out as a prioritization exercise, i.e., the company won’t be able to fund everything it wants, so look at the plans and decide on those that aren’t as critical and can be delayed. “It’s imperative on the CFO to be the leader in driving those types of discussions and their reality,” he said.

Harish Shantharam, CFO with ALX Oncology, discussed how the CFO role has broadened beyond core operations and applying a diverse set of professional experiences can bring a key element to the role, storytelling.

“A common thread respective of the functions I’ve been in—commercial, business development, or finance—was being able to tell the story. I think that is fundamental for a CFO.”

He continued that domain experience was also helpful. “Having a fairly deep understanding of science, of where the industry is heading, [and] of clinical trial design. Then talking that over with the team and laying out the ins and outs of what we did and why we did it, including the aspects of science helps with [the team’s] overall output.”

Lori Macomber, CFO at Karyopharm Therapeutics, tells her teams that finance is a lens from which to see the whole company. “Not for every functional group, but we really see the whole picture. We see how it all comes together. We can help bridge when there are issues in the company and provide more insight to [the teams],” she said.

As an example, she elaborated on a supply chain issue where the finance team came in to be the bridge to commercial. “We wanted to make sure that we were utilizing all of the manufacturing slots and so that we could deliver product to the patients, but there was a disconnect or gap between the two trying to manage that, which was causing a lot of internal frustration.”

Macomber said that finance stepped in, pulled the pieces together, the data points of both departments and used metrics to inform next steps. “We could have a more robust conversation internally, and we helped manage the manufacturing and the messaging out to patients.”

Finance puts patients first too

Shantharam said: “The exciting part is the patient is what is front and center of all that you do … it is to benefit the patients there. And to have a seat at the table and be a part of that innovation and doing it in a challenging reg regulated environment ... it’s the decisions we make in finance that are able to drive that science forward.”

Adam Mostafa, CFO at X4 Pharmaceuticals, agreed. “There’s a lot of creative ways to finance companies across the board. I think what comes out of the tough times is more tools in the tool set to advance your pursuits in your drug and get it to more patients.”

X4 focuses on therapies that address rare diseases of the immune system. Mostafa said the company regularly brings in patients to speak. He said: “It creates an organic urgency. No matter how difficult or stressful your week is, you see someone going through this and you want to get them a [therapy] as soon as possible. It drives a lot of the things that we can do together as a team that ultimately means, whether it’s finance or some other part of the company, we work together towards a common goal. And I think that brings consensus.”

Macomber noted that patient need is something that brought her to Karyopharm to help bring a therapy to fibrosis, which hasn’t seen a new therapy in 13 years.

“Everything we’re doing is for patients, and particularly as we’ve all talked about here now in the biotech sector, is making sure we can have that capital to bring the new innovations,” she explained.

“And so really for us, it’s as finance, particularly in the biotech sector now, is how can we give them the capital structure in that runway so that we can bring these new treatments to patients? Then, how can we find ways to be operationally efficient as we’re trying to squeeze everything we can out of the dollars that we have so we can keep funding this innovation while we continue to have pressures more on the macro level.”

Mustafa added, “You’re almost always stuck in this tension between what makes sense in terms of progressing your drug to patients and what still creates value formation for the capital providers.”

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